Jiang oversaw China’s reemergence on the global stage, and sustained growth at home. But his policies also set the scene for excess and the growth of President Xi Jinping.
Protesters march along a street in Beijing on Nov. 28, 2022.
Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images
Teresa Wright, California State University, Long Beach
Comparisons have been made to the 1989 demonstrations that led to the Tiananmen Square massacre. An expert on Chinese protests explains why that is half right.
Anger spills over in the streets of Beijing.
REUTERS/Thomas Peter
A scholar of philosophy and foreign policy explains why Cardinal Zen poses a threat to the Chinese Communist Party as a competing source of political authority.
Demonstration for the rights of the Uyghurs in Berlin, 2020.
Leonhard Lenz, Wikimedia Commons
As it celebrates it’s 100th birthday, the Chinese ruling party’s latest programme of education aims to harness the power of youth in its own interests.
Protesters in Hong Kong during demonstrations against China’s draft bill to impose national security laws on the semi-autonomous territory.
Ivan Abreu/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The cherished legal rights that Beijing seeks to suppress in Hong Kong were established, in part, by Vietnamese asylum-seekers who fought for their freedom in court in the 1980s.
A Buddhist monk releases birds, symbolizing the spirits of the victims of the 2004 tsunami. This Chinese tradition of analogy was taken up by the demonstrators in Hong Kong.
Samantha Sin/AFP
Hong Kong protesters deeply identify with nature, a reference to the current environmental crisis but also a fluid conception of collective action that is inscribed in ancient Chinese tradition.
Preparing for a clash with police at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Jerome Favre/EPA
While the political and long-term consequences of the protests are still impossible to know, Hong Kong is already experiencing some short-term economic impacts.
Why protests have returned to the streets of Hong Kong.
The official line in China is that the Tiananmen ‘incident’ was necessary for stability. This whitewashing of history has largely been accepted by many in China as the truth.
How Hwee Young/EPA
The Chinese government tightly controls all mention of the 1989 pro-democracy protests, but in recent days, it’s been very open with its justifications for the brutal crackdown.
Pro-democracy activists march in Hong Kong in May 2019 to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Jerome Favre/EPA
Back in 1989, workers joined students in pro-democracy protests. Now students are joining workers agitating for better conditions.
Seven years after Tahrir Square became the focal point of the Egyptian Revolution, towering metal gates now control access.
Ahmed Abd El-Fatah/Wikimedia
Today’s urban public spaces tend to represent governments and cities rather than people and citizens. Architects and urban designers should contribute to shaping spaces for freedom and interaction.
Even when Xi Jinping meets Donald Trump, China seeks to erase history that does not suit the Communist Party’s purpose.
Thomas Peter/EPA/AAP
For China, national amnesia has become a ‘state-sponsored sport’. Memories of events deemed sensitive by the state are not just forgotten, they are winnowed out and selectively deleted.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walks with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China in December 2017.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Canada’s “progressive trade agenda” with China might have died in the Great Hall of the People earlier this month. But there’s now an opportunity for a serious reconsideration of the relationship.