1989: Massacre in Tiananmen Square
Several hundred civilians have been shot dead by the Chinese army during a bloody military operation to crush a democratic protest in Peking's (Beijing) Tiananmen Square.
Tanks rumbled through the capital's streets late on 3 June as the army moved into the square from several directions, randomly firing on unarmed protesters.
The injured were rushed to hospital on bicycle rickshaws by frantic residents shocked by the army's sudden and extreme response to the peaceful mass protest.
Demonstrators, mainly students, had occupied the square for seven weeks, refusing to move until their demands for democratic reform were met.
The protests began with a march by students in memory of former party leader Hu Yaobang, who had died a week before.
But as the days passed, millions of people from all walks of life joined in, angered by widespread corruption and calling for democracy.
Tonight's military offensive came after several failed attempts to persuade the protesters to leave.
Throughout the day the government warned it would do whatever it saw necessary to clamp down on what it described as "social chaos".
But even though violence was expected, the ferocity of the attack took many by surprise, bringing condemnation from around the world.
US President George Bush said he deeply deplored the use of force, and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said she was "shocked and appalled by the shootings".
Amid the panic and confusion students could be heard shouting "fascists stop killing," and "down with the government".
At a nearby children's hospital operating theatres were filled with casualties with gunshot wounds, many of them local residents who were not taking part in the protests.
Early this morning at least 30 more were killed in two volleys of gunfire, which came without warning. Terrified crowds fled, leaving bodies in the road.
Meanwhile reports have emerged of troops searching the main Peking university campus for ringleaders, beating and killing those they suspect of co-ordinating the protests.
Source: BBC News
China’s One Child PolicySince the [one child policy was] introduced in 1978, China has kept its population in check using persuasion, coercion and encouragement.
And it looks likely that, nearly 30 years after the policy was first introduced, it will not be relaxed to allow couples to have more children. Many Chinese and foreign academics believe this is a mistake and will result in a number of serious demographic problems in the future.
At a press conference earlier this year, Chinese officials were keen to declare the controversial policy a success. "Because China has worked hard over the last 30 years, we have 400 million fewer people," said Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission. "Compared with the world's other developing countries with large populations, we have realised this transformation half a century ahead of time."
'Too busy'
The fall in fertility rates is also, at least partly, due to improving social and economic circumstances. In other East Asian countries, such as Thailand and South Korea, modernisation has led to women having fewer children, and yet these countries do not have strict family planning policies.
"A lot of people simply don't want that many children. People have accepted the policy," he says.
This is particularly true in urban areas, where most couples interviewed by the BBC say they are happy with just one child.
Forced abortions
But there is a more sinister aspect to this policy, which is sometimes employed to make women less willing than Ms Zhao accept the rules.Activist Chen Guangcheng was sent to prison last year for exposing what he says were over-zealous health workers in Linyi city, Shandong Province.
He says they illegally forced women to have late-term abortions and be sterilised.
China also faces profound and widespread demographic problems because of its family planning rules, according to some. Chinese officials say the current fertility rate is between 1.7 and 1.8 births per woman, well below the 2.1 births needed to keep the population at a stable level.
Overseas experts dispute this figure; they say the fertility rate is even lower and stands at 1.5.
This will result in an increasing proportion of older people, a smaller workforce to look after them and a disproportionate number of boys to girls.
Source: BBC News
Tibet
Tibet has long captured the West's imagination as the site of a mystical Utopia.
Geographically dramatic and remote, it has an average altitude of 13,000ft (4,000m) above sea level and is popularly referred to as "the roof of the world".
During Tibet's early history it was an independent and often powerful state, but from the 13th century, when it submitted to Mongol rule, until modern times, it has endured long periods of either Chinese control, Chinese influence, or effective autonomy.
But in 1907 Britain and Russia agreed that both parties would deal with Tibet only through China, and China enforced what it saw as its claim on Tibet through a military invasion in 1910.
It withdrew in the midst of a Chinese revolution in 1911, and to all practical purposes Tibet operated as an independent nation from then until the early 1940s.
This was to change dramatically in 1949, when communist Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China and threatened Tibet with 'liberation'.
China led a military assault on Tibet in October 1950, and in April 1951 Tibet's leaders said they were strong-armed into signing a treaty, known as the 'Seventeen Point Agreement', which gave China control over Tibet's external affairs and allowed Chinese military occupation, in return for pledging to safeguard Tibet's political system.
There was widespread open rebellion against Chinese rule within Tibet by 1956, which tipped over into a full uprising in March 1959. Tibetans say that thousands died during the occupation and uprising, but China disputes this.
On the night of 17 March the Dalai Lama fled to northern India. Some 80,000 Tibetans followed over the next few months.
The Chinese government went on to establish the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) in 1965, and in 1966 Tibet was subjected to China's Cultural Revolution, which destroyed a large number of its monasteries and cultural artefacts.
Chinese and Tibetan views of what constitutes Tibet differ significantly.
Around half the landmass the Tibetans consider to be Tibet has been subsumed into other Chinese provinces, and in 1965 the Chinese government named the rest the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
The government says the TAR has considerable autonomy, but many Tibetans argue their self-government exists in name only.
Source: BBC
Internet in China
Having hit the country's so-called Great Firewall, Google Drive has joined a host of other services banned in the communist nation, such as YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Dropbox, Facebook and Foursquare.
When the firm checked for technical issues on its side, it found none, a Google spokesman told the BBC. "If people are unable to access Google Drive in China... it's an issue to take up with the Chinese authorities," he said. The restriction does indeed seem to come from Beijing, but it is not a surprise, say analysts.
The Chinese government has been notoriously unfriendly towards a number of Western websites and online services, mostly targeting social media networks and video sharing sites that could have a mass impact on "the community", notes Duncan Clark, a chairman of BDA China, a consultancy firm in Beijing.
"It's a question of control - and the Chinese authorities like to keep close control of web content, preferring to work with local internet content providers, on whom they can rely for self-censorship of content," says Mr Clark.
Cracks in wall
And to exercise this control, the state closely monitors internet traffic within the country and all web content that crosses its borders.
This Great Chinese Firewall uses several tools.All internet traffic into China passes through a small number of gateways, giving the government a chance to control the information.Sometimes Beijing will block access to a site that has been blacklisted by the government. The authorities may also prevent the look-up of certain domain names, thus causing a "site not found" error message on the user's screen.
If a site is not on any blacklist but its URL - web address - contains a prohibited word, the site may be blocked - and this may also happen if a prohibited keyword is published anywhere on the page a user is viewing.
Censorship can be done more subtly as well - for example by filtering posts with prohibited keywords on the country's social media platforms and erasing comments shortly after they have been posted on microblogging sites.