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Modernizing China

The predicament of reform

Television viewers all over the world watched the incredible drama of the 1989 student and worker uprising in Beijing, the intense ideological standoff between the people and the government at Tiananmen Square, and the horror of the June 4th military repression that — for the moment, at least —has stymied both the country's official reformation effort and its grassroots 'freedom and democracy' movement. Ironically, television had just peaked as a communications medium in China during the troubled 1980s and had become a symbol of the success of the national modernization. By the middle of the decade nearly every urban family had bought a television receiver, many had color models, and some owned more than one set. Journalistic practices and cultural developments in general were more liberal and exciting than ever before. But when push came to shove, the last scenes from troubled Beijing were not telecast in China. While the rest of the world tuned in to pictures of courageous students, intellectuals, and workers standing up to the brute force of tanks and the political power of aging bureaucrats, Chinese television viewers saw very different pictures and accounts of the tragic events in the capital city, and even those images came late. Television had been forcibly restored to its original place as a blatant propaganda device.

By managing television coverage of the brutal crackdown and sub sequently constructing a massive propaganda onslaught, Chinese govern ment officials hoped to re-establish social stability, reassert the place of the Communist Party as the nation's legitimate political authority, and minimize ideological damage brought by the economic, political, cultural, and social stresses that China experienced in the late 1980s. But, as we shall see, it's too late for that now. Television does not just serve the government in China and the manipulation of program content certainly does not guarantee that the people will interpret messages as they are intended to be understood. This was clear long before the conflict in 1989.

Although the Chinese government has attempted to use television to unify the people, preserve the authority of the party, and fulfill the promises of the reformation, the medium has also become a central agent of popular resistance against a political and economic system that many loyal Chinese feel has become hopelessly inefficient and out of touch with the people. Television demarcates the current period of Chinese history — an era of technological growth and cultural adaptation that includes the rapid spread of telecommunications technology and the formation of the world's largest television audience. In the process, Chinese citizens have changed.

Television is the star of the story I will tell about China, a perspective on contemporary Chinese society that is grounded in the beliefs, feelings, and articulations of Chinese people themselves. The analysis presented here has been developed from systematic, lengthy discussions that my research partner, Se-Wen Sun, and I had with nearly 100 urban Chinese families and with television executives in 1986 and from similar encounters I had with scholars, students, citizens, and broadcasters in October and November 1989, four months after the Tiananmen tragedy. China Turned On is an in-depth study of how television has dramatically influenced the cultural and political consciousness of the people who live in China's cities.

World attention was focused on China long before the poignant images from Tiananmen Square appeared. China has always fascinated outsiders who typically consider the Asian nation to be an exotic and impenetrable place. But during the past few years many popularly-written accounts of life in contemporary China have appeared. Volumes such as Fox Butter field's China Alive in the Bitter Sea (1982), Orville Schell's To Get Rich Is Glorious (1984) and Discos and Democracy (1988), and Lynn Pan's The New Chinese Revolution (1987) among others have all documented and evaluated the remarkable changes in China during the past decade. Many foreign television networks have sent reporters and camera crews to document progress in the 'new China' too.

Behind the changes in China, according to most media accounts, is the economic and cultural impact of the much-publicized achievements of the early years of the Deng Xiaoping era. The common explanation for China's rapid economic development in the 1980s is that the country became successful after Deng opened it up to the West and began to institute capitalistic reforms. This exposure to capitalism is also reported to have provoked civil unrest in recent years. We have frequently heard, for example, that since the people have 'tasted capitalism' they 'can never go back to communism' and that the recent turmoil is symptomatic of Chinese yearning to get what Westerners already have. Typical interpretations made by foreign observers have Chinese people discarding socialism for capitalism and trading in traditional culture for a Western style of life that ranges from democratic politics to sexy entertainment.

