Editing Democracy movements of China

{{Short description|Series of political movements in PRC}}
{{expand Chinese}}
{{Infobox civil conflict
| title = Democracy movements of China
| partof = [[politics in China]] and [[protest and dissent in China]]
| image = 
| caption = Image from the [[Beijing Spring]]
| date = {{Start date|df=yes|1978|11}} – present ({{Age in years, months, weeks and days|month1=11|day1=9|year1=1978}})
| place = {{flagdeco|China}} [[China]]
| coordinates = 
| causes = Various, including:
* Discontent with the [[one-party rule]] of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] in China
* Discontent with bureaucratism ([[Democracy Wall]] movement)
* Discontent with poor management of student welfare (university movements from 1986–1989)
* Discontent with foreign policy (university movements from 1986–1989)
| status = Ongoing
| methods = 
| casualties_label = 
| arrests = 
| injuries = 
| howmany3 = 
| notes = 
}}
{{Chinese democracy movement}}
{{Contemporary Chinese political thought}}
'''Democracy movements of the People's Republic of China''' are a series of organized [[political movement]]s, inside and outside of the country, addressing a variety of grievances, including objections to socialist [[bureaucratism]] and objections to the continuation of the [[one-party state|one-party rule]] of the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP) itself. The [[Democracy Wall]] 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]] are among the notable examples of Chinese democracy movements.

==History==
{{Further|New Enlightenment (China)|Beijing Spring|Democracy Wall}}

=== Origin ===
The beginning of China's democracy movements is usually regarded as the Democracy Wall movement of November 1978 to spring 1981.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Paltemaa |first=Lauri |date=24 October 2007 |title=The Democracy Wall Movement, Marxist Revisionism, and the Variations on Socialist Democracy |journal=[[Journal of Contemporary China]] |language=en |volume=16 |issue=53 |pages=601–625 |doi=10.1080/10670560701562325 |s2cid=143933209 |issn=1067-0564}}</ref> The Democracy Wall movement framed the key issue as the elimination of bureaucratism and the bureaucratic class.<ref name=":1" /> Former [[Red Guards]] from both rebel and conservative factions were the core of the movement.<ref name=":1" /> 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.<ref name=":1" /> A majority of participants in the movement favored viewed the movement as part of a struggle between correct and incorrect notions of [[Marxism]].<ref name=":1" /> Many participants advocated [[Classical Marxism|classical Marxist]] views that drew on the [[Paris Commune]] for inspiration.<ref name=":1" /> The Democracy Wall movement also included non-Marxists and anti-Marxists, although these participants were a minority.<ref name=":1" /> Demands for "democracy" were frequent but without an agreed-upon meaning.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Wu |first=Yiching |url=https://archive.org/details/yiching-wu-the-cultural-revolution-at-the-margins |title=The Cultural Revolution at the Margins: Chinese Socialism in Crisis |date=2014 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=978-0-674-41985-8 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |pages=213–215 |oclc=881183403}}</ref> Participants in the movement variously associated the concept of democracy with socialism, communism, liberal democracy, capitalism, and Christianity.<ref name=":5" /> They drew on a diverse range of intellectual resources "ranging from classical Marxist and socialist traditions to Enlightenment philosophers, [socialist] experiments in Yugoslavia, and Western liberal democracy."<ref name=":5" /> 

Significant documents of the Democracy Wall Movement include [[The Fifth Modernization]] manifesto by [[Wei Jingsheng]], who was sentenced to fifteen years in [[prison]] 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.{{cn|date=August 2021}}

=== Development ===
Throughout the 1980s, these ideas increased in popularity among college-educated Chinese, through the "[[New Enlightenment (China)|New Enlightenment movement]]" led by intellectuals.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Huaiyin |title=Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing |date=October 2012 |publisher=[[University of Hawaiʻi Press]] |isbn=9780824836085 |chapter=6 Challenging the Revolutionary Orthodoxy: “New Enlightenment” Historiography in the 1980s |doi=10.21313/hawaii/9780824836085.003.0006}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Chen |first=Yan |date=2007 |title=意识形态的兴衰与知识分子的起落—— "反右"运动与八十年代"新启蒙"的背景分析 |trans-title=The rise and fall of ideology and intellectuals—background analysis of the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the New Enlightenment in the 1980s |url=https://www.modernchinastudies.org/us/issues/past-issues/97-mcs-2007-issue-3/1017-2012-01-05-15-35-22.html |journal=[[Modern China Studies]] |volume=3}}</ref>
Overseas pro-democracy organizations including the [[Chinese Alliance for Democracy]] were founded by Chinese activists. [[1986 Chinese student demonstrations|Student protests]] inspired by intellectuals broke out in 1986.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shi |first=Tianjian |date=1990 |title=The Democratic Movement in China in 1989: Dynamics and Failure |journal=[[Asian Survey]] |volume=30 |issue=12 |pages=1186–1205 |doi=10.2307/2644993 |issn=0004-4687 |jstor=2644993}}</ref> 

In the wake of growing [[corruption]] and economic dislocation, the [[1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre|Tiananmen Square protests]] erupted in 1989, which culminated in a military crackdown in June.

==Government's response==
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2024}}
[[Ideology|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 [[Neoconservatism in the People's Republic of China|Chinese Neo-Conservatism]] and Western authors such as [[Edmund Burke]]. The main argument was that China's main priority was [[economic growth]], and economic growth required political stability. The democracy movement was flawed because it promoted [[Radicalism (historical)|radical]]ism and [[revolution]] which put the gains that China had made into jeopardy. In contrast to Wei's argument that democracy was essential to [[economic growth]], the government argued that economic growth must come before political liberalization, comparable to what happened in the [[Four Asian Tigers]].{{cn|date=January 2024}}

With regard to [[political dissent]] engendered by the movement, the government has taken a three-pronged approach. First, dissidents who are widely known in the West such as [[Wei Jingsheng]], [[Fang Lizhi]], and [[Wang Dan (dissident)|Wang Dan]] are deported. Although Chinese [[criminal law]] does not contain any provisions for [[exile|exiling]] citizens, these deportations are conducted by giving the dissident a severe jail sentence and then granting medical [[parole]]. 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 [[national security|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]]s from combining into a general organized protest that can threaten the CCP's hold on power.{{cn|date=January 2024}}

===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.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-01-11 |title=Interview with Ambassador Liu Xiaoming On Nile TV International |url=http://big5.fmprc.gov.cn/gate/big5/eg.china-embassy.org/eng/dsxx/cfyj/2002/t77035.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111065440/http://big5.fmprc.gov.cn/gate/big5/eg.china-embassy.org/eng/dsxx/cfyj/2002/t77035.htm |archive-date=2012-01-11 |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=[[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China]]}}</ref>

== 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."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Lin |first=Chun |title=The transformation of Chinese socialism |date=2006 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8223-3785-0 |location=Durham [N.C.] |pages=208 |oclc=63178961}}</ref> 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]] to poor management of student welfare.<ref name=":0" />

==See also ==
*[[Protest and dissent in China]]
*[[2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests]]
*[[Liberalism in China]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}{{China topics}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chinese Democracy Movement}}
[[Category:Chinese democracy movements| ]]
[[Category:Political movements]]
[[Category:Political repression in China]]