Democracy movements of China are a series of organized
political movement
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some t ...
s, inside and outside of
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, addressing a variety of grievances, including objections to socialist
bureaucratism and objections to the continuation of the
one-party rule
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
(CCP) itself. The
Democracy Wall
From November 1978 to December 1979, thousands of people put up " big character posters" on a long brick wall of Xidan Street, Xicheng District of Beijing, to protest about the political and social issues of China. Under acquiescence of the Chines ...
movement of November 1978 to spring 1981 is typically regarded as the beginning of contemporary Chinese democracy movement. In addition to the Democracy Wall movement, the events of the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
are among the notable examples of Chinese democracy movements.
History
The beginning of China's democracy movements is usually regarded as the Democracy Wall movement of November 1978 to spring 1981.
The Democracy Wall movement framed the key issue as the elimination of bureaucratism and the bureaucratic class.
Former
Red Guards
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
from both rebel and conservative factions were the core of the movement.
Democracy Wall participants agreed that "democracy" was the means to resolve the conflict between the bureaucratic class and the people, the nature of the proposed democratic institutions was a major source of disagreement.
A majority of participants in the movement favored viewed the movement as part of a struggle between correct and incorrect notions of
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
.
Many participants advocated
classical Marxist
Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Marxism–Leninism.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (5 May 1818, ...
views that drew on the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
for inspiration.
The Democracy Wall movement also included non-Marxists and anti-Marxists, although these participants were a minority.
Demands for "democracy" were frequent but without an agreed-upon meaning.
Participants in the movement variously associated the concept of democracy with socialism, communism, liberal democracy, capitalism, and Christianity.
They drew on a diverse range of intellectual resources "ranging from classical Marxist and socialist traditions to Enlightenment philosophers,
ocialistexperiments in Yugoslavia, and Western liberal democracy."
Significant documents of the Democracy Wall Movement include
The Fifth Modernization
"The Fifth Modernization" is an essay by human rights activist Wei Jingsheng, originally begun as a signed wall poster placed on the Democracy Wall in Beijing on December 5, 1978.
Summary
The poster called on the Chinese Communist Party to ad ...
manifesto by
Wei Jingsheng
Wei Jingsheng (; born 20 May 1950) is a Chinese human rights activist and dissident. He is best known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement. He is most prominent for having authored the essay "The Fifth Modernization", which wa ...
, who was sentenced to fifteen years in
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
for authoring the document. In it, Wei argued that political liberalization and the empowerment of the laboring masses was essential for modernization, that the CCP was controlled by reactionaries and that the people must struggle to overthrow the reactionaries via a long and possibly bloody fight.
Throughout the 1980s, these ideas increased in popularity among college-educated Chinese. In response to growing
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
, economic dislocation and the sense that reforms in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
were leaving China behind, the
Tiananmen Square protests
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
erupted in 1989. These protests were violently suppressed by government troops on June 4, 1989. In response, a number of pro-
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
organizations were formed by overseas Chinese
student activists
Student activism or campus activism is work by students to cause political, environmental, economic, or social change. Although often focused on schools, curriculum, and educational funding, student groups have influenced greater political e ...
, and there was considerable sympathy for the movement among Westerners, who formed the
China Support Network {{Cleanup bare URLs, date=April 2022
The China Support Network (CSN) is a U.S.-based organization promoting democracy for mainland China. CSN provides news, commentary, information and analysis on events, issues, demonstrations and government polic ...
(CSN).
Government's response
Ideologically, the government's first reaction to the democracy movement was an effort to focus on the personal behavior of individual dissidents and argue that they were tools of foreign powers. In the mid-1990s, the government began using more effective arguments which were influenced by
Chinese Neo-Conservatism and Western authors such as
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_ NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style"> ...
. The main argument was that China's main priority was
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
, and economic growth required political stability. The democracy movement was flawed because it promoted
radical
Radical may refer to:
Politics and ideology Politics
*Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change
*Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
ism and
revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
which put the gains that China had made into jeopardy. In contrast to Wei's argument that democracy was essential to
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
, the government argued that economic growth must come before political liberalization, comparable to what happened in the
Four Asian Tigers
The Four Asian Tigers (also known as the Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons in Chinese and Korean) are the developed East Asian economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Between the early 1960s and 1990s, they underwent ra ...
.
With regard to
political dissent
Political dissent is a dissatisfaction with or opposition to the policies of a governing body. Expressions of dissent may take forms from vocal disagreement to civil disobedience to the use of violence.Wei Jingsheng
Wei Jingsheng (; born 20 May 1950) is a Chinese human rights activist and dissident. He is best known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement. He is most prominent for having authored the essay "The Fifth Modernization", which wa ...
,
Fang Lizhi
Fang Lizhi (also Li-Zhi; February 12, 1936 – April 6, 2012) was a Chinese astrophysicist, vice-president of the University of Science and Technology of China, and activist whose liberal ideas inspired the pro-democracy student movement ...
, and
Wang Dan are deported. Although Chinese
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
does not contain any provisions for
exiling citizens, these deportations are conducted by giving the dissident a severe jail sentence and then granting medical
parole
Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...
. Second, the less well-known leaders of a dissident movement are identified and given severe jail sentences. Generally, the government targets a relatively small number of organizers who are crucial in coordinating a movement and who are then charged with endangering
state security or revealing official secrets. Thirdly, the government attempts to address the grievances of possible supporters of the movement. This is intended to isolate the leadership of the movement, and prevent disconnected
protest
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
s from combining into a general organized protest that can threaten the Communist hold on power.
Chinese socialist democracy
CCP leaders assert there are already elements of democracy; they dubbed the term "Chinese socialist democracy" for what they describe as a participatory representative government.
Academic interpretations
Academic Lin Chun criticizes the phrase "democracy movement" as typically used in the scholarly and media discourse on China, noting that the term is often used exclusively to refer to the "demands and activism of an urban, educated group of people seeking liberal more than democratic values."
She notes, for example, that the political turbulence in universities over the period 1986 to 1989 had specific flash points ranging from anger at the government's "too soft" position on
China–Japan relations
China–Japan relations or Sino–Japanese relations (; ja, 日中関係, translit=Nicchū kankei) are the bilateral relations between China and Japan. The countries are geographically separated by the East China Sea. Japan has been strongl ...
to poor management of student welfare.
See also
*
Protest and dissent in China
In spite of restrictions on freedom of association, particularly in the decades since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, there have been incidents of protest and dissent in China. Among the most notable of these were the 1959 Tibetan uprising aga ...
*
2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests
The 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests, also known as the Greater Chinese Democratic Colour revolution, Jasmine Revolution, refer to public assemblies in over a dozen cities in China starting on 20 February 2011, inspired by and named after th ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chinese Democracy Movement
Political movements
Political repression in China
Democracy movements by country