The Student Room Group

What is the possibity of another Tiananmen Square-type incident in Modern-day China?

Do you feel that any form of pro-democracy protest/uprising is likely nowadays, or do you feel that China's massive and for the time being largely sustained economy growth and increasing standard of living likely to passify any such protests on a large scale?

I guess for the most part, the China of 2009 has a much brighter future and is prospering much more than the China of 1989. While wealth is still pretty uneven, it is increasing in most sectors of society, albeit at different speeds.

And as far as I'm aware, while China is still very much a dictatorship, it is slowly starting to give it's citizens more civil liberties and freedom of speech, although, for the most part direct critizism of the government is very much avoided. Although, it probably wouldn't get you in as much trouble today as it would have 20-30 years ago.

Do you feel a similar uprising is possible in China today, do you feel such a protest is brewing? Do you feel the Chinese government are making the right moves in order to keep the people resonably satisfied?

Also, hypothetically speaking, if such a protest were to occur again, I very much doubt the authorities response would be as violent now as it was in 1989. China is becoming increasingly concious of it's image to the world and I don't think the current Chinese leadership would want to put itself into the same position it did in 1989.
Reply 1
Already happened didnt it? Tibet and all? :s:
Reply 2
Chrrye
Already happened didnt it? Tibet and all? :s:


Hmm, to an extent yes, although, the Tibet protests and Tiananmen Square are quite different. The Tibetan motivation for protest is that they feel they are a supressed ethnic minority dictated to by the Han Chinese majority, so they seek their own independant state ultimately.

The student protests aimed for more freedom of speech essentially, while the Tibet protesters quite frankly want nothing to do with China or the Han Chinese majority.

Protest from the Chinese ethnic minorities is not really a massive concern of the Chinese government in terms of stability, as the country is 95% Han Chinese, providing they have the support of the majority of Han, they're fine. The Chinese government are much more fearful of protest from Han Chinese, which was what Tiananmen Square essentially was.
Reply 3
Well the Chinese government has effectively halved each generation through the one child policy.

This means that in the future there will be considerably less economic pressure that would fuel clamour for change (as there will no doubt be in India).

However, with the population having halved every generation, each generation will have to pay off a pretty difficult retirement bill. This would either be financed by deficits or by taxation, and as the former can't exactly be sustained for decades upon decades upon decades with a declining population, it will have to be done through the second method, which might cause problems because populations would not want to be taxed heavily with no political representation.

Latest