In April 1989, the death of Hu Yaobang, a respected reformist and once successor to Deng Xiaoping, triggers a protest in Beijing first led by students and then joined by workers calling for political reforms. The leadership is divided between the moderates led by Zhao Ziyang and hardliners led by Deng Xiaoping. After weeks of standoff between protesters and troops called in to restore order, the central leadership orders a bloody crackdown on June 4, 1989, and ends the occupation of Tiananmen Square by the protestors. Deng ousts his then-successor Zhao Ziyang as General Secretary of the CCP and replaces him with the relatively unknown Jiang Zemin. Jiang will maintain continuity with Deng's principles and reforms, including those over Taiwan, throughout and beyond the aging patriarch's life.