China's Students

In mid-1989 television viewers worldwide were shocked by scenes of bloodshed and brutality as the Chinese government sent troops into Tiananman Square to crush the student protest. As student leaders went into hiding and the full death toll became apparent, the Western world began to question the role of students as the vanguard of a powerful new movement. In fact, intellectuals in China have traditionally served as both servant and moral critic of the government. Many of the features of the student-led protest in Tiananman Square in 1989 echoed events throughout history, from imperial times to the May Fourth movement of 1919. The position of the intellectual as both inside and outside society, priviledged and feared, with a duty to remonstrate against corruption and to defend the nation against the "great chaos" or, as articulated in the uprising, the "abyss of history" has deep roots in the Chinese psyche and has, it is argued here, been exacerbated rather than resolved under Communism. Ruth Cherrington witnessed the massacre of June 1989 firsthand. In this book, she provides a social and historical context to the student led pro-democracy movement. She traces the historical heritage up to the eventual victory of the Communists in 1949 before focusing more closely on the experience of young intellectuals under Mao and his successors. She describes how, in recent years, enthusiasm for higher education in China has been undermined by lack of political change, ideological conflict and poor conditions, eventually leading to a chain of boycotts, demonstrations, hunger strikes and finally massacre.