China also attracts the international business community that not only views the huge country as a source of cheap labor and a market of more than one billion consumers, but following the proven example of Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, as a potential major player in the world economy. Sensing China's impending role in the world market, one Chinese-American author has even warned of what he considers to be the nation's plan for international business. In a book designed to teach American businessmen how to deal with their peers in the People's Republic (The Chinese Mind Game by Chin-ning Chu, 1988), the author claims that the 'ugly Chinese' can never be trusted and will use dishonest 'war strategies' to earn profits at the expense of helpless American com panies!

But the' sources of conflict in Chinese society today are far more complex than can be revealed through any 'communism v. capitalism' debate or by any simple evaluation of the necessity for 'freedom and democracy.' Modern technology has decisively entered everyday life in China during the past decade and has played a crucial role. In particular, the intervention of television into the social, cultural, political, and economic lifeworlds of the people is central to understanding the dynamics of change in China. The nation's social stresses have resulted from implacable contradictions existing in the popular consciousness, many of which predate the introduction of television in China but have been accelerated to dramatic proportions because of the rapid spread and influence of the medium in the cities during the past decade. Television's democratizing and agitating mediations interact in the public mind with the harsh realities imposed by a declining economy, the desire for more personal freedom, and with the collective depression that has descended over the country as the people confront a mean and sluggish bureaucratism that punishes them concretely as they negotiate the most basic routines of everyday life. Before discussing the specific roles of television in all this, however, I would like to establish the context for my analysis by exploring the key economic and political developments of the modernization period.

The Open Door Policy

China's famed 'Open Door policy' is, above all else, a strategy for development of relations with other countries that is designed to benefit the national reformation (gai ge) — a plan that begins with economic restructur ing. Agreements reached with the United States and other Western nations in the mid 1970s and the rush of tourism that followed were but the first steps. By early 1989 the openness had led to the unthinkable — talk of normalization of economic and political relations with Taiwan and an undertaking of far-reaching interactions with all other Asian nations. Even today, despite the gloomy predictions of world economists, China's resolve to keep economic reform on track is at least claimed to be stronger than ever and officials in the People's Republic are still trying to improve relations with their rich, soon-to-be inherited, and understandably paranoid stepchild — Hong Kong.

Reform in the Soviet Union — the nation upon which China depended so greatly for many years after 1949 — came on the heels of change in China. Progressive officials in Beijing must have felt quite gratified when the details of perestroika were announced in Moscow, though the Chinese government has greatly downplayed the similarity of reform between the two countries especially in the wake of the staggering political develop ments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, after years of bitter disagreement, friendly relations between China and the Soviet Union resumed in the midst of reform in both countries. The first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years took place when Deng received Mikhail Gorba chev in Beijing in 1989. Gorbachev called for 'complete normalization' of Sino-Soviet relations. Chinese and Soviet foreign ministers exchanged visits.

China's Rice Bowl

By the 1980s the mass media in China were no longer 'tools of class struggle,' a role they first played within the Soviet-style socialism that the country adopted in 1949. They had become instead tools in service of the modernization — symbolic and functional contributors to the economic and ideological dimensions of reformation, the ambitious restructuring that until the late 1980s appeared to be dramatically leading the country away from the debilitating iron rice bowl.

But casting aside the iron rice bowl is not something China can easily do. Nor is it simply an economic transformation. The iron bowl symbolizes the fundamental stability and security Chinese people have felt with their state enterprise jobs and the related guarantees of inexpensive housing and food, free medical services, and public education. At the same time, how ever, the iron bowl also represents the unchanging, heavy hopelessness that most Chinese people feel about improving their living and working conditions. And while the iron rice bowl stands for equality within Chinese society, it has become more and more apparent to the people that this really means an 'equality of poverty' (Goodman et at., 1986: 19).

The more adaptable 'clay rice bowl' became a symbol of hope for China after the Cultural Revolution as the country embarked on its promise to usher in widesweeping changes in all aspects of life. As Chinese political leaders struggled for positions of power within the party and government during the recovery from the Cultural Revolution, the most compelling issue during the early phases of reconstruction in the mid and late 1970s was economic development - how to forge a modern consumer-oriented economy that would enhance industrial production and raise the standard of living for all Chinese people. The ideological puritanism of the late Maoist period apparently was over. The new arrangement would have to be progressive and risky. The clay bowl could break.

