"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
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
on December 5, 1978.
Summary
The poster called on the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
to add
democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
to the list of the
Four Modernizations, which already included
industry,
agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
,
science and technology
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...
, and
national defense
National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived ...
.
[Schell, Orville. Shambaugh, David L. 999(1999). The China reader: the reform era. Random House, Inc. , .] It openly stated democracy was an additional modernization that needed to be pursued if China truly wanted to modernize itself.
See also
*
Beijing Spring
*
Democracy Wall
References
External links
"The Fifth Modernization", essay by Wei Jingsheng
Ideology of the Chinese Communist Party
Economic history of the People's Republic of China
Chinese democracy movements
1978 essays
1978 in China
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