Teresa Wright
World Politics Review
April 16, 2013
For at least the past decade, China has witnessed tens of thousands of mass social protests per year. In 2005, the last year in which Chinese authorities released figures, there were 87,000 such protests. Scholars and observers have estimated that roughly the same number has occurred in each subsequent year. These protests have been the subject of a great deal of media coverage in the West, with the typical takeaway being that China is a simmering cauldron of unrest, perpetually on the verge of bubbling over. Yet the reality is far more complex. Since 1990, almost none of these movements have been overtly political in nature. And generally speaking, China’s political leaders have done an adequate job of responding to these protests, with the result that although mass protests should not be expected to subside, they should not be viewed as the harbinger of large-scale political upheaval in the country either.
Historical Context
China has a long and storied history of social protest movements. They span from the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions of the mid- to late-1800s, to the Communist Revolution of the mid-1900s, to the Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, to the political protests of the 1980s, to the multifaceted mass protests that have been prevalent since the early 1990s. Since the beginning of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule in China in 1949, China’s ruling regime has even fostered mass protests, both directly through overt encouragement and indirectly through its responses.
During Mao Zedong’s rule (1949-1976), mass movements were often glorified; Mao frequently made positive references to the power of the “revolutionary masses” and exhorted the people and the Communist Party to engage in continual revolution. The dramatic culmination of this was the chaotic Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, when, incited by Mao, scores of groups of young “Red Guards” spread across China, fervently looking for and punishing authority figures who were perceived to be harboring anti-communist ideas or engaging in anti-communist behavior.
Following Mao’s death in 1976, the Cultural Revolution came to an end, and new leaders came to control the CCP. Many of them — most prominently Deng Xiaoping, who led the CCP from 1978 to 1997 — had been targets during the Cultural Revolution. The ascent of these leaders was aided by a mass movement that congregated in Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square in April 1976. The participants exhibited support for Deng and by extension called for an end to the radicalism of the CCP’s Maoist faction. Although in the short term the protests were repressed by the still Maoist-dominated public security forces, the sentiment expressed by the participants in the protests helped to pave the way for Deng’s ascent to the CCP’s highest post in 1978.
Once in power, Deng embraced some economic and political reforms, and at times appeared supportive of social movements toward these ends. Yet he and other senior party leaders were also very skeptical about mass protest activities and fearful of what they perceived as the chaos and threat to their own power that such activities might foment.
During roughly the first decade of Deng’s leadership, a number of politically oriented mass protest movements emerged in China. Each began with the perceived support of one or more top political leaders, but ended abruptly — and in the case of 1989, violently — when dominant CCP leaders came to believe that the movement had become a threat to their power and might bring back the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Even so, although the protests were political in nature, none called for an end to communism or for the fall of the CCP; these protest movements were reformist, not revolutionary.
In late-1978, as Deng was consolidating his position as the CCP’s top leader, citizens spontaneously gathered and posted personal appeals at Tiananmen Square and a nearby brick wall. Initially, they asked for the redress of individual wrongs suffered during the Cultural Revolution. As time passed, some called for further political reform. Mimeographed “people’s periodicals” also appeared. The most daring of these called for outright democratization of the political system. Similar activities emerged in nearly 30 other big cities. Although Deng initially expressed his support for this movement, known as “Democracy Wall,” in the spring of 1979 he castigated and arrested the leaders of the movement and banned all “pictures, posters, slogans and publications” that might call into question the leadership of the CCP and communism in general.
A second politically oriented protest movement emerged in the winter of 1986-1987. In the months prior to this, some CCP elites in favor of hastened efforts to achieve economic modernization publicly argued for further educational, political and administrative reform. The most notable was Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who had been chosen by Deng as his replacement in this post, but still ultimately remained subject to Deng’s dictates. In late-1986, students at one of China’s premier technical universities, the University of Science and Technology (UST), began protests calling for greater political reform, as well as for improved living conditions for college students and graduates. Similar activities arose at 150 higher education institutions in 17 cities. In early 1987, Deng instructed party elites to bring the movement to an end. At UST, activist Vice President Fang Lizhi, who had voiced a radical cry for “total Westernization,” was expelled from the party and dismissed from his position. Within the top ranks of the CCP, Hu was forced to resign from his post, and his younger protégé, Zhao Ziyang, became the new general secretary. However, the student participants generally were not punished.
The third and most widespread social protest movement to emerge during the 1980s was spurred by Hu’s death in April 1989. The movement started spontaneously, as college students, first in Beijing and soon across the country, gathered to mourn the former CCP general secretary, whom they viewed as their champion due to his perceived support for the student protests of 1986-1987. Indeed, most of the students who came to lead the movement of 1989 had been active in the protests of 1986-1987.