Emerging from party infighting to lead the country toward greatness was the consummate pragmatist, Deng Xiaoping. Three times knocked down by party politics since 1949, Deng's return to power and ascension as national reformer in the late 1970s was nothing less than heroic. His history of personal and political suffering matched what many ordinary people had experienced. Deng became a human symbol of escape from the pain of the late Maoist period - the Cultural Revolution and the reign of the Gang of Four - toward what appeared to be China's new day. The people embraced Deng as a hero at the very time they were trying to forget the cultish fanaticism and disastrous last years of Mao Zedong's life.

Concrete plans for radical economic development in China were issued after the historic Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in December 1978. Deng's role as chief architect of reform and elder statesman (he was already 73 years old at the time) was irrefutably cast during this period. The 'spiritual development' that had been Mao's priority was de-emphasized in favor of 'material development,' ushering in an era that, in effect, down played many of the romantic, if unworkable, ideals of state socialism — a turn of events that proved to be as much ideological and political as it was material in its consequences.

The national goals were to modernize four areas: agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defense. This way the country would be able to feed itself well, develop a sophisticated consumer society, and protect itself from outsiders, a sensitive matter for China with its history of foreign occupation. Although the nation's economy had been growing slowly and steadily before 1978 (even during the chaotic Cultural Revo lution), major reforms were necessary. The people's living standard was not keeping pace with national growth and enormous mistakes had been made in the 1960s and 1970s in production priorities for heavy industry and the development of energy sources (Perkins, 1986).

Theory into practice: reform on the farm and in the city

The first major alteration in policy after 1978 was development of the 'responsibility system' on Chinese farms, a concept that was later adapted for use in other economic sectors. Essentially, Chinese peasant families in the countryside could enter into contracts with the state for the production and delivery of specific crops that would be sold for profit, money that could be kept by the farmers. And while land could not be owned outright, progressive land-use transfer rights were established, thereby making peasants far more responsible for their own land. Many families made decisions about what to grow, when, and where. Others decided not to farm the land at all, using their space for development of various cottage industries, many of which proved at first to be very profitable.

The underlying premise of the changes in agriculture is that of material incentive — an unfamiliar concept in China's economy before 1978. At the same time that communal agriculture was being converted to small collectives and individual management, China also moved away from heavy industry and expanded its production of consumer goods, including the manufacture of electronic media. An economic system that permits the ascension of talented and hardworking individuals while it also meets their growing consumer demands seemed to be in place.

Along with the material incentives that (some) workers were given, including bonuses and variable-scale wages, people began to think about the possibility of changing jobs and many of them did something about it. Central economic planning gave way in some areas to market-oriented decision-making and local autonomy. Many big state-owned companies were privatized. The selling of stocks and bonds was introduced. Market ing, advertising, and public relations — areas that are invariably under played in socialist economies — gradually became parts of industry and commerce.

Laws, regulations, and formal procedures were developed for putting economic reform into practice, thereby challenging some of the traditions with which China had conducted its business before 1978. Especially tar geted for change was the reliance on unofficial channels — personal connections — which are the way things get done in every sphere of life in China. Government action was to be taken against corruption. Special privileges enjoyed by party officials and other cadre were to be eliminated as was the arbitrary authority that middle-level bosses exercise over their subordinates (Harding, 1986). Older cadre and workers were given incentives to retire early in order to make room for better educated, more progressive, and more ambitious young people. Reports of enforcement of the new policies appeared on television and in the newspapers.

