State-society relations and the discourses and activities of the 1989 Beijing Student Movement

Many writings emphasize the importance of Chinese culture to the 1989 Beiji ng Student Movement. Comparing the 1989 movement to the May 4th movement of 1919 and to the December 9th movement of 1935-36, this study finds the rhe toric and activity patterns of the 1989 movement to be actually more tradit ional than those of its forerunners. This is quite a paradox, considering t he scale of social change in China during the 20th century. This article ar gues that the 1989 movement's traditionalist outlook can be explained by th ree structural conditions, all involving state-society relations. In compar ison with the states of the earlier movements, the state during the 1980s h ad a higher capacity for repression. To avoid immediate repression, student s tended to hide their real demands and goals behind safer and culturally c ongenial forms of action. Second, China in the 1980s had comparatively weak er independent civil organizations. Hence, the movement was poorly organize d, and competing activities frequently occurred in the same time and locati on. What determined the efficacy of these activities then were less the act ors' intentions than the perception of those who were observing the movemen t. This study argues that people's acceptance of particular movement activi ties is shaped by their perception of state legitimation. During the 1980s, most Chinese saw that the state's legitimacy lay in its moral performance, close to what was in traditional China. Therefore, people were more recept ive to culturally and morally charged movement activities. This furthered t he domination of traditionalism during the 1989 movement.