Zhao Ziyang addresses student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on the morning of May 19 1989. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The most famous image of China's Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 is that of the unknown protester who stopped a column of tanks from advancing for more than half an hour.
However, the above photograph of the former Communist party secretary general, Zhao Ziyang, addressing student demonstrators in the square at dawn on May 19 1989 also tells a moving story.
Zhao, who died yesterday, implored them to leave the square. Days later, it was cleared by troops with the loss of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.
His appearance with a megaphone, through which he tearfully begged the demonstrators to leave, was the last time he was seen in public. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest for going further than any other Chinese leader had in sympathising with the people.
There are some good articles about Zhao and the Tiananmen Square massacre - not least those at Wikipedia and CNN. But I especially recommend this piece on TIMEAsia.com. Written by Wu Guoguang, a former speechwriter for Zhao, it reveals that those who knew him still discuss what motivated him on that day - did he hope to sway the party hardliners, or was being naive?
Whatever the truth was of that, Mr Wu says there is a rumour that the guards who watched Zhao's house had to be rotated on a regular basis - because "if they stay more than a few months, they become his friends".
