ABSTRACT
How hopeful should we be for democratic change and human rights improvement in China today, twenty years after the bloody crackdown on the student democracy movement, which seemed to put an end to bold action for political reform? Having watched China in slow motion or stagnation in political reform for two decades amid the country’s impressive economic performance, China observers are hungry for any sign of positive political development. The best hope is action taken by the Chinese themselves on their own initiative to strive for democracy and human rights. Misinterpretations of signs and indications can generate false hope and misguided policy, and the responsibility of those who interpret these signs and indicators is far from trivial. This chapter considers whether the much-heralded recent social mobilisations
known collectively as the ‘rights-defence movement’ (weiquan yundong) qualify as a positive social-political development from within, and hence as a firmly hopeful indicator. The inquiry aims to provide insights answering such questions as: to what extent the 1989 democracy movement has survived or been resurrected today; in what ways the 1989 movement has been transformed or has adapted itself to the rapidly changing China; or conversely, whether the new ‘rights-defence’ movement’s net outcome has been to serve as a BandAid to defective political and legal systems that prolongs their rule, hence contradicting the 1989 movement’s intentions of democratic reform. One obstacle to tackling these issues is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the
weiquan yundong, which is necessary for assessing its potential impact. I will begin with some initial characterisations based on my own preliminary observations about the phenomenon, which I hope will provide some basic information for assessing its claim to be a growing social-political movement, as well as its impact and implications.
Has weiquan become a social-political movement?