Between April and May 1989, the students’ initial spontaneous acts of mourning morphed into large-scale marches, demonstrations, class boycotts, hunger strikes and sit-ins, most prominently in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, but in virtually every other major Chinese city as well. Their main demands were for an end to political corruption — based on the widespread perception that those with political connections were able to gain great wealth, while those without were not — and freedom of association, particularly the right to organize student groups free from CCP control. Tens of millions participated. In mid-May, top CCP leaders, led by Deng, declared martial law and ordered military units to clear the square. Still serving as the CCP’s general secretary, Zhao reportedly cast the lone dissenting vote. Subsequently, he visited the students at the square, apologizing for coming “too late.” As the soldiers moved from the outskirts of the city to the center, they were met by hundreds of thousands of city residents who spontaneously poured into the streets to block them. With apparently no clear orders regarding how to respond to such a situation, the army retreated.
For the next two weeks, the student-led protests continued, and citizens from all walks of life, including state-owned enterprise workers, joined the demonstrations and began to organize. Yet on June 3 and 4, the regime’s dominant elites moved to finally end the protests. Soldiers again pressed from the outer reaches of Beijing toward the city center, and again ordinary citizens flooded the streets to block them. Yet this time the soldiers used violent force against anyone who stood in their way. An estimated 2,000 were killed, and many thousands more were injured. A few days later, Zhao was dismissed from his post and placed under house arrest, where he remained until his death in 2005. The movement’s top leaders were either arrested and sentenced to lengthy jail sentences or forced to flee the country. These political refugees remain in exile today.
Continuities, New Developments and Change
Since 1990, politically oriented social protest movements such as these have been virtually nonexistent. Yet multitudes of other kinds of movements have arisen. Unlike the movements of the 1980s, the protests that have appeared from 1990 to the present have been primarily nonpolitical in nature, and they have not been led by students. Further, they have been focused on local authorities and employers rather than the central government. More broadly, however, the protests of the 1990s through the present are like the protests of the 1980s in that they have been reformist rather than revolutionary in nature.
In the early 1990s, the most common popular protests were undertaken by farmers in China’s countryside, in opposition to what were perceived to be illegitimate, arbitrary and unfair local taxes and fees. When the central government abolished all such rural taxes in 2000, protests of this nature disappeared. In the late-1990s and the early years of the new millennium, another wave of large-scale protests was spearheaded by the workers of formerly state-owned enterprises. These protests were staged in response to mass lay-offs and forced early retirements that began in the late-1990s, when most state-owned enterprises were privatized. Retirees whose pensions were not being paid in full or on time were particularly active. The central government generally responded sympathetically, pressuring enterprises and local authorities to make good on their pension guarantees, and establishing job training and other preferential resources for laid-off workers. These measures seem to have worked: Since the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, protests on the part of current or former state-owned enterprise workers have virtually ceased.
However, many other kinds of protests have emerged from the turn of the 21st century through the present. The most prominent have featured four types of complaints and complainants: first, migrant workers subjected to labor-related abuses; second, victims of land seizures; third, victims of environmental degradation; and fourth, ethnic minorities enraged by mistreatment by Han Chinese local elites.
Migrant workers have taken to the streets to protest against physical and economic abuses perpetrated by local employers and political authorities. Typical migrant worker grievances have centered on wages, particularly wage arrears and wage underpayment; draconian workplace rules and related fines; and, especially in the case of self-employed migrant workers, harsh treatment at the hands of local authorities. In cases involving factory workers, workplace-related grievances have led migrant workers to seek redress via direct requests to the employer. When these attempts have been met with intransigence, and especially when they have led to violent acts of reprisal on the part of the employer, workers have sometimes engaged in mass protests. In the case of self-employed migrant workers, such as pedicab drivers and street peddlers, mistreatment by local authorities has in some cases sparked immediate mass protests, without any prior attempt to seek redress via other methods, such as petitioning local political authorities. These protests have shown no sign of abating. If, as is expected, the migrant labor force continues to shrink, thereby increasing migrant workers’ economic leverage, such protests may even increase.
The second type of protest has involved citizen mobilization against unjust land seizures. Since the late-1970s, Chinese political authorities have leased land to all rural households; currently, the lease period is 30 years. The land allotment is designed not only to ensure subsistence needs, but also to allow for profit-making use. This system has been and remains very popular among rural residents. However, when the central government banned local rural taxes and fees in 2000, it did not provide local authorities with any new revenue to pay for the local government services that those local taxes and fees had in large part funded. As a result, local authorities in many areas have been extremely strapped for cash, often lacking the funds even to pay their own salaries. Many have thus confiscated the land allocated to farmers and leased it to businesses for a fee. Although most farmers have been provided some compensation for their lost land, in many cases the compensation has been viewed as inadequate and unfair. Accordingly, protests against such practices have been targeted at local political authorities. To date, unjust seizures have shown no sign of diminishing. They also appear to have become more violent over time.
