ABSTRACT
In the reform era, and particularly during the 1990s, much has been made of the potential for the periphery in the People's Republic of China (PRC) not simply to challenge the maintenance of political order but actually to effect radical political change. One source of such interpretations has been the economic growth strategy adopted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the last twenty years, and its assumed consequences in terms of globalisation, regionalism and social change. Another has been the aftermath of the collapse of communist party-states in the USSR and Eastern Europe, which has bequeathed the twin spectres of regional disintegration and political implosion. Speculation outside China has been paralleled by concerns within the PRC and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that their future should not be the USSR's past, and both were further fuelled by the events of May and June 1989 in Beijing.
