MCLC: signs of a new Tiananmen

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: signs of a new Tiananmen
***********************************************************

Source: The Diplomat (4/4/12):
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/04/04/signs-of-a-new-tiananmen-in-china/

Intellectual Renaissance
Signs of a New Tiananmen in China
By Minxin Pei 

Pervasive corruption, lawlessness among the ruling elites, and a sense of
a loss of direction permeating all levels of Chinese society. The
conditions for another Tiananmen may be there.

The Western media has largely missed the most significant development in
Chinese politics these days.  It¹s not the dramatic downfall of Bo Xilai,
although the incident is one of the most important events in elite
politics in post-Deng China.  Rather, it¹s the stirrings that have revived
contentious political issues banished from polite society in China since
the Tiananmen crackdown more than two decades ago.

Of course, one is unlikely to find the discussion of such sensitive issues
in most official publications (although some media outlets affiliated with
official publications have been particularly adventurous in carrying
articles on these topics in the past few months). The range of issues is
wide and diverse. Despite disagreement among participants in this
incipient post-1989 Chinese intellectual renaissance, the discussion is
fast converging on three critical issues. First, there appears to be a
widely shared consensus among China¹s thinking class that the country¹s
economic reform is either dead or mired in stagnation. Second, those who
believe that economic reform is dead or stuck argue that only political
reform, specifically the kind that reduces the power of the state and
makes the government accountable to its people, will resuscitate economic
reform (some advocate for more radical, democratizing changes, although
the consensus on this particular point has yet to emerge). Third, the
status quo, which can be characterized as a sclerotic authoritarian
crony-capitalist order, isn¹t sustainable and, without a fundamental shift
in direction, a crisis is inevitable.

Such signs of an intellectual awakening are worth noting for many reasons.
Its timing is certainly significant. Many people would connect this
development with China¹s pending leadership transition. In China, as in
most other countries, pending changes in leadership usually stimulate
discussions among the intelligentsia about the future of the country and
the accomplishments or failures of the departing leadership. Chinese
intellectuals, mostly liberals, may want to seize this once-in-a-decade
opportunity to reignite a debate on whether the existing political system
serves the country¹s long-term needs of economic development, social
justice, and national unity.

Another, perhaps more important reason, is that more than two decades
after the Tiananmen crackdown (and after Deng Xiaoping famously admonished
his colleagues there should be ³no arguing,² essentially ending the
ideological debate among the ruling elites over whether post-Mao China was
embracing capitalism), members of China¹s thinking class have come to
realize that the post-Tiananmen consensus, which might be characterized as
giving economic reform and development a chance to solve China¹s political
problems (one-party rule and poor governance), has basically broken down.
In other words, the post-Tiananmen model, all but intellectually bankrupt,
provides no useful guidance in the coming decades.

One may be tempted to dismiss such discussions as idle chatter among
marginalized Chinese intellectuals. This would be a mistake. Some of the
participants in these discussions are influential opinion makers or
advisors to the Chinese government. Their views reflect the thinking of at
least some insiders of the Communist Party. So the frustrated tone and
anxiety conveyed by their views could suggest that more open-minded
elements in the party, some of whom may be in line to assume senior or
important positions as a result of the leadership transition, share the
same sense of crisis and urgency.

Another reason to take the emerging intellectual renaissance in China
seriously is that the ruling party actually needs a modicum of ideological
legitimacy, even though it chiefly relies on political repression and
economic performance to hold on to its power. No Chinese leader can
survive long if he is seen or labeled by the elite members of the
intelligentsia universally as an obstacle to reform. If the majority of
China¹s most respected public intellectuals openly challenge Chinese
leaders¹ reformist credentials and cry loudly that ³the emperor has no
clothes,² the result isn¹t just political embarrassment, but fatal loss of
authority and credibility for these leaders among their colleagues.

Another significance of this intellectual re-awakening is the emergence of
newly emboldened liberals, who have endured nearly two decades in China¹s
political wilderness. They¹ve obviously sensed that the tide is turning
against the post-Tiananmen neo-authoritarian regime. With soaring
inequality, pervasive corruption, lawlessness among the ruling elites (as
the Bo Xilai story has revealed), signs of division within the top
hierarchy, and a sense of loss of direction permeating all levels of
Chinese society, Chinese liberals, some of whom former political prisoners
or blacklisted academics who can¹t publish their works in the official
media, may think that they have a new opportunity to push for democratic
change. If the track record of China¹s pro-democracy movement in the 1980s
provides any guidance, the party should be worried. In the 1980s, each
episode of intellectual renaissance, such as the debate on political
reform in 1986 and the ³culture fever² of 1988, was followed by open
confrontations between the regime and the pro-democracy movement. In the
1980s, the party was able to prevail during such confrontations, but paid
a huge price (we all remember the purges of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang and
the bloody crackdown on June 4, 1989).

For now, of course, it¹s too early to tell whether these intellectual
stirrings are going anywhere beyond the elite publications and online
forums. However, if I were a sitting member of the Politburo Standing
Committee, I¹d be very concerned. The voices of China¹s liberal
intelligentsia are now resonating among a public increasingly disenchanted
with the party¹s policies. In particular, such voices should appeal to
China¹s better-educated youths, whose numbers have increased several times
since Tiananmen. Two decades of rapid economic growth, consumerism, and
state-sponsored nationalism may have lulled them into political apathy.
But as they experience the injustice, corruption, and incompetence of the
current system in their daily lives, they¹ll most likely feel increasingly
swayed by voices urging a fundamental change of course.

Since the Tiananmen tragedy 23 years ago, a question on many people¹s
minds is whether another Tiananmen will happen. The Chinese government has
done everything imaginable to ensure that it won¹t. As China enters a more
uncertain decade, what¹s becoming increasingly apparent is that many of
the social and political conditions for producing a Tiananmen-style crisis
have re-emerged.  An intellectual renaissance is certainly one of them.

http://the-diplomat.com/2012/04/04/signs-of-a-new-tiananmen-in-china/?print
=yes