The 1978 reforms were reinforced and extended with additional policy changes resulting from the Third Plenum of the Twelfth Central Committee held in 1984. Greatly encouraged by the success of the reformation during the preceding five years, success that was largely attributable to a quick and illusionary economic boost coming from the agricultural sector, the party began to concentrate more on urban reform. Strangely enough, some of China's peasants were getting rich while city dwellers, who long had considered their status to be superior to the farmers, feared they were falling behind. Deng proclaimed that 'to get rich is glorious,' a phrase that really meant that the Chinese economy as a whole would be stimulated by the innovative ideas and hard work of individuals who will 'get rich first so as to lead all people to wealth.' Successful examples of China's nouveaux riches were publicized by the media. China was to develop fully a 'socialist commodity economy with Chinese characteristics,' according to the party, a promise that would improve the living standard of city people too. In the short term, some urban residents did benefit from the policy decisions of the 1984 meeting. In particular, some of them were allowed to enter into private business such as small retail outlets, restaurants, repair shops, and pedicabs — opportunities that produced income greatly surpassing most government jobs (Perkins, 1986).

Many of the citizens who got permission to develop private businesses were unemployed urban men who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution and had not been assigned government jobs upon their return to the city years later. In order to help solve the unemployment problem and give these unfortunate victims of the Cultural Revolution a better chance in life, the government conferred 'private unit' (ge ti hu) status on many of them. They pay little or no taxes and their financial records are not carefully scrutinized. But beyond the material perks, this new class of Chinese citizens is able to feel free and independent — an enviable emotional state in such a controlled environment.

China's economic development led to rapid export of domestically-produced goods which was matched by importation of foreign goods, especially high technology items. Joint economic ventures were established

1 A 'private unit' street vendor sells tea eggs on the streets of Shanghai under a sign that claims China is governed by law and the constitution. (Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are by James Lull.)

with foreign countries. 'Special Economic Zones' (SEZs) were developed in the south and along the coast where Chinese workers could be hired for pay that exceeded government compensation. Scientific, cultural, and educational exchange programs were set up with many foreign countries. Tourism flourished as upwardly-mobile China became an 'in' place to go.

The Reformation Peaks: 1985—86

The Chinese economy performed so spectacularly from 1979 to 1986 that even the most outspoken skeptics could not reasonably deny the progress. Most people inside China agreed that their living standard was truly on the rise. They dared to dream of political changes too. The world's oldest and largest civilization seemed to have buried the backwardness of its feudalist past and the misguided politics and human atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. Suddenly, China had apparently become a model socialist nation embracing egalitarianism with a progressive economy and an increasingly liberalized cultural atmosphere.

The United States celebrated China's success. Deng Xiaoping was hon ored as Time magazine's 'Man of the Year' for 1985, praising the 'Come back Comrade' for his 'attempt to combine communism and capitalism' while improving China's agricultural production and opening up oppor tunities for joint business ventures with other countries. Deng was also hailed as a hero by National Geographic in a cover article titled, 'China Changes Course,' featuring a picture of a broad-smiling farm family from Sichuan Province.

In fact there was good reason to praise Deng and the reformation at the time. Agricultural reform was an unqualified success. The responsibility system led to an 'immediate and dramatic' increase in the standard of living for Chinese families, achieving more in the five years after 1978 than in the previous 21 years (Perkins, 1986: 50). By 1985 China produced more wheat, rice, cotton, and tobacco than any other nation on earth. Wages increased across the board. Earnings for urban workers in 1985 increased nearly 11 percent from the previous year, and they were up again 8.4 percent in 1986. And while less than 5 percent of China's non farm labor pool in 1985 was employed in private unit status, the govern ment promised that the proportion of persons engaged in private enterprise would increase year by year. Even as late as 1987, former General Secretary of the Communist Party, Zhao Ziyang, a partner with Deng in the original formation of the revised economic policy and a man widely respected for the successful reforms he enacted in Sichuan Province, predicted that by 1990 only 20 to 30 percent of China's economy would remain within the old, centrally-controlled system. In essence, two very different economic systems had been put into place and were expected to function side-by-side.

