ABSTRACT
Chinese politics during the late 1990s and first years of the twenty-first century are substantially different from what they were in the years prior to Tiananmen. Four factors in particular have been important in propelling substantial political change in China over the past decade: generational change within the top leadership, economic development and differentiation, the shadow of Tiananmen, and the different domestic and international political environments that have emerged during the post-Tiananmen and post-Cold War period. These factors have evolved more or less simultaneously and have interacted with one another, so the following discussion is not intended to imply prioritization or causality.
