Post-Tiananmen 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 people…have 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

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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 > May 4 movement • Dissatisfaction with CCP, modernization > 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/exhibits/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”