China did indeed start to become a consumer-oriented society, especially in the cities. By 1986 everyone could own a bicycle and nearly every family in the urban areas had a full complement of electronic media and was looking to upgrade their equipment. Where there was space, more and more families bought refrigerators and washing machines. They hoped to put modern furniture in their living rooms and sleeping areas. People wanted new clothes for fashion, not just serviceability.

Economic reform not only had a temporal origin (1978), but also a geographical origin. The SEZs of the southern and eastern coastal areas of China have been like a mecca to some Chinese. One young photographic technician in Shanghai told us during a family interview that he had seen a television program about Senzhen — the bustling SEZ near Hong Kong — that stimulated him to go see it for himself. He came home raving about the 'modern houses and roads' there. His case is not unusual. The myth of economic prosperity in the SEZs led to an ever-increasing, and often illegal, migration of many young Chinese workers to the southern prov inces.

Much of the economic success was the product of joint ventures that China struck with foreign countries. The United States alone had developed more than 2,300 joint ventures with China by the end of 1985. Japan began to invest heavily in China and trade relations with Hong Kong improved to the point where it appeared that the British colony's transition to Chinese rule in 1997 might not be so traumatic after all. For the first time, China was producing large quantities of goods that other countries wanted, causing the trade balance to begin shifting in favor of the People's Republic. Inside China, the country was on the way to modernizing its military, having developed a rapid deployment force by the mid 1980s.

It's not surprising that by 1985 and early 1986, many Chinese people were confident that the remarkable changes the society had experienced in the preceding few years were just the early fruits of reform. Though many people were cynical about the system, or held reservations about the true intentions of the nation's leaders, it seemed clear that China was developing impressively as a leader among Third World nations. Life expectancy was steadily increasing, illiteracy decreasing, relationships with foreign powers were improving, production and trade were booming, and nearly everyone enjoyed greater income and exposure to the creature com forts that money can buy. The whole mood of the country was changing. With progressives Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang at Deng's side, the political future of the country looked bright too.

The Clay Bowl Cracks

By 1989 everything had changed. The June 4th military repression and subsequent persecution of 'counterrevolutionaries' was the government's desperate attempt to regain control of a country that seemed to be in chaos. People were massively disappointed and frustrated with the severe economic setbacks they suffered and with the constant reports of corruption among party officials even in the highest ranks of government. Student demands for 'freedom and democracy' were but the most visible sign that China's reform movement had gone almost completely astray. The country was mired in a deep economic recession. Increases in production during the previous years had stimulated unparalleled consumer demand, causing prices to rise faster than wages. Unbearable inflation hit the cities. By summer 1988, China was in an economic crisis so severe that Deng, with the support of fiscally conservative premier Li Peng, announced that the pace of reform would have to be drastically slowed down.

Agricultural production, the cornerstone to economic success during the early stages of reform, dropped off greatly from 1986 onwards, a problem that retarded development of the entire economy from that point forward. Farmers faced higher operating costs and began to receive far lower prices for wheat, rice, and corn. Some families gave up farming entirely and tried to develop rural industries that seemed to promise greater income. The dropoff in agricultural production sent shockwaves through the country as shortages of key staples including grain, pork, sugar, salt, and cotton were felt in the cities. Production of steel was also down by 1989, and electrical power, which has never been in sufficient supply, became even less reliable.

China's rate of inflation ballooned to 18.5 percent in 1988 and the inflationary spiral increased month by month to 27 percent by March of 1989 (Reynolds, 1989). City dwellers in Beijing and Shanghai were hardest hit. The social effects of inflation were exacerbated by development of a 'double track' pricing system; public and private markets had been estab lished so that commodities were priced at different levels, permitting easier access to some goods by those who had benefitted from the economic reform. As a result, families who must exist on fixed incomes — still the vast majority in China — felt themselves falling hopelessly behind. Though Deng had assured the people that reform would not lead to a stratified society, great disparities in income, owing fundamentally to the failed 'one nation, two economic systems' experiment, became a reality. Those who lost out include some of the country's best educated and most dedicated workers. They were quick to interpret their losses in political terms.

