History

Zhu Rongji was criticized for giving up a number of China’s traditional sovereign prerogatives in exchange for a WTO membership. However, his efforts helped China become a global economic powerhouse. […]

With growing wealth disparity, ad hoc local taxes, fees, and levies, the farmers’ plight kept worsening in China. In the spring of 1993, a farmer protest erupted, threatening the nation’s political stability. […]

Under Zhu Rongji, China embraced new regulations, giving enterprises more autonomy in making managerial decisions. It adopted the label of a ‘market’ economy, changing the perception that markets equal capitalism. […]

A number of left-wing conservatives tried to block the news of Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour. However, Deng almost single-handedly fought off the potent leftist challenge, and won. […]

Chinese hard-liners blamed the reformist liberal programs of Mikhail Gorbachev for the collapse of communism in Europe and the Soviet Union. They also did their best to retrain Mao’s ideologies. […]

At the time of Jiang Zemin, China’s economic situation was such that it needed to be given special attention. Therefore, the retrenchment program was signed by Deng Xiaoping as a temporary solution. […]

Post the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government intensified political surveillance. It geared all its energies toward suppressing and whitewashing its behavior during what it now referred to as the ‘Beijing Spring’. […]

The Tiananmen Square was the scene of a massacre that crushed China’s national psyche. The government had reacted to the student protests with such brutality that it became impossible to defend the government internationally. […]