ABSTRACT
The Chinese political system has been routinely described in a language of totalitarianism, with Mao Zedong cast as the Red Emperor and the Chinese people as 'blue ants' tugged and pushed by a corps of cadres and completely powerless to resist the demands of the Party/state (see Chapter 1). This chapter will examine the evidence for such claims in the light of the history of Chinese political practice under the communists from the immediate post-1949 period, through the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Cultural Revolution and the post-Mao protest movements from 1976 to the present, including the Tiananmen Movement of 1989. We will argue that the totalitarian discourse does not take into account the limitations on state power which arise as a result of the vastness of the country, poor communications, local interests and a system of guanxi which at times works against the grand projects of a centralized state. It also does not acknowledge the importance of the many forms of resistance that the Chinese people have employed in their interaction with the Party/state.
