Democracy movements of China
Template:Short description Template:Expand Chinese Template:Infobox civil conflict Template:Chinese democracy movement Template:Contemporary Chinese political thought Democracy movements in the People's Republic of China are a series of organized political movements, 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 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
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">Template:Cite journal</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 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">Template:Cite book</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.Template:Citation needed
Development
Throughout the 1980s, these ideas increased in popularity among college-educated Chinese, through the "New Enlightenment movement" led by intellectuals.<ref name=":12">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref> Overseas pro-democracy organizations including the Chinese Alliance for Democracy were founded by Chinese activists. Student protests inspired by intellectuals broke out in 1986.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In the wake of growing corruption and economic dislocation, the Tiananmen Square protests erupted in 1989, which culminated in a military crackdown in June.
Government's response
Narratives of a CCP-style democracy have evolved in CCP's language since its founding.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> The constitution of the People's Republic of China refers to the state as a people's democratic dictatorship, a term rooted in Mao Zedong's concept of new democracy formulated during the Chinese Civil War.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite journal</ref> During the general secretaryship of Xi Jinping, the CCP has utilized the termwhole-process people's democracy to describe the PRC.<ref name=":2" />
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">Template:Cite book</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" />