IR 180 Seminar – Section 71

Brown University

Instructor: Xu Wenli

“The Chinese Democracy Wall, the Chinese Democratic Party, and an Overview of Chinese History since 1840”

Course Description

This seminar will study the development of the democracy movement in China, with a special focus on the Chinese Democracy Wall Movement and the Chinese Democratic Party. It will also offer an overview of Chinese history since 1840, in order to trace the historical roots of the movement.

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For two thousand years, China has been an autocratic nation. In 1898, during the last years of the Qing Dynasty , several intellectuals, led by –Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao—also known as “the Reform Group”—made great changes to the nation’s system. They felt that the backwardness of the system was a fundamental cause of China’s backwardness in modern times.

With the Reform Movement, Chinese society began the process of democratization. In the following period of over one hundred years, important figures, such as Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing, emerged. Nevertheless, after the Revolution of 1911, regardless of its title, the Republic of China, the People’s Dictatorship, or the Dictatorship of the Proletariat—the government was basically autocratic.

With the successive deaths of the Chinese Communist Party’s three most important leaders--Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De—in 1976, Chinese society faced a turning point again, with the opportunity for democratization. The Chinese Democracy Wall movement emerged in this historical context. It was a wall in Beijing where people could post essays about democracy.

The Democracy Wall Movement was closed down in 1980, but it continued in the form of student movements demanding democracy, the protection of individual rights, and government reform, which reached a climax in the spring of 1989 with the Tiananmen Square hunger strike and massacre.

During the summer of 1998, the Chinese Democratic Party, an organization of opposition factionalists, was established in mainland China. It was an important attempt to establish an opposition party in mainland China. This historical movement is of special importance, as it helped to push mainland China toward the future democratic society.

The Chinese Democracy Wall and the Chinese Democratic Party represent two aspects of Chinese modern history rarely known to people, having been purposefully concealed by the Chinese Communist Party government.

But, in order to understand these two historical phenomena, one must have a basic understanding of Chinese history since 1840. Thus, the full name of the course is now: “The Chinese Democracy Wall, the Chinese Democratic Party, and an Overview of Chinese History since 1840.”

This course is designed to be a challenging survey of the field with the aim of understanding these two important developments in modern Chinese history in the context of Chinese history since 1840 and the 20^th century democracy movement. Emphasis will be placed on grasping appropriate methods of research and interpretation to answer the historical questions. The course will have a total of about thirty reading materials, half in Mandarin and half in English, so this course will also be a good opportunity for students to study the Chinese language and Chinese culture.

If time permits, we will also study Chinese calligraphy, because Chinese history and Chinese culture are intimately related.

This course requires students to prepare two short reports and one research paper.

Students are welcome to come to my office (in the Watson Institute, room 340) to talk.