( CNN ) -- It was 2:30 a.m. on the morning of June 4 , 1989 . From a balcony of the Beijing Hotel , I looked down Chang'an Avenue towards Tiananmen Square a few hundred meters away . Red tracer bullets whizzed through the air . The crackle of gunfire echoed through the humid Beijing night . I could see armored vehicles of the People 's Liberation Army moving just in front of the famous portrait of Chairman Mao hanging above the vast square . Below me crowds gathered , surged forward , and then broke and dispersed as soldiers opened fire at them . Several people were hit . I watched as others loaded the dead and wounded onto flatbed bicycle carts . WATCH : `` Assignment China '' As the drama unfolded , my colleagues and I reported it live on CNN over a scratchy phone line to transfixed TV audiences around the world . The events that night were a turning point for China , as well as a watershed moment in the history of the media . Weeks of student-led protests had become the largest movement for political reform in the history of the People 's Republic . The military crackdown I covered had far-reaching consequences , not only for China 's development but also for its relations with the rest of the world . Global coverage . The protests generated unparalleled international coverage , and became a defining moment in the Information Age . It was the first time a popular uprising in an authoritarian state was broadcast live across the globe . According to Bernard Shaw , who anchored CNN 's live round-the-clock coverage from Beijing for much of the crisis : `` You could say that that was the beginning of the 'CNN effect ' '' -- the idea , which became widespread after Tiananmen Square , that the immediacy of live TV news available 24 hours a day played a crucial role in influencing the behavior of key players during major crises . The images from that time -- the Goddess of Democracy , the man in front of the tank -- became enduring symbols of popular resistance to injustice . In the United States , the coverage of Tiananmen redefined the relationship between the press , public opinion , and foreign policy-making , and brought an end to the romance in Sino-American relations that had begun with Richard Nixon 's trip in 1972 . To this day , the event and the images continue to shape international perceptions of the country . It was no accident that at a U.S. Congressional hearing on Tiananmen in late May , lawmakers from both parties emphasized how the television coverage from 25 years ago had influenced popular views of China . Tiananmen legacy . Inside China , Tiananmen also continues to exert a profound influence . The crisis in 1989 led paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to purge liberal officials who had sympathized with the students , and replace them with more conservative figures . Yet for Deng , a central lesson of Tiananmen was that public confidence in the Chinese Communist Party could only be maintained by continuing the market-oriented economic reforms begun in the 1980s . In the wake of Tiananmen , Deng pushed to revive and accelerate the reform process , triggering a bitter fight with the very conservatives he had relied on to back his decision to crack down in 1989 . In what was his last great political battle , Deng triumphed , and his efforts paved the way for China 's emergence as an economic powerhouse . Yet for the same reason -- ensuring the Party 's survival -- Deng also stifled any new moves towards political reform , as did those who followed him . In particular , fearing that the events of that June could undermine the Party 's legitimacy , Beijing has relentlessly sought to erase June 4 from public memory . All public discussion of the crisis is banned . Every Spring , the authorities move against anyone seeking to raise the issue , whether dissidents , lawyers , or relatives of those who died . The Communist Party in effect offered the Chinese people a bargain : greater economic opportunity and more personal -- as opposed to political -- freedom in return for not challenging the Party 's monopoly on power . 'Suffocating control ' Despite pervasive political repression , it is a bargain many Chinese have accepted . And with the passage of time , the suffocating control of any public discussion , along with stunning economic growth , has meant that for the vast majority of Chinese , the events of 1989 have faded from memory . An entire generation knows little but the official government version of what occurred . Yet memories of 1989 still haunt the Communist Party . Ensuring that nothing like it occurs again remains a central feature of Beijing 's policies on a host of issues . This can be seen in the exceptionally nervous reactions to the Arab spring and so-called `` color revolutions '' in parts of the former Soviet Union , the growth of the internal security services , the intense repression in Tibet and Xinjiang , the harsh actions against dissidents like the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo , and the government 's management of the thousands of protests over local issues that occur in China every year . So far , Beijing 's approach has generally worked and the Chinese leadership has proved itself to be more skillful and resilient than many in 1989 would have predicted . However , with the country 's economy slowing , social and economic tensions rising , and the Internet and other new forms of communication giving citizens new tools to voice their opinions and generate political pressure , the Communist Party is facing new challenges -- which could give new resonance to the legacy of Tiananmen Square . Beijing 's approach to June 4 therefore remains a paradox . A quarter of a century later , the Communist Party still feels compelled to use all the powers of the state to convince people inside China that nothing worth remembering happened on a date that , outside the country , will be an occasion for reflection and analysis of what remains the gravest crisis the Party has faced since the revolution of 1949 .
Chinoy : The Tiananmen Square crackdown was a watershed moment in the history of Western media . Coverage of the protests was the beginning of the `` CNN effect '' To this day , the event and the images continue to shape international perceptions of the country .