Tiananmen Square: the former communist rallying-point is now notorious as the site of a massacre that is one of this year's disputed and politically-charged anniversaries. Credit: History Today
A blend of “staggering” economic growth and revived nationalism is fuelling China’s modernized authoritarianism, write Perry Link and Joshua Kurlantzick. The country’s material successes, reflected in its extensive foreign currency holdings, add to the appeal of the “China model” of authoritarian development.
The Communist Party’s determination to retain its monopoly of power through thoughtwork and other sophisticated forms of control, means that political liberalization is not on its agenda. “The Party’s adaptive methods of disruption and distraction have helped maintain control during a period of rapid change, suggesting a durable domestic model of authoritarian governance,” they contend.
This year sees a series of politically sensitive anniversaries which government officials fear could prompt unrest and instability, fraying the social contract underpinning the regime. The ruling Communist party marks 60 years in power, while dissidents and democrats will highlight the 90th anniversary of the 4th May protest movement and the 4th June 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The anniversaries highlight how China’s search for modernity and freedom may yet be accommodated within the country’s view of itself as a special nation, writes Jonathan Fenby. The legacy of May 4th in particular, he writes, “will remain with intellectuals and dissidents who dream of a democratic China in which the rule of law pertains and the Communist party no longer claims a monopoly of the Mandate of Heaven.”
- Kurlantzick and Link will discuss the full paper on which their article is based at a June 4 conference on Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians in Washington, DC.
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