PostTiananmen contradictions

1
Post-Tiananmen contradictions

• Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

2
Asian model

• Market economics
• Stability
• Authoritarian one-party rule

3
The Chinese model

• Encourage business
• Stifle political initiative
• socialist market economy
• Corporatism
• Market replaces plan
• Business publicly owned
• Developing private sector

4
Contradictions

• State vs. private sector
• Officials vs. masses (rulers vs. ruled)
• City vs. countryside
• Floating population vs. urban middle class
• Rich vs. poor
• Taiwan independence vs. reunification

5
Legitimacy

• Still Communist Party still rhetorical
  continuity with liberatory project of the
  revolution
• Shunkouliu (slippery jingles) as form of folk
  satire, de-legitimization (Link and Zhou 108)

6
Migration

• Household registration loosened
• Floating population 100 million
• Urbanization
• Approx. 40 urban now
• Urban social problems
• Beggars
• Crime
• Prostitution

7
Migrant labor

• Gao village

8
Gao village migration causes

• Pricing policy, local levies ? economic distress
• Population growth ? surplus labor
• Ecological pressure
• 30 migrated by 1995

9
Gao village migration effects

• Peasant economy (self-sufficiency) eroding
  (commodification)
• virtually all the young peoplehave gone.
• Exploitation and mistreatment in the city
• But wages sent home help the village

10
Gao on the new market economy

• Township enterprises really established during
  commune era

• local state corporatism (p. 203-4 see also
  Potter Potter)
• Uneven development
• coastal areas first
• pull factor for migration

11
Traditional culture in the modernization period
12
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13
Religion

• Some religious practices okay again Confucianism
  encouraged (Meisner 526)
• Ancestor worship also okay again, but migrant
  youth losing interest

14
Nationalism as civic religion (Yang Guobin)

• Meisner sees Chinese characteristics as
  nationalism replacing socialism as emphasis
  Deng The purpose of socialism is to make the
  country rich and strong. (525)
• Yang Guobin sees political movements as
  replacement of ideologies (religion) with
  nationalistic civic religion
• Decline of Confucianism gt May 4 movement
• Dissatisfaction with CCP, modernization gt
  Tiananmen

15
A quasi-religious movement the Mao Craze of the
90s

• Among students
• Spread from Beijing after Tiananmen, spread to
  tertiary universities
• Both pro- and anti- Mao factions
• Folk-religion aspect
• Mao Zedong like Zhao Gong (Kitchen God)
• Buttons, statues like St. Christopher medals
• http//voxlibris.claremont.edu/geninfo/news/exhibi
  ts/mao/maofever.htm

16
Religion-based movements Falun Gong

• http//www.falundafa.org/
• http//www.let.leidenuniv.nl/bth/falun.htm

17
Religion-based movements Falun Gong

• Beliefs
• Buddhism wheel of life, suffering,
  self-cultivation
• New age
• Science fiction but anti-science
• Evil forces aliens caused human problems
• Apocalyptic
• Messianic
• a latent critique of emergent capitalist
  relations (Shue)
• Daoism Qigong practice (exercise/meditation)

18
Religion-based movements Falun Gong

• Social base
• Intelligentsia, esp. computer sci. physics
• Strong in Northeast
• State sector
• Army officers
• Laid off workers
• Government officials
• Party core?
• Overseas

19
Religion-based movements Falun Gong

• Causes
• Post-Cultural Revolution cynicism
• Cultural nationalism (Shue)
• Spiritual hunger
• Qigong revival
• Mutual aid society (also found in Christian Home
  Church movement)

20
Religion-based movements Falun Gong

• Why the party/state repressive reaction?
• Challenge to its moral hegemony (Shue)
• Challenge to organizational hegemony
  (corporatism)
• Fear of another Boxer Rebellion
• Fear of the power of the weak