The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement

465 Pages·2001·2.5 MB·English

by  Dingxin Zhao

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T H E P O W E R O F T I A N A N M E N
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T H E P O W E R O F T I A N A N M E N
State-Society
Relations and the
1989 Beijing Student
Movement
D I N G X I N Z H A O
the university of chicago press
chicago and london
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dingxin zhaois assistant professor of sociology at the
University of Chicago.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2001 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2001
Printed in the United States of America
09 08 2 3 4 5
isbn: 0-226-98260-2 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zhao, Dingxin
The power of Tiananmen : state-society relations and the 1989
Beijing student movement / Dingxin Zhao
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-226-98260-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. China—History—Tiananmen Square Incident, 1989.
I. Title.
ds779.32 .z49 2001
951.05(cid:2)8—dc21 00-057685
(cid:2)(cid:3)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.
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In memory of
my grandmother Wang Cuidi
( ),
who raised my brother, sister, and me
in our uneasy childhood
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Contents
Foreword by Charles Tilly, ix
Preface, xv
Chronology, xxiii
Introduction, 1
part one: the origin of the 1989 student movement
1 China’s State-Society Relations and Their Changes during the 1980s / 39
2 Intellectual Elites and the 1989 Movement / 53
3 Economic Reform, University Expansion, and Student Discontents / 79
4 The Decline of the System for Controlling Students in Universities / 101
5 On the Eve of the 1989 Movement / 123
part two: the development of the 1989 beijing
student movement
6 A Brief History of the 1989 Movement / 145
7 State Legitimacy, State Behaviors, and Movement Development / 209
8 Ecology-Based Mobilization and Movement Dynamics / 239
9 State-Society Relations and the Discourses and Activities of a Movement / 267
10 The State, Movement Communication, and the Construction of Public Opinion / 297
Conclusion, 331
appendix 1:A Methodological Note, 357
appendix 2:Interview Questions, 363
References, 371
Name Index, 413
Subject Index, 420
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Foreword
In Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges tells of an Argentine boy who disappeared in
an Indian raid. Years later, the bereaved parents heard of a young man who
might be their lost son. Although the Indian-raised man was averse to towns
and unable to speak their tongue, the town-dwellers brought their putative son
home. When the man arrived at their house, he hesitated at the entrance, then
suddenly raced through the foyer and two patios, entered the kitchen, reached
into the hearth, and pulled out a knife he had hidden there as a boy. “His eyes
shone with joy,” continues Borges,
and his parents wept because they had found their son. Perhaps this recollection was
followed by others, but the Indian could not live within walls, and one day he went
in search of his wilderness. I wonder what he felt in that dizzying moment when
past and present became one. I wonder whether the lost son was reborn and died in
that instant of ecstasy; and whether he ever managed to recognize . . . his parents
and his home. (“The Captive”)
Can any of us travelers ever really go home again? When Chinese troops
ruthlessly cleared protesters from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June3 and 4,
1989,DingxinZhaowascompletinganentomologydoctoralthesisinMontreal.
Three weeks earlier he had returned to Canada from a month in Shanghai, his
home. During his visit, Zhao had witnessed early stages of the mobilization
that culminated in June’s government massacre near the Gate of Heavenly
Peace. Focusing the eyes of a passionate witness with the newfound spectacles
of a skilled sociologist, he has since then become an expert analyst of the
Tiananmen mobilization. He has recognized his home, but as only an insider
who has journeyed elsewhere can do.
The Power of Tiananmen concerns power in two different senses of the word:
as in power struggles and as in the power of an idea or experience. First comes