People's Liberation Army at the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests
During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) played a decisive role in enforcing martial law, suppressing the demonstrations by force and upholding the authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The subject of the Tiananmen protests in general and the military's role in the crackdown remains forbidden from public discussion in China. The killings in Beijing continue to taint the legacies of the party elders, led by Deng Xiaoping, and weigh on the generation of leaders whose careers advanced as their more moderate colleagues were purged or sidelined at the time. Within China, the role of the military in 1989 remains a subject of private discussion within the ranks of the party leadership and PLA.