The Market versus the State: The Chinese Press since Tiananmen
Author(s)
Xiaogang, Zhan
Abstract
Great changes in a society are often heralded by an unprecedented diffusion of information and debate over public affairs among individuals involved in increasingly diverse political and economic activities. This is the way civil society grows. China can by no means remain an exception, no matter how much the nation’s uniqueness is emphasized. The period since the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in June 1989 illustrates both the obstacles to press freedoms and hopes that they will grow along with the country’s market-oriented reform. For the Chinese press, the past four years can be divided roughly into three periods: the setback from June 1989 to the turn of 1990; opposition to the post-Tiananmen regime’s recentralization program from early 1990 to 1991; and most recently, amid more open economic debates, renewed political demands. The suppression of press freedoms essentially destroys both the meaning and the means of journalists’ lives while the market can provide the conditions for the flourishing of both. Since Tiananmen, Chinese journalists have tried tenaciously to retain a free flow of information and exchange of ideas in the face of state repression — and they have met with certain successes.
