Since 1990s, you could see Deng Xiaoping’s policy had a more pronounced character, which was more open to big foreign enterprises, more open to the big investment of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Western countries. Why so? Because he found out in the year 1989 that the pressure imposed by international society, especially the international society led by the United States, was not that great. That was one of the important conditions that allowed him to overcome the opposition.
In the two decades since 1989, the policies of the Communist Party have become more and more clear, which is to say, what they rely on has not really been the poor people of China, nor the so-called political left worldwide. What they really rely on has been international capitalism, including the capitalist class in China and in the Western world. Deng Xiaoping found out that as long as he gave them the opportunity to make money, they would definitely support the government.
In fact, they learned a lesson in 1989 – why the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed so quickly. They collapsed because they did not receive support from Western capitalists. The entire Western world had been opposing them, had been continuously opposing them. And with continuous pressure, it was bound to collapse at some crucial point. In order to make the Communist Party – the Chinese Communist Party – survive for long time, they figured they should go and unite with the Western capitalists.
Because of the big investments, and the fact that the Western world has made significant amounts of money in China, they not only persuaded the Western politicians, but also convinced the Western media to beautify the Communist Party’s rule. For this reason it has become extremely difficult to impose pressure from overseas on the Communist Party to make it change.
This is one of the most important reasons why, in 1997, I eventually accepted the exchange condition and came to the United States. I think the battle outside China has become a critical front in overturning the communist rule.
In China if you want to engage in any anti-Communist Party activities, then you would need some more or less free space. For example, if some people are there to give some anti-Communist Party speeches, then they would need some form of protection. Then the speech could gradually spread out and gradually take hold in the society and form a stream of force and a power. All these things call for certain protection, but where could this kind protection possibly come from, apart from some minimum protective measures from within the Communist Party?
The protection comes mainly from pressure imposed by international society. Through changes in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe as well as changes in South Africa, et cetera, we can see that the pressure coming from international society is very effective.
In fact, an extremely important factor in whether the domestic resistance movement within the country could reach a certain level or not is actually whether sufficient pressure could be obtained from overseas governments or not. We saw the success of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, saw the success in South Africa. But we are dealing with the Chinese Communist Party; we are facing a totally new situation.
There is an effective way that is very simple, which is one the Americans have practiced before, with President Kennedy and Present Reagan, who adopted those clear and strong policies against the communist countries and to protect those anti-government people within. This is a very effective policy. But the problem is, under the current circumstances, I don’t think the American government can make it happen again like that.
I think there is a big problem that we have not discussed. That is, the Americans tend to make a mistake: they think they should act on behalf of the other people rather than provide assistance to the other people. This is one of the reasons they often make mistake.
Wei Jingsheng was a prisoner of conscience in China for more than 18 years. Born in 1950 to parents who were Communist Party members, Wei served in the People’s Liberation Army and worked in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution.
In 1978, he wrote an essay called “The Fifth Modernization: Democracy” and posted it in a place that had come to be called Democracy Wall. Unlike most pro-freedom authors in China during that time, Wei signed his name to “The Fifth Modernization,” which was a direct challenge to the Beijing government’s strategy of instituting economic reforms while continuing to suppress political dissent. Wei was soon arrested on the charge of being “counter-revolutionary” and served more than 18 years in prison, including several years in forced labor camps and eight years on death row.
By the mid-90s, Wei was China’s best-known political prisoner. There was strong international pressure for his release and, in 1997, he was allowed to go overseas for medical treatment. He now lives in the United States and heads the Overseas Chinese Democratic Coalition.
The People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, after a decades-long civil war between communist and nationalist forces. The communist victory drove the nationalist government to the island of Taiwan. While tensions have eased in recent years, both the nationalist and communist forces still claim to rule all of China. China ranks as the world’s third largest country by area, and the largest by population, with over 1.3 billion people.
Since 1949, China has been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong led the country until his death in 1976. Mao’s era was marked by dramatic swings in policy, massive crackdowns on perceived opponents of the regime, and harsh repression. Since 1976, the Chinese government has broken with Marxist economic orthodoxy by instituting limited market-based reforms, but the party has retained its monopoly on political power.
Freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and religion are severely restricted, and the people of China are denied the right to change their government. The courts are controlled by the Communist Party and do not provide due process of law. Government control extends into every aspect of people’s lives, most notably in the one-child policy in which unauthorized pregnancies often result in forced abortion and sterilization. While technology has spread quickly in recent years, Freedom House ranks China as one of the three most repressive governments in the world in terms of Internet freedom.
While the rapid expansion of the private sector has dramatically changed the Chinese economy, fundamental principles of free market systems are lacking, including property rights and independent labor unions. Official corruption remains a major obstacle to developing a fully free economy.
In 1989, 100,000 people gathered in a peaceful demonstration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to protest human rights violations and demand democratic reforms. The protest lasted several weeks and inspired similar nonviolent demonstrations in other cities throughout China. On June 4, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army converged on the area with troops, tanks, and other advanced military weapons. Estimates of the death toll ranged from several hundred to several thousand. The army used similar tactics to suppress demonstrations in other cities and subsequently rounded up and imprisoned many thousands of protestors. The government vigorously defended these actions and instituted a campaign to purge those who had sympathized with protestors from the party and the government.
Although the Tiananmen Square massacre put an end to hopes for a speedy transition to democracy, courageous Chinese citizens have continued to risk imprisonment and worse to demand freedom. These human rights activists have included students, workers, lawyers, artists, and writers; Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims who demand respect for their cultures, traditions, and religious practices; members of the spiritual discipline known as Falun Gong; Catholics who insist that their church is headed by the Pope rather than by government-appointed religious officials; and members of the “house church” movement, representing millions of Protestant Christians who are forced to worship in secret because their churches are not authorized by the government. China’s many prisoners of conscience include members of each of these groups.
In 2010, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to imprisoned Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo. His wife was arrested in order to prevent her from attending the award ceremony, and the government employed a range of coercive techniques to prevent other human rights activists from attending. China’s leading human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, disappeared in early 2009 and is presumed to be in government custody.
The most recent Freedom in the World report from Freedom House gave China scores of 6 for civil liberties and 7 for political rights, where 1 is the highest and 7 the lowest possible score. Freedom House categorizes China as a “Not Free” country.
See all China videos