Brian M Downing
This week marks thirty years since the remarkable student demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The movement is often seen as a pivotal moment in China’s history. A potent democratic opposition challenged a statist leadership. It was crushed by the People’s Liberation Army. Estimates vary but at least a thousand people were killed.
What were the prospects for a Chinese democracy back in 1989? And how does the Chinese political-military elite look upon democracy today? In China, the idea that democracy is both good and inevitable is a western conceit – one that will be shown false in coming decades.
Democracy in 1989
China had left Maoist economics behind but hadn’t become the global force it is today. Chairman Mao had imposed economic programs that were supposed to enable the country to leap ahead of capitalist powers, but they failed badly. The state mobilized spirited youths, the Red Guards, to eradicate remnants of pre-revolutionary culture, but that led to terror and chaos. Paradoxically, the Red Guards opened the door to a peculiar form of participation in government. Part Brown Shirt, part Green Vests, one might say. It wasn’t democracy by any means but it became uncontrolled popular action. The state closed the door fast and wanted to keep it that way.
Ny 1989, revolutionary fervor had eased and life was hard in city and village alike. Prosperity and restored greatness hadn’t yet arrived. This interlude may have offered a small opportunity for an opening but there was little support for it and a great deal of political-cultural opposition.
The leadership had residual legitimacy from the conflicts of previous decades. They had taken part in expelling western imperialists and the Japanese army as well. Warlordism and civil war had been ended within the living memory of many. Beneath those achievements, and resonating with it, lay a culture of deference to authority – from household fathers to village elders to the leaders in Beijing.
Democracy was a foreign ideology that imbued the soldiers and merchants who carved up the cities of China’s coasts and plied its rivers. The public didn’t see the students of Tiananmen Square as dupes of the West but as privileged children who failed to show proper respect for the nation’s leaders.
The leadership saw the students as a dangerous populist force that could destabilize the country again, as the Red Guards had twenty years earlier. Religious movements such as the Taipings had done the same in the previous century. Order must prevail. The leadership must see to it.
Democracy today
Governments are reluctant to cede power and eager and adroit at developing justifications for their power and privilege. Many established democracies are giving them new ideas.
Democracy leads to anarchy and civil war and provides fertile ground for terrorist groups. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria are cases in point.
Disparate regions and peoples will press for autonomy and in time separatist movements arise. The UK, Spain, Pakistan, and Iraq have shown this. Democracy or even open speech in China would strengthen ongoing separatist movements in Tibet and the Uighur region.
Some longstanding democracies are becoming deeply polarized and approaching paralysis. The US, France, and the EU demonstrate this. Beijing might believe that those democracies will not be around by the end of the century.
China’s ruling elite has little to worry about at present. Hong Kong has residual freedoms from its British period. Beijing will contain democratic forces there and probably crush them. The process may be underway. The methods might not be as brutal as thirty years ago but the determination is just as resolute.
The bulk of the Chinese people support their rulers, anti-democratic though they are. The nominally-communist rulers have industrialized the country more rapidly than Mao dared dream and are well on their way to reestablishing China as the center of the world – a longstanding hope of the Chinese people who’ve endured two centuries of humiliation and civil war. Opposition is presently weak and owing to the state’s mastery of surveillance and repression, it’s unlikely to become problematic in the near future.
Beijing’s path to renewed greatness entails support for authoritarian rulers around the globe. Indeed, it’s central to their strategic thinking. Princes and generals will receive no criticism from China, as long as they fit properly with the goals of expanding markets and controlling world commodities. The next half century will see considerable and perhaps desperate competition between the US and China for influence in Asia and Africa. Political affinities will give advantages to China.
© 2019 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.