Human Rights Repression in China
After the economic reforms of the late 1980s and 1990s, China quickly became an economic powerhouse. The economic liberalization, however, was not matched by democratic reforms. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ruled the People’s Republic with an iron fist. It censored the news industry and controlled what students were taught in primary and secondary schools. Such practices limited freedom of speech and thought. The CCP also required all nonstate organizations and groups to register with the government. International nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were not free to operate in China unless they were willing to undergo strict regulation. Opposition political parties did not stand a chance in China’s governing system, although some debate was allowed in the legislative process. Overall, however, the governing system was designed to thwart all challenges to the CCP’s authority.
How could the CCP have such power? The Communists had controlled China since 1949. The government owned and controlled all industries. Government officials had killed or imprisoned those who had spoken out against previous government actions, such as the Great Leap Forward.
Tiananmen Square Chinese intellectuals and students had a history of protesting against their government based on the May Fourth Movement in 1919. In the spring of 1989, pro-democracy activists organized a public event mourning the death of a sympathetic high official. The protesters demanded a chance to speak with Chinese leaders about freedom of the press and other reforms. After the Chinese government refused to meet with the activists, citizens in more than 400 Chinese cities staged sit-ins, refused to attend classes, and began hunger strikes. Hundreds of thousands of students, professors, and urban workers staged a massive protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. After seven weeks of protests, the government declared martial law. It sent troops armed with tanks and assault weapons into Beijing. Citizens responded by setting up barricades to block the troops.
On June 4, 1989, the army arrived in Tiananmen Square and attacked the unarmed protesters. The Chinese government claimed that nobody died in Tiananmen Square that day. No mention of the event was included in school texts, and the government blocked all Web sites that discussed the Tiananmen Square incident and human rights abuses in China. However, estimates by Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and the New York Times indicated that anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand civilians were killed. As Chinese officials continue to describe the Tiananmen event as a western conspiracy, Tiananmen mothers are prohibited from openly mourning family members who died in June 1989. The government still imprisons those who commemorate June 4. (Connect: Analyze the methods of protest at Tiananmen Square and the May 4th Movement. See Topic 7.5.)
Minority Rights in China The communist government in China has struggled with the demands of the nation’s 55 ethnic minorities. Some prominent examples were calls by Tibetans for more autonomy or independence and the complaints of the Uighur people concerning religious and political discrimination in the northwest province of Xinjiang.
In 2011, some of the Mongolian people in China protested against the high number of Han Chinese who had moved into Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China, and disrupted their pastoral way of life. The Han are the largest ethnic group in China and worldwide. The Mongolians protested the environmental damage that came with settled agriculture, strip-mining of coal, building of highways, damming of rivers, and overgrazing of land.