Demonstrations, Resignations and Political Change in China

Published date01 April 1987
Date01 April 1987
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9256.1987.tb00264.x
Subject MatterArticle
Pdtics
(1987)
7, !k7
DEMONSTRATIONS, RESIGNATIONS
AND
POLITICAL CHANGE IN CHINA
David
S
G
Goodman
ON
DECEMBER
8,
1986
students at the Chinese University of Science and Technology in
Hefei, one
of
the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) most prestigious institutions
of
higher
education, openly demonstrated in favour
of
political reforms. Within arelatively short period
of time, similar demonstrations had occurred in many Chinese cities. Student demonstrators
in Shanghai brought the city‘s traffic to
a
halt. In Beijing, students staged an early morning
march around the four most important (and nearby) colleges
-
Beijing Normal University,
People’s University, Beijing University
and
Qinghua University. When the newspaper of the
Beijing Committee of the Chinese Comunist Party (CCP), the
Beijing
Daily,
commented on
their actions adversely and suggested that a student’s place was behind a desk, some students
responded by publicly burning copies
of
the critical newspaper.
Despite the Western press coverage, by previous standards these demonstrations were
rather restricted and low-key &airs. Student manifestations, and indeed demonstrations by
other social groups, though by no means routine are not unknown in the PRC. The
two
most
obvious examples in recent memory are the events
of
the Cultural Revolution and the Democ-
racy Movement. During the late
1960s,
student Red Guards went on the rampage throughout
China. During the winter of
1978-9,
young people, workers for the most part but some
students too, took to the streets in the Democracy Movement.
In contrast, the most recent demonstrations appear to have been limited to university
students, (mainly on campus) and even then
to
have concerned only a
few
relatively small
groups. Demonstrations did not occur on every university campus and many actively refused
to
participate. ‘Democracy‘ was a dying
”y,
but it was only one among many and then
variously defined. Alongside demands for ‘free elections’ were those for better living condi-
tions
on
campus and educational refom. As
so
often in China‘democracy‘
is
equated with the
‘small freedoms’ to choose where to live, where to work and whom to marry. Moreover, the
demonstrations
came
rapidly
to
an end.
It
is
true that the state did move
to
curb
student
demonstrations: authorities in both Beijing and Shanghai, for example, banned unauthorized
marches. However, the lack of
a
continued student response can probably be more accurately
ascribed
to
the late January examinations, a national phenomenon.
None the less, the student demonstrations of December
1986
and January
1987
appear to
have had far-reaching consequences. On January
7,
the
Pe0ple.s
Dady
,
the official newspaper
of
the CCP, published an editorial on ‘the need to firmly oppose bourgeois liberalism.’ Thereaf-
ter notions of ‘liberal‘ or ‘bourgeois democracy‘, and indeed Western values and ideas in
general have been under severe attack.
So
too have many professional intellectuals thought
to
harbour such ideas or to have encouraged the earlier student demonstrations. On January
12,
Fang Lizhi, the Vice-president
of
the Chinese University of Science and Technology lost that
job and was later expelled from the CCP.
A
similar fate has befallen the noted free-thinkers,
Liu Binyan and Wang Ruowang.
However, the most spectacular consequence occurred at the ‘Enlarged’ meeting
of
the
political Bureau
of
the CCP on Januq
16.
At
this meeting, the CCP General-Secretary Hu
Yaobang resigned, having confessed to mistakes on ‘major issues
of
party
principle’
(Chinu
Dudy,
17
January,
1987).
Though HU has
(so
fir) remained
a
member
of
the Standing Commit-
tee of the CCPs Political Bureau, his resignation has clearly rocked the Chinese political
system.
His
at least temporary replacement, the current Premier Zhao Ziyang, quickly tried to
reassure both the Chinese and the outside world that this
was
an internal CCP matter which
would not have wider repercussions. When meeting a delegation from the Hungarian Corn-
munist Party on January
18,
he med to distance recent developments from the ‘movements’

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