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Yijang Ding, 2001, Chapter 3, p.30, 32-33.

The 1989 Tiananmen incident was a crucial test of the vitality of the new ideas about the state and society developed in the late 1980s. Immediately after 4 June, almost all of these ideas were attacked in both the official media and academic journals. People who had advocated them were completely silenced. Many of those who had pioneered them belonged to either what Goldman termed the “democratic elite” – Hu Yaobang’s intellectual network and their associates – or Zhao Ziyang’s “think tanks.” Both groups were purged after the incident. Their members were jailed, fled overseas, or simply ceased publication in academic journals. In her book, Goldman described the fates of some of these scholars, which partially explained why most of these people became silent.

However, the new ideas about the state and society not only reappeared soon after they were criticized, but gained greater acceptance among the intellectuals. Even the most sensitive issue, political pluralism, was raised again. The revival of these ideas also coincided with the appearance of a large number of new names in Chinese academic journals, indicating the emergence of a new, post-Tiananmen generation of Chinese scholars.

The Tiananmen crackdown was followed by a criticism campaign, which targeted key concepts such as state-society dualism, marketization, giving power back to society, economic freedom, individual freedom, social pluralism, political pluralism, and checks and balances. In the second half of 1989 and throughout 1990, the criticism campaign more or less dominated the official and academic publications. However, a year after the Tiananmen incident, dissenting voices began to reappear in academic journals. For example, in mid-1990, Zhongguo Faxue (Chinese legal science) carried several articles discussing democracy and the rule of law. One author claimed that during the “preliminary stage of socialism” – a term coined by the regime to justify a private sector economy in China – it was still necessary to fight for freedom, democracy, and civil rights, ostensibly for their realization in the higher stage of socialism. Another author emphasized the similarities between “socialist democracy” and “bourgeois democracy” and declared that “democracy is a spiritual wealth that belongs to the whole of mankind,” which therefore should not be monopolized by capitalist countries. An article in Ningxia Shehui Kexue (Social sciences in Ningxia) suggested that the lack of institutionalized participation was responsible for the 1989 social unrest. The author cited Samuel P. Huntington’s theory of the relationship between institutionalization and participation to justify the necessity of establishing democratic procedures so as to avoid “participation crisis” and political alienation caused by “participation failure.” Such use of Western political science terminology recalled the pre-Tiananmen debate on political modernization.

In 1991, the criticism campaign clearly began to flag. Unorthodox ideas reappeared in terms that were more or less acceptable to the regime leadership. More and more articles appeared in academic journals and leading newspapers to challenge the orthodox views expressed during the criticism campaign. For example, in clear reply to the revival of “proletarian dictatorship” amid the “anti-bourgeois liberalization” campaign, an article in Fujian Xuekan (Fujian journal of learning) repeated the old argument that the function of the state was not merely “class suppression,” but primarily the management of public affairs for the whole society. Taking advantage of the regime’s increased tolerance of academic discussions on the issue of human rights, an article in Shehui Kexue (Social sciences) pointed out that democracy meant the recognition of individual rights: there was no sovereignty of the people to speak of if people did not enjoy their human rights. A Guangming Ribao (Guangming daily) article expressed the view that democracy was a process of articulation, exchange, and coordination of social interests, and that the so-called people’s fundamental interest was simply the “optimal point of combination” of different social interests. An article in Zhengzhi yu Falu (Politics and law) carefully distinguished between the “restriction of power” and “checks and balances” in order to justify the former. Liberal-minded scholars who had lain low for almost two years were again feeling out the boundaries of the regime’s tolerance.

While 1991 saw cautious testing of the political waters, 1992 saw dramatic change in the political climate, caused primarily by Deng Xiaoping’s Nanxun (southern tour) speeches. Deng probably intended no more than to revive the sluggish economy and to gain back some ground that had been lost to the more conservative elders. Nevertheless, his speeches triggered a wave of articles in the official media throughout China criticizing the “left,” meaning orthodox Leninism, and demanding the “liberation of the mind,” a watchword for the liberals since the beginning of the reform. In June, the official party newspaper Renmin Ribao (People’s daily) carried an article by Rong Yiren, who was then president of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and later became vice-president of the PRC. Rong reasserted the famous Dengist slogan that “practice” was “the sole criterion of truth,” implying that the conservative backlash had failed to address the country’s economic problems. In July, the “anti-left” and “liberation of the mind” themes were further played up in a Renmin Ribao editorial. One immediate effect of this sudden and surprising change of climate was the revival of all the key ideas about the state and society that had developed in the intellectual circles in the 1980s – their hibernation ended quite abruptly.

Most discussions of the state-society relationship in the 1990s focused on a few familiar topics, namely, the role of the government, societal freedom and independence, social pluralism, and political pluralism. However, the issue of civil society now attracted much greater attention than before and some new ideas were proposed, apparently stimulated by the Western interest in civil society in China in the early 1990s.

About the Author

Yijiang Ding is a Professor of Political Science and Chair of the International Relations Program at Okanagan University-College.

Chinese Democracy After Tiananmen
Yijiang Ding

184 Pages

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