alternatehistory.com

It's usually assumed that by having the People's Liberation Army crush the student demonstrators in Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party avoided political defeat along the lines of what was happening at the same time in the Soviet bloc — albeit at the cost of pissing off the West and leaving a black mark on Deng Xiaoping's achievements.

Meanwhile, the typical AH scenario seems to be that had the CCP not reacted with force, China would have ended up like the other communist countries experiencing similar popular movements and government reform efforts — as non-communist states with varying degrees of political functionality and economic prosperity.

But what if neither OTL nor the vanilla AH scenario came to pass? Was it possible for the CCP to come to a different resolution in dealing with the protest movement, and remain securely in power? Or would any peaceful reconciliation with the protesters spell the doom of the Party?
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