Dissenters in China

...But the real significance of all this lies in the willingness of a growing number of Chinese to challenge the state...

...The process will be hard to reverse...

...Subsequent organizations have sought safety in publicity...

...Liu served three years in the eighties for smuggling Liu Qing's prison memoirs out of the country...

...Some estimates put unemployment at forty million in urban areas alone...

...But this is not an option for human rights and workers' organizations...

...Held in secret detention since May 1995, he was sentenced in October 1996 to an eleven-year prison term...

...The BWAF was short-lived, and workers were harshly punished for their role in the protests...

...March 1994 saw the founding of the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People, whose organizers include Liu Qing's brother, Liu Nianchun, as well as several lawyers and professors...

...The law permits independent associations (at least a thousand now run national operations) but severely limits the scope of their activity...

...For those who seek social justice as well as civil rights, the odds are even more formidable...

...Safety standards have not changed since the 1950s, and there are frequent reports of fires and avoidable accidents...

...In this construction of the options for China's future, the prosperity of Asia's newly industrializing countries is contrasted with the fragmentation and chaos of the former Soviet Union...

...Government statistics, which almost certainly underestimate the problem, indicate that over twenty thousand workers were killed in industrial accidents in 1994, including more than ten thousand miners...

...Sentenced in December 1995 to another prison term of fourteen years, he sued the Beijing police for detaining him for twenty months without trial...

...With some notable exceptions, exile organizations have foundered, losing their sense of purpose or staggering under financial scandals and internal strife...

...China's level of development, they argue, cannot support a democratic system, and only a strong central government with restrictions on popular participation can provide the stability needed for development and eventual democratization...

...In spite or perhaps because of Tiananmen, more people are signing petitions, joining unofficial organizations, and challenging police and judicial abuses...

...Human Rights in China estimates that at least twenty dissidents have been sentenced this year and many more detained without trial...

...But last year, twenty-seven relatives of people killed on June 4 submitted a petition to the National People's Congress calling for a reassessment of the movement...

...Less controversial groups, including some women's rights groups, manage to circumvent these regulations by hooking up to official organizations or academic departments that are willing to provide cover...

...Writings or speech harmful to "state security" is defined as "sabotage," as is the establishment of social groups or business enterprises for the same purpose...

...One petition, in May 1995, was signed by fortyfive prominent scientists, intellectuals, and dissidents...

...This moderation is not entirely new...

...Here I will focus on grassroots human rights and labor activists...

...Economic reform without political accountability has caused mounting inequality and corruption as officials at all levels use their public power to accumulate private wealth...

...Dissidents and their relatives are routinely arrested during international events like the UN Women's Conference or sent on "vacation" in distant provinces with a police escort...

...Outside urban areas, literacy levels are falling as parents take their children out of school to work and the rising cost of education puts it beyond their reach...

...Interference with employment, marriage licenses, and resident permits is commonplace...

...In the last days of the movement, ACFTU members also participated in meetings of the Capital Liaison Group, organized by Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao to promote dialogue among students, intellectuals, the BWAF, and other citizens' groups...

...At the very least, says Hu Ping, editor of the New York-based dissident magazine Beijing Spring, "ordinary people no longer think people the government calls counterrevolutionaries deserve whatever they get...

...The student leader Wang Dan received the harshest treatment...

...One couple is now collecting the names of all those who died...

...To a government that is used to intimidating its citizens into silence, this persistence is a disturbing trend...

...Wei Jingsheng, who publicly called Deng a dictator, received a fifteen-year prison sentence...

...Many ACFTU members also attended the protests, with the tacit approval of their leaders...

...Yet inside China, many dissenters have not given up...

...But labor unrest increased steadily...

...In rural areas, it is clan organizations, traditional religion, and secret societies that are on the rise, not human rights groups...

...Predictably, the league's attempt to register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs was rejected and several of its organizers have been arrested...

...Its demands included not only wage increases and anticorruption measures but, most significantly, the right to represent workers' interests as an independent labor union...

...Forced and voluntary exile have depleted their ranks, but the New Yorkbased organization Human Rights in China currently monitors the activities of at least a hundred human rights workers in Beijing alone...

...Even before the current crackdown, China's grassroots organizers faced constant obstruction and persecution...

...But so did Xu Wenli, a democratic socialist who regarded himself as a supporter of Deng...

...On May 18, the organization actually donated about $25,000 to the protests while its hard-line president was out of the country...

