Chinese Democracy After Tiananmen

Gary Watson is a former lecturer in Chinese studies at Queen’s University and is now a multimedia developer in Mississauga.

Few images from the late 20th century equal the impact of those from
Beijing in June 1989, when China’s government turned against
demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, killing thousands and demonstrating
its will to preserve “order” at any price. While few in the West
understood the causes of the massacre, fewer still followed its
consequences. Despite two years of purges of ranking Party officials,
suppression of pro-democracy academics and their publications, and
forced exile for activists that followed, the Chinese government proved
remarkably inept at reversing the tide of change. The greatest irony,
however, remained that it was the Communist leadership’s ongoing
experiments with economic liberalization begun the late 1970s that
sparked re-evaluation of “public” and “private” in a socialist
state.

Mapping the contours of this evolving debate on the meaning of
democracy in China is the chief objective of Ding Yijiang’s Chinese
Democracy After Tiananmen. Ding carefully analyzes the significant
qualitative changes in Chinese conceptions of democracy during the
1990s, notably in its core assumptions concerning state and society,
group interests, individual liberties, and the legacies of authoritarian
government. Among the strengths of this volume is the careful
presentation of the scope of Chinese official and academic opinion on
the issues of social and institutional change and their directions and
implications for China’s political culture.

This concise, thoughtful book is a valuable introduction to the
theoretical issues involved in China’s ongoing political and
intellectual modernization.