1989 and Its Aftermath
HI 168: Lecture 16
Dr. Howard Chiang
OVERVIEW
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Democracy Wall: 1978-79
Democracy Movement: 1985-87
Third Party Congress
Eastern Europe and the Road to June 4
Democracy Movement: 1987-89
June 4
Years After Deng
Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang
DEMOCRACY WALL: 1978-79
- Wei Jingsheng (魏京生)
- 5th modernization – democracy
- ‘Does Deng Xiaoping want democracy?
No, he does not. He is
unwilling to comprehend the misery of the common people. He
is unwilling to allow the people to regain those powers usurped
by ambitious careerists. He describes the struggle for
democratic rights—a movement launched spontaneously by the
people—as the actions of troublemakers who must be
repressed….If his idea of democracy is one that does not allow
others to criticize those in power, then how is such a democracy
different from Mao Zedong’s tyranny concealed behind the
slogan “The Democracy of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”?
- March 29, 1979: Four Cardinal Principles,
shoving out of sight the ‘Four Big Freedoms’
Wei Jingsheng
DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: 1985-87
- September 1985 – student protests
- 54th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria on September 18, 1931
- responding to inflation and the rise of
nepotism as jobs were given to sons and
daughters of senior officials [gaogan zidi]
- astrophysicist Fang Lizhi (方勵之)
- Conservative CCP leaders:
- launched a mass campaign against
‘bourgeois liberalization’ [zichanjieji ziyouhua]
- Hu Yaobang relieved of duties in Jan 1987
THIRTEENTH PARTY CONGRESS
- Beijing, Oct 25 to Nov 1, 1987
- Retirement of the older generation of
political leaders
- ‘speeding up and deepening reform’
- Zhao Ziyang’s report ‘Advance along
the Road of Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics’
- separate the functions of the CCP and
the government
DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: 1987-9
- 1989: 40th anniversary of the founding of PRC;
70th anniversary of May 4th; 200th anniversary
of the French Revolution
- January 6, 1989 – Fang Lizhi sent an open
letter to Deng Xiaoping, asking for amnesty
- Hu Yaobang died on April 15, 1989
- Hunger strikes – moral authority
- May – movement focused on dismissal of Li
Peng (prime minister) and Deng Xiaoping
- May 15 – visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, president
of the USSR
Mikhail Gorbachev in Beijing
May 1989
JUNE 4
- May 20, 1989: Li Peng issued an Order of the
State Council, declaring martial law in Beijing
- May 30: Goddess of Democracy
- Jun 3-4: PLA moved in to clear Tiananmen
Square of all demonstrators
- Muxidi and Qianmen
- Official figures: 200 civilians (36 students)
killed and 3000 injured
- Government’s rationale: anarchy and counterrevolution
- Problems with the demonstrators themselves
Goddess of Democracy
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Jiang Zemin
1989-2002
‘Three Represents’
China joined the World
Trade Organization in
2001
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Hu Jintao
2002-2012
‘Harmonious Society’
‘Scientific Development’
‘Populist
authoritarianism’