Chen Xitong
On April 24, at a meeting of the politburo chaired by Li Peng, Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing and Mayor Chen Xitong said the student demonstrations were manipulated by plotters seeking to overthrow the party-state and had to be halted. The following day, Deng Xiaoping, after hearing reports from Premier Li Peng and President Yang Shangkun, called the demonstrations a "disturbance" that was to be halted through coercive measures. Deng's characterization was published in the "People's Daily" editorial of April 26. The students felt maligned by the editorial and 100,000 from more than 40 universities marched to the city center, past Tiananmen Square to the Lama Temple, breaking through police blockades along the way.