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The Struggle for Political Rights in China
Harvard University Press
October 2005
304 pages ISBN: 0674018907 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
A leading scholar of China's modern political development
examines the changing relationship between the Chinese
people and the state. Correcting the conventional view of
China as having instituted extraordinary economic changes
but having experienced few political reforms in the post-Mao
period, Merle Goldman details efforts by individuals and
groups to assert their political rights. China's move to the market and opening to the outside world
have loosened party controls over everyday life and led to
the emergence of ideological diversity. Starting in the
1980s, multicandidate elections for local officials were
held and term limits were introduced for Communist Party
leaders. Establishment intellectuals who have broken away
from party patronage have openly criticized government
policies. Those intellectuals outside the party structures,
because of their participation in the Cultural Revolution or
the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, have organized
petitions, published independent critiques, formed
independent groups, and even called for a new political system. Despite the party's repeated attempts to suppress these
efforts, awareness about political rights has been spreading
among the general population. Goldman emphasizes that these
changes do not guarantee movement toward democracy, but she
sees them as significant and genuine advances in the
assertion of political rights in China.
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