1989 – Causes and Effects (Part One – Causes)

How then did the debates of the 1980s lead to the tragedy at Tiananmen in 1989 and is the debate ongoing or did it end there? Today the Chinese continue to debate how the international notion of individual human rights should apply in China if indeed it should at all (and that debate may be a more or less direct result of the Tiananmen massacre). This debate is mainly between China and some western countries but it also occurs within China. However first let’s go back to the 1980s and the various forces at work in that decade.

The reform faction was split in the 1980s and Deng’s inevitable occasional kowtowing to the conservative faction likely had this as its inevitable result. The period has been regarded as one of ‘bourgeois liberalisation’ by those who opposed the reforms. That meant China was looking too much towards western political as well as economic systems for answers to China’s problems. On the liberal wing was Fang Lizhi (now teaching in the US but then a professor of astrophysics and Vice President at a technology university in Anhui who also lectured about freedom and democracy to his students). His downfall was a cause celebre of the opponents of liberal ideas and consequently of those who believed in them. That was the way China was rolling. There was a heck of a lot of division after the partial liberalisation of the 1980 elections.

The 1986 elections proved crucial in cementing the divisions because the nature of their conduct constituted a real reversal of the liberalisation that had proved somewhat promising in 1980. They provoked Anhui students (many inspired by Fang) to demonstrate for more democracy and this movement spread to other cities including Shanghai (but apparently not Beijing) before it was suppressed. Troublemaking students were still able under the system that then obtained to be sent to far off provinces on work assignments as punishment and that occurred to some extent. Unfortunately for the authorities, however, the mere threat of that had the effect this time of simply spreading the ideas to the masses that had produced the discontent among the students.

Fang and others were scapegoated but the movement drew strength from that this time. Fang was given a research posting in Beijing (so, far away from his Anhui students but strangely closer to the centre of action than ever). He was also expelled from the party. Liu Binyan, an investigative journalist was also scapegoated.

This marked the beginning of a new ‘campaign against bourgeois liberalisation’ and it wouldn’t end until it had led to the fall of Hu Yaobang himself at the very apex of the party in 1987 (he was alleged to have been too sympathetic with and slow to suppress the original student protest movement). Hu, another prominent Xiangtanese, had argued within the Politburo against its suppression and it was evident that he did share some of its (and the students’) ideals. He was forced out as party general secretary and to write a traditional self-criticism and was replaced in that job by Zhao Ziyang, the Premier. That brought Li Peng into the position of Premier replacing Zhao.

Where did this now leave the party’s upper echelons? Deng, a cautious and old-school reformer, was still the paramount leader without portfolio but another perhaps more liberal reformer had been replaced for being too liberal. Li had obviously been vetted to ensure he wouldn’t be as liberal as Premier as Hu was as General Party Secretary.

Zhao had survived essentially because he was head of the ‘neo-authoritarian’ camp in debates concerning growth models and would be expected to carry this style of thinking into his new role. This camp in turn then had proponents among leaderships throughout East and South East Asia and based its ‘East Asian development model’ thinking on Confucianism. It had the basic ideas of subsuming individual interests into the collective interest of the society as determined by the authority (government should drive development) and that China was not yet ready for democracy as it interfered with the model’s social stability goal which would in turn interfere with the desired economic development goal.

Any protests, too, could potentially interfere with this economically valued stability and the Chinese (in taking the view that one role of government was the suppression of potentially injurious protests) were no orphans in their region. The stance was a combined cultural and economic claim that either or both of ‘Asian values’ (cultural claim) or the requirements of an underdeveloped economy (economic claim) required the suppression (by authoritarian government) of liberal democratic values in the name of these other social, political, cultural and economic values. On the other side were the ‘democrats’ who sought democracy now. And they were just the split views within the reformist faction. The Maoists were another story altogether when it came to authoritarianism.

So by 1989 what was it like to be a Chinese citizen?

As an economic citizen it was peachy keen in many respects. Freedom of choice quickly became substantially more evident both as a producer and as a consumer in the new market economy. Dynamism and pluralism existed here.

Intellectually, politically and culturally there was some room for debate but rights were limited and the neo-authoritarians were thoroughly in charge and not inclined to budge, believing as they did in what they were doing.

In the spring of 1989 three catalysts led to a feeling of the inevitability of righteous protest being in the air, however.

The first was the death of Hu on 15 April (so soon after his deposition for not completely suppressing a democratic protest movement quickly enough). That was followed on 4 May by the 70^th Anniversary of the establishment of the May Fourth Movement (a democratic movement) and on 15 May by the visit of the reformer Gorbachev (a believer in glasnost (‘openness’ – seen by many Chinese democrats as an introduction to democracy in a Communist system) as well as perestroika (economic restructuring)) for a Sino-Soviet Summit.

Hu had been a great hope of the democratic faction and his death was seen symbolically by some coming as it did so soon before a great anniversary regarded as so significant to Chinese Communism for so long by the CCP. Planning was well advanced for a variety of official celebrations of the anniversary. As well as being a crucible of the CCP, however, the May Fourth Movement had included calls for democracy. The Gorbachev visit was also intended to be and was seen as significant as it was intended to mark the first thawing of Sino-Soviet relations in nearly 30 years. The world’s media would be focused on Beijing for this significant visit making it also of special interest for protesters.

The first protests were by students outside Hu’s state funeral at the Great Hall of the People. This lit the touch paper for the protests on the latter two dates which took on lives of their own and the concept of hunger striking developed in mid May protests further galvanised and inspired the movement.

Given the above catalysts and inspiration, economic grievances also began to be aired by people besides democratic activists and students. People who admired the bravery of the hunger striking students began to notice that they perhaps had grievances worthy of protest, too, also related at least indirectly to the paucity of democracy. The economic reforms had produced great and apparent new disparities in wealth that weren’t appreciated by many people on the poor side of the disparity.

The division was between both the workers and their managers and between the public and new private sectors. It was not uncommon, for example, for a doctor in the state health system who had studied for many years to notice that s/he was receiving less income (potentially much less) that a street egg vendor. Also price deregulation and shortages in the market transition had led to an inflation rate of 20% that for many of the many poorer people hadn’t helped matters. The final concern with the reform was that the management of it had allowed scope for widespread corruption and widespread corruption there had been (families of CCP leaders were notably involved).

These issues were concerns especially in Beijing and other cities. Protests began to occur and gain widespread support in many cities. People hoped that democracy might produce both a more responsive and a less corrupt government that might fix these problems.