The third type of popular protest has been directed toward local polluters of the environment and the local authorities who protect them. The complainants’ grievances have been localized and specific, and have involved citizens who have been or are anticipated to be directly affected by the polluter. Almost always, environmental protests have been preceded by failed attempts to seek redress via formal political processes, including the court system, petition-writing and letters of complaint. When these efforts have failed, those affected have engaged in demonstrations that have included road blockages and violent confrontations with local business owners and political authorities. Over the course of the past few years, environmental protests have grown both in number and in size.
The fourth type of “mass disturbance” has involved members of China’s ethnic minorities, most notably Tibetans, Mongolians and Uighurs. The underlying grievance in these cases has been the CCP-encouraged influx of Han Chinese into once minority-dominant regions. Causing particular ire has been the resultant economic and political dominance of Han Chinese in these regions, as well as the diminution of local minority culture and lifestyles. This type of protest has often become violent. And because the underlying cause can only be expected to grow more prominent, neither the frequency nor the volatility of these protests is likely to diminish in the near future.
Responses to Contemporary Protests
Despite their differences in terms of specific grievances and the particular demographic groups involved, most of the protests that have appeared in China over roughly the past decade have displayed the same general chronology: localized and specific grievances; attempts, for some, at amelioration via formal means of political participation, such as the courts and petition-writing to official “letters and visits” offices; localized mass protest; local reprisals at the hands of lower-level officials; and attempts at amelioration by higher-level officials.
As is evident in the sequence described above, government responses to the social protests of the past decade have varied, displaying both repressive and responsive features. While local authorities generally have responded to popular protests with repression, punishment and at times violence, higher-level political leaders typically have made at least some effort to address the concerns of the demonstrators and to reprimand lower-level officials for malfeasance. Perhaps for this reason, even the biggest and most violent protests have not been directed against central governing authorities or the authoritarian political system as a whole. Instead, mass demonstrations in China have focused on specific, local grievances, and have been directed against local officials, businesses and employers. Perhaps counterintuitively, to the extent that central authorities have responded sympathetically to popular protests, aggrieved citizens have felt more encouraged to protest. As the popular Chinese saying goes, “A big disturbance leads to a big solution, a small disturbance leads to a small solution, and no disturbance leads to no solution.”
Most often, protests on the part of migrant workers have been met with a harsh response from local elites but a somewhat sympathetic response from higher-level authorities. The central government has tried to address the mistreatment of migrant workers by passing laws, such as the 2008 Labor Law, as well as by pressuring local employers and authorities to ameliorate abuses that have come to the central regime’s attention when large-scale unrest has appeared. The situation with land seizure cases is similar: Central authorities have castigated local authorities’ illegitimate actions. Yet until the central government ensures that local governments have adequate funding, local authorities will continue to be under pressure to find alternative revenue sources, and land seizures are likely to continue.
As with migrant worker and land seizure cases, and perhaps even more so, environmental protests often have elicited a sympathetic response from higher-level authorities. Also similar to other kinds of protests, environmental “disturbances” have prompted mixed behavior from different local authorities, with some acting to champion the people’s cause, and others — and probably most — playing a repressive role and at times serving as the target of the complainants’ ire.
With regard to ethnic protests, the response of governing authorities has also varied. In Mongolia, the central government’s response to protests has been somewhat sympathetic. Demonstrations in Tibet and Xinjiang, by contrast, typically have been met with unapologetic repression. This dynamic was evident in recent cases of large-scale unrest on the part of China’s Uighur minority in Xinjiang in July 2011 and 2009, and on the part of Tibetans in March 2008.
Implications for the Future
The prevalence of mass social protests in contemporary China makes clear that formal institutions of political participation in China are not functioning satisfactorily. In some cases, protests are preceded by failed efforts to engage the regime via formal avenues of political participation, such as petitioning. In other cases, protesters make no prior effort to pursue formal methods of participation. In these instances, mass protests erupt spontaneously following a violent or particularly egregious act on the part of local political or economic elites. In general, recent cases of popular protest suggest that the public views higher-level political officials and institutions much more favorably and optimistically than it views lower-level political authorities. This bifurcated view of China’s ruling regime is reinforced by the actions of political authorities at different levels.
Overall, although popular protests represent an inefficient and costly method of political participation, since the early 1990s they have adequately served as a last recourse for the Chinese populace when more regular means of political participation have failed. And because the populace accurately understands that this is the case, popular protests are likely to continue. However, rather than threatening the stability of China’s governing system, mass social protests appear to have become an integral part of it.
Teresa Wright is chair and professor of political science at California State University, Long Beach.