Both the people and the government panicked. Some families withdrew their savings and bought consumer durables, including additional television sets, as hedges against the rising prices. The government stopped selling stocks and shares of new industries and cut back on economic growth generally. Construction projects were halted. New taxes were levied. Loans were curtailed. New restrictions were imposed to cool down what the government called the 'overheated' growth of various collective and private businesses. By the fall of 1989, more than three million industrial collectives and private companies had been shut down. Great unemployment resulted from these closings as many farmers refused to go back to farming. After living nearly four decades with the fundamental security that was provided by the old system (the upside of the infamous 'iron rice bowl'), many farmers suffer even today from such great psychological shock caused by the economic collapse that they roam around the villages and countryside with no destination or purpose in what the Chinese call 'black movement.' The most popular and controversial novel in China in 1989 was Jia Pingao's Anxious (Fu zao), a gripping story of the mental torment of China's newly-disenfranchised peasants.

It's important to realize that despite the reform's success from 1979 to 1985, China had not become rich. Per capita yearly income as late as 1988 was but $349 US, higher only than Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Burma in the Pacific Rim. The literacy rate in 1988 was only 69 percent, and according to the United Nations, nearly 10 percent of China's population in 1986 was still unable to feed and clothe itself at a subsistence level. Population growth became a problem again too as economic incentives for rural families to have more than one child became far more influential than the negative sanctions that were imposed by the government's 'one child policy.' The supreme family sacrifice of limiting the number of children had become mainly an urban requirement, further contributing to the hated realization that China was becoming more and more a nation divided in its privileges. Tourism began to slump in 1986 too as foreigners had become irritated by bad service and a lack of entertainment venues.

Reports of corrupt business practices grew day by day during the economic crisis. It wasn't only the new private businesses that were to blame. Competition spurred by the mixed economy unexpectedly increased the unethical dependence on personal relationships for negotiating transactions within state sector enterprises too.¹ Deng's own son was implicated in a business scam that led to closing down the company where he worked. Zhao Ziyang's son was reported to have been given advantages in his highly successful business. Unscrupulous capitalistic ploys such as artifici ally inflating prices, hoarding key commodities, extorting, and profiteering were common. Stories of willful abuse — such as the famous account of the 'King of the Foolish Seeds,' a millionaire Chinese businessman who know ingly poisoned thousands of people with bad sunflower seeds in order to turn a quick profit, circulated. Troubling accounts were commonly heard about corruption in the SEZs, areas that seemed to live by a set of rules so different from the rest of China that they were thought to be more like Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan than the mainland. By early 1989 there was an unmanageable mass migration of young workers to the Guangzhou area in search of more money and a better future. The government announced in the spring of 1989 that the centrally-assigned job location method would be strengthened once again.

The clearest indication of disorder in the reform, however, was the decision in late 1988 to control prices. Endorsed and announced by Deng himself, the government intervened to slow down the economy by establish ing price controls on many commodities and by reducing growth in the private sector. Central planning, not the market, was to drive the economy for the forseeable future. Government-regulated pricing would last, accord ing to the officials, into the early 1990s. The alternative — to let the economy run its own course — threatened to destabilize further the society, according to Deng. As the news worsened, people rapidly lost confidence in the Communist Party. Within the party, Zhao's viability as CCP chief was being questioned, at the same time support was being mustered for his conservative fiscal opponent, Li Pengo

Through it all two other difficulties kept nagging at the authorities in Beijing. The 'democracy issue,' the most basic political question in China for decades (Nathan, 1985), was rekindled by student uprisings beginning in late 1986 and early 1987 and continuing off and on in China's major cities. The resistance movement had not been extinguished despite a gen eral tightening of security, the removal of the tolerant and popular Hu Yaobang — Zhao's predecessor as General Secretary of the CCP — from his post, and the firing of a national public security minister who had been criticized for his lenient treatment of the protestors. The other public embarrassment for China was the seemingly unsolvable struggle for inde pendence in Tibet. Chinese troops were flown into Tibet to quell anti Chinese rioting in 1987, 1988, and again in 1989. The Chinese government continued to blame the exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, for the violence while the rest of the world honored him with the Nobel Peace Prize.

