Democratising China and Taiwan: cultural and institutional paradigms

Abstract

Maoist militant revolution died with Mao on 9 September 1 976. Deng Xioaping's political reform, in spite of the great expectations it raised by the 1979-89 modernization push, met an equally tragic death on 4 June 1 989, when he sent in his tanks to crush the peaceful pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square. Before 3 June no one foresaw that the 1989 pro-democracy movement would end up more disastrously than its equally famous forerunner, the May 4 Movement, exactly seventy years earlier in 191 9. Of course, there are many differences between the two movements, but there are also many fundamental similarities. The most salient and remarkable similarity between the two historic events, which should cause the most soul-searching among the Chinese people, particularly the intellectuals, is the tragic, almost fatalistic, way the intellectuals' attempts at democratizing China met a tragic fate at the hands of the similar traditional Chinese authoritarian political despots. In terms of democratization, which was the principal modernization goal of the May 4 Movement, the Chinese reformist elites, both cultural and political, achieved very little in their seventy year long and painful struggles. Show more