ABSTRACT
The events of 1989 in China and Eastern Europe caused a minor stampede of Western China scholars looking to identify the "sprouts" of civil society in Chinese tradition, or to blame the failure of the student movement on the lack of such traditions. Far less attention was devoted to the end of martial law and the beginning of genuine two-party political competition in Taiwan at about the same time. This chapter relates both processes here, especially as they bear on developing market economies, on contact with Western ideas, and on earlier Chinese cultural resources that affect ideas about civil society. The China field currently hosts a lively debate on whether China had a growing public sphere during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Campaigns in the People's Republic of China during the 1980s and 1990s have been disconcertingly similar. The key term in these modern campaigns has been wenming shehui, civilized society.