...He is equally wary of "democrats" who say that workers must postpone their demands until economic development provides the basis for democracy...

...Most of those who died on the night of June 3 were not students, but workers and ordinary citizens, and workers generally received heavier prison sentences afterward...

...Reversing the Verdict on Tiananmen One major concern of human rights activists is reversing the government's assessment of the 1989 protest movement as a "counterrevolutionary rebellion...

...The middle class so beloved of transition theorists is still small and geographically limited...

...In fact, some of the strikers' immediate demands (usually for back pay) are often met to avoid riots, but any identifiable leaders are promptly dealt with...

...Now, as the Chinese authorities embark on a new wave of repression, many are also facing detention and imprisonment...

...In the past, relatives of dissidents rarely challenged the authorities for fear of making things worse...

...In May 1992, sixteen people were arrested in connection with the clandestine Free Trade Union of China (FTUC), which called in its founding statement for the right to organize free trade unions, improved working conditions, and the release of political prisoners...

...Most of China's dissidents have always been reformist, and many of their current activities are an extension of trends that began before 1989...

...But many of the obstacles they face will outlive Deng...

...18 • DISSENT Politics Abroad In 1989, tens of thousands of workers took to the streets in sympathy with the students...

...Ironically, many who support democracy as 20 • DISSENT Politics Abroad a long-term goal espouse some variant of enlightened authoritarianism in the short term...

...Some even argued, in official and semi-official legal journals, that "counterrevolution" was a political, not a legal, concept...

...Until this year, there was no presumption of innocence in Chinese law, and lawyers for the accused were expected to plead only for leniency...

...To register, associations must have the approval of the "mass organization" responsible for that sector of the population (ACFTU, the All China Women's Federation, and so on...

...Liu Qing's brother, Liu Nianchun, also sued the state for a three-year "Reeducation through Labor" sentence he received in May 1996 for his role in several petitions...

...In the late 1980s the "new legalism" began spilling over into the political sphere, as scholars began to lecture on the need for due process and respect for citizens' rights...

...Although elections have been held for locallevel congresses for some years now, most Chinese have little experience with democratic institutions...

...Workers were punished severely for their involvement with Democracy Wall, even when their criticisms came from a Marxist perspective...

...Exiled labor leader Han Dongfang says that the official union, ACFTU, plays the good cop in these conflicts, coaxing workers back to work with promises of concessions...

...Over the last few years Wei Jingshen's sister has lobbied governments and international institutions to press for his release, and the wives of several other imprisoned dissidents have made public appeals on their behalf...

...With many of the Democracy Wall leaders in prison and others mindful of their fate, pressure for political reform came mostly from intellectual and cultural circles in the 1980s...

...Only "corrupt officials" were specifically excluded...

...Suing the State Official sponsorship of limited legal reform is having unintended consequences...

...Since 1989, activists have been applying these principles, some of them consciously following the example of the Czech Charter 77 movement...

...Han Dongfang, exiled leader of the BWAF and editor of the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin, is determined to continue working for workers' rights and independent unions, even if it means going back to jail when Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule...

...As in other "workers' states," China's official trade union, the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), exists more to carry out government policy than to represent the working class...

...And despite encouraging trends such as those reported here, civil society remains weak in relation to the state...

...But the commitment of so many individuals to a slow and long-term struggle is a departure from the past...

...Once out of prison, few have shown much penitence...

...Looking to the Future Over the last few months the government has been flexing its muscles, arresting and sentencing many dissidents in an attempt to intimidate the rest and demonstrate its indifference to international opinion...

...Cooperating with or accepting funds from foreign organizations is expressly forbidden...

...Despite fierce disagreements among the participants, this group represented the government's worst nightmare—bridgebuilding among intellectual dissidents, workers, and other disaffected members of society...

...At that time, dissenters' families were often ostracized by neighbors and co-workers...

...Estimated at over a hundred million people, many in this floating population have no access to medical care, education, or adequate housing...

...More than twelve thousand labor disputes were reported for 1995, mostly over unpaid wages, lack of job security, and working conditions...

...The right to strike was deleted from the 1982 Constitution on the grounds that "contradictions" between workers and enterprises had been eliminated, but there were official reports of more than seven hundred strikes in the first ten months of 1988, one of them lasting three months...

...But in 1991, lawyers for Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao, founders of an independent research organization, boldly defended their clients against the charge of being "black hands" behind the 1989 protests...

