Joseph Fewsmith: China since Tiananmen

Excerpt

China since Tiananmen covers political developments in China up to the Seventeenth Party Congress of 2007, with particular attention to the expansion of political thinking beyond the liberal, “new authoritarian,” and ideologically conservative positions that previously typified Chinese discourse. Surveying a range of open sources, including newspapers, published works, and official statements, Fewsmith concisely explains the broadened range of perspectives that emerged among political actors in the PRC during this period. He suggests that for Chinese officials and many intellectuals social and political stability were paramount in light of other developments since 1989. Among these were the collapse of the Russian economy, the fate of the former Yugoslavia, and the common perception of American hegemonic behavior in the post-Cold War order. Fewsmith demonstrates that for many Chinese thinkers, the lesson of the Tiananmen crisis was not about human rights in China. Rather, they tended to interpret it with reference to what such international developments suggested about radical reform, weakened state capacity, and U.S. intentions. Given the prevalence of such views, party rule persisted, while its liberal critics became marginalized. …