China's deep infrastructural problems

As I have already outlined, the reasons for the economic crisis of the late 1980s are many. One of the causes, however, is central to the very foundation of Chinese socialist society. China's human and technological infrastructure — particularly its styles of decision-making and its systems for the transfer of information — is woefully inadequate to sustain a stable and rapid transformation of the economy. The severe shortcomings of China's infrastructure became all the more clear within the requirements of reform. The challenge to develop a more market-oriented domestic economy that can operate within a socialist framework, and at the same time participate in the unfamiliar and fastmoving terrain of international business, was a difficult adaptation for the huge, heavily-bureaucratized country to make.

Veteran bureaucrats often have not only been unable to handle new assignments, many of them are unwilling to do so as it frequently means giving up personal power — status which has been accumulated over many years of doing things the old way. Equally problematic is the inability of China to move information around efficiently. There are few telephones and computers, unstable and insufficient sources of energy, and poor systems for sharing data (in part because information is a commodity which, in a system with few formal regulations and sanctions, becomes property which is easily abused by those in managerial positions). Managing capital proved to be a major problem for the Chinese too, as monetary transfers and the supervision of loans were poorly coordinated, resulting in unreliable transactions for Chinese and for foreigners. In fact, many foreign investors have been reluctant to do business in China all along for these very reasons.

The politics of Zhao Ziyang and Li Peng

Zhao Ziyang, who was unceremoniously removed from his position as General Secretary of China's Communist Party in the middle of the struggle in Beijing in 1989, and Li Peng, who as of this writing in 1990 was still China's Premier, were the key players during the crisis. Their positions represented the basic choices China had. Zhao was forever the optimistic reformer. Together with Deng, he had invented the plan for reform. Zhao's election as party chief in fact was considered a victory for Deng who had declared himself a 'setting sun' and was apparently satisfied with the succession of his partner in reform as China's senior statesman. The economic problems, however, eventually vaulted Li into power.

Zhao desperately tried to weather the storm even in the midst of the economic crisis. He continued to appoint reform-minded officials to key posts and played down differences in the party. In late 1988 he announced plans to expand China's exports and engage in more joint ventures. Zhao never stopped promoting the importance of rapid modernization and argued for reliance on the market as the best economic strategy. During the turmoil in Beijing, the former party leader was a symbol of hope for progressive forces in China. He was no hero — Zhao was considered by many people to be a businessman above all else and he could never live down a widely-publicized picture of himself playing golf — but he certainly appeared to be the best alternative available.

Li Peng had taken the conservative road long before the 1989 uprising. Far more a pragmatist than a visionary, Li mimicked Deng's call for austerity and retrenchment when the economy faltered. He swiftly advocated returning economic decision-making to the central government. Li and his conservative colleagues in the politburo feared the consequences of an economy and polity that were no longer firmly under the control of the party. According to Li, drastic steps were necessary for China to repair the sagging economy and defuse the mounting social unrest. When the government invoked price controls and cut back growth in the private sector economy in 1988, Li's position within the party decision-making apparatus was greatly enhanced at the very time Zhao's influence was declining. And later, in the face of mounting political dissent, the man who was still ultimately in charge, Deng, proved himself once again to be the model pragmatist. Zhao was dismissed. It was Li who was at Deng's side when the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square.

We will revisit Tiananmen Square in detail in Chapter 9. There is much ground to cover before going there, however. Exploring the significance of television in reform and resistance in China is the focus of this book, a task that I embark upon by examining a considerable amount of historical and ethnographic evidence. To further set the stage for analyzing television's decisive impact on contemporary developments, I present in the next chapter a brief political history of the development of the mass media in socialist China and introduce the structure and status of the Chinese television system.