...Both Wei's and Liu's suits were recently rejected, and lawyers who have represented dissidents have met with reprisals...

...Among them is the ever-recalcitrant Wei Jingsheng...

...Migrant workers who leave their villages to seek work in Special Economic Zones and cities are particularly vulnerable since they lack the urban residence status that would entitle them to state benefits...

...A series of open letters and petitions has appealed for a revision of this verdict...

...Unrest and Strikes Worker unrest has continued to rise since 1989 in response to the upheavals of governmentsponsored economic reform...

...Although they clearly face another period of repression, dissidents hope that the longawaited death of Deng Xiaoping will bring a change in the political climate...

...Even if the transition after Deng's death is smooth and its direction liberal (neither of which is guaranteed), China's human rights and labor activists will still have plenty to do...

...He supports the efforts of organizations such as the League for the Protection of the Rights of Working People, but insists that only protests initiated by workers can form the basis for an independent union movement...

...Diversity of age, educational background, and occupation among China's dissenters has never been greater...

...The league welcomed not only workers, but also intellectuals, peasants, and entrepreneurs...

...Where none of these charges is applicable, the government continues to accuse dissidents of offenses such as hooliganism, traffic violations, and the misuse of official funds...

...In contrast to the heady scenes in Tiananmen Square, China's dissidents today talk not of democratic revolution but of a laborious process of democratic reform in which the construction of an independent legal system, the development of civil associations, and the growth of a sense of citizenship are more important than the removal of the Communist party or particular leaders from power...

...The dissident community includes veterans of the 1978-1981 Democracy Wall movement like Wei Jingsheng and Liu Nianchun, student leaders from the 1989 protest like Wang Dan, and many new recruits who have joined the movement since 1989...

...A number of other activists fled the country, and those who remain are likely to be cautious for a while...

...Since 1992, many students and intellectuals arrested in connection with the 1989 protest movement have been released, some for medical reasons and some, controversially, for "good behavior...

...Some local branches of the All China Women's Federation also seem to pursue a somewhat independent agenda...

...Articles in their unofficial journals occasionally made admiring references to Polish Solidarity (on which the official media reported until Deng announced his support for martial law in December 1981...

...Since the mid-1970s, when reports of strikes in several Chinese cities filtered out, Chinese workers have increasingly resorted to independent action...

...Even more alarming is the specter of a nascent independent workers' movement...

...Industrial safety is a widespread problem, especially in minimally regulated private operations...

...Independent groups may not duplicate the activities of official organizations, and the 1992 Trade Union Law specifically forbids the establishment of unions not affiliated with ACFTU...

...In 1993, the government stopped denying the reality of strikes and reported nearly ten thousand industrial actions for that year...

...Many Democracy Wall activists were selfeducated workers who drew attention to the contradiction between official ideology and real life in China's factories...

...This new boldness is due partly to a masWINTER • 1997 • 17 Politics Abroad sive shift in public opinion over the last fifteen years...

...At least thirty workers' organizations were formed, the largest of which, the Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation (BWAF), claimed thousands of members by the end of May...

...The government has also passed regulations against many of the dissidents' new tactics...

...Describing himself as a "real socialist," he criticizes the Communist party for permitting increasing inequality of wealth and failing to provide for workers' welfare...

...Shortly before his arrest, Xu had been involved in discussions with worker-activists from around the country about the possibility of starting an independent national publication...

...In 1994, the organizers were sentenced to prison terms of between seven and twenty years, "killing the chickens for the monkeys to watch," as the Chinese say...

...Most of these strikes and work stoppages have been spontaneous, but there have also been several attempts to establish independent unions...

...Wages have risen, but prices have followed them, and new workers in state-owned enterprises no longer have job security...

...When Wei Jingsheng was arrested in 1979, few spoke in his defense...

...Since 1989, ACFTU has shown no outward signs of disloyalty to the regime...

...Liu Qing, who served ten years for his involvement in the Democracy Wall movement and is now chairman of Human Rights in China, reports that at least thirty people have sued the authorities for violations of their constitutional rights or the Chinese legal code...

...Most Chinese are still unwilling to risk their own security by speaking out, but many admire those who do...

...A carefully worded petition submitted to the National People's Congress characterized the league as an "interest group not a political party" and called for improvements in health care and working conditions and for the restoration of the constitutional right to strike, the extension of union rights to peasants, and the disclosure of party WINTER • 1997 • 19 Politics Abroad and government officials' assets and income...