Tiananmen Square: Modernization without political reform

The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (Unit 10.6) and the government's violent suppression demonstrated what kind of modernization the Chinese Communist Party would permit. Economic modernization, market reforms, foreign investment, and limited cultural opening were all acceptable. Political modernization on the Western liberal model (multiparty democracy, free press, civil liberties) was not. Tiananmen has remained the framework of Chinese governance: economic dynamism combined with one-party political control.