S15: Tian’anmen Protests
Nationalism and Revolution in Modern China
May 20, 2025
Key Questions
- What led to the bloodshed of 1989? Was there a different path?
- From end of history to authoritarian resilience: How did the CCP survive the end of the Cold War?
- Challenging the mandate of heaven: Why does a single-party state allow contentious politics?
Transitional justice without political transition
- Resolution on party history
- Trial of Gang of Four
- Cadre rehabilitation
- “Scar literature”: victim memoirs and new
Political Modernization: Common assumptions
- Economic transformation was seen as necessitating political changes, but they were intended to support market reforms.
- Fear of instability (and loss of power) after the Cultural Revolution and amid growing turmoils in Eastern Europe.
Culture Craze in the 1980s
- From tools of propaganda to new avenues for public discussion
- Writing in new publishing venues, as well as establishment media of the party
- Key questions: How to reform socialism? How to think for oneself?
Legacies of 1980s: Unresolved Questions
- Chinese leaders were wary of instability and sought to balance “democracy” and “dictatorship”.
- “Democracy” rooted in Leninist democratic centralism, differing from Western liberal democracy.
Legacies of reform
- Political reform driven by strong and open-minded leaders
- Institutional innovation vs. Fundamental reform
- Inner-party democracy as top-down strategy to address party legitimacy and popular discontent
Back to one-man rule?
Xi Jinping at 20th CCP National Party Congress
“Contracting output to households”
- Production responsibility system: Household contracting of communal land, in return for delivery quota after harvest
- Expansion of labor: Farm households working in non-agriculture, especially TVEs
- From capital intensive (heavy industry) to labor-intensive development strategy
Dual track economy
Co-existence of traditional planned economy and market channel
- Produce planned output, selling at plan prices
- Excess sold outside the plan at market prices
- Reduction of state monopoly enhanced competition
- Plan and state sector became less dominant elements in economy
Incentivizing growth
- System of profit retention
- “Factory manager responsibility system”: managers, not party secretary, given top authority
- Local gov retention of revenue above control figure
- Universities and research institutes allowed to set up profit-making subsidiaries
- Cadre promotion based on local economic and fiscal growth
“Crossing the river by touching the stones”
- Incremental and improvised, but also broad and bold
- Top-down direction but also de-centralized improvisation
- Inflationary economy with shortages => Political backlash
Economic and political policy cycles
- Peak inflation in 1980, 1985, 1988, and 1995
- Each peak marking a phase of policy cycle after a wave of reform
- Cycles correspond with oscillation in influence of top policy makers
From inflation crisis to political crisis
Students commemorating death of Hu Yaobang
1986 student protests
- 1986-12: Demonstration at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Hefei
- Demands to nominate own candidates for National People’s Congress and for greater freedom
- Spread to major cities across China after police repression
- Lack of response from Hu Yaobang led to his dismissal in Jan 1987; replaced by Zhao Ziyang
- Trigger for Anti-bourgeois liberalization campaign (1987)
Political death as catalyst
- 1989-04-15: Hu Yaobang dies in hospital
- 1989-04-22: Memorial service for Hu Yaobang
April 26 Editorial (excerpt)
An extremely small number of people were not memorializing Comrade Hu Yaobang, were not promoting socialist democracy in China, and were not merely complaining about minor grievances. Instead, they were flying the false flag of democracy in order to destroy democracy and the rule of law. Their goal is to confuse people’s feelings, throw the entire country into turmoil, and destroy political stability and unity. This is a premeditated conspiracy. It is turmoil. In essence, it wants to fundamentally negate the Communist Party’s leadership and the socialist system.
People’s Daily, April 26, 1989
Escalatory spiral: Timeline of protests
- 1989-04-27: About 100,000 students march to Tiananmen to protest the editorial.
- 1989-05-13: 3000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen
- 1989-05-15: Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Beijing
Escalatory spiral: Timeline of protests, continued
- 1989-04-27: About 100,000 students march to Tiananmen to protest the editorial.
- 1989-05-13: 3000 students begin hunger strike in Tiananmen
- 1989-05-15: Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Beijing
Escalatory spiral: Timeline of protests
- 1989-05-19: Li Peng declares martial law. Deng Xiaoping announces replacement of Zhao Ziyang by Jiang Zemin
- 1989-05-20: Martial law goes into effect in Beijing, but meets resistance.
- 1989-06-03: PLA troops clear Tiananmen Square. Students and civilians killed on paths of advance; remaining 4000 students leave square after encirclement by troops.
Discuss: Politburo meeting
Deng Xiaoping
Discuss: Among the student leaders
Tent with students at Tiananmen Square
Wu’er Kaixi meets Li Peng
“If one fasting classmate refuses to leave the square, the other thousands of fasting students on the square will not move. […] On the square, it is not a matter of the minority obeying the majority, but of 99.9 percent obeying 0.1 percent.”