Chairman of the Central Military Commission
The system of government set up under the 1982 Constitution has undergone some changes, largely due to the evolution of Constitutional conventions rather than textual amendments. The most significant of these occurred in 1989–1993. As drafted, the 1982 Constitution contemplated that the power of the state would be distributed amongst the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of China]], the [[Premier of the State Council]], and the [[Chairman of the Central Military Commission (China)|Chairman of the Central Military Commission]]. The [[President of the People's Republic of China|President]], as nominal head of state, would be a symbolic role with little substantive power. Such was the arrangement until 1989. During the [[1989 Tiananmen Square Protests]], the President, [[Yang Shangkun]], also the Vice chairman of Central Military Commission, used his formal powers under the Constitution to deploy troops to Beijing in support of the state of emergency declared by the Premier [[Li Peng]], and colluded in the subsequent violent crackdown in [[Beijing]], against the wishes of [[Zhao Ziyang]], the General Secretary of the Party. In a reaction against the conflict between the independent power centres, at the expiration of Deng's term, the new General Secretary, [[Jiang Zemin]], also became [[Chairman of the Central Military Commission (China)|Chairman of the Central Military Commission]], and later took on the position of the President as well. In this way, the centres of power were unified. This convention has continued to this day.