Hu Yaobang

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang, purged general secretary of the CPC. Hu Yaobang left the ranks of the communist leadership in 1987 blamed for student protests that Deng Xiaoping feared could lead to the undoing of the Party's power. After the Party put on what many people viewed as a unfittingly small state funeral, students filled up Tiananmen Square to show their respect for a great leader. They didn't leave until June 4th when tanks and soldiers drove them out.

This year has already seen dozens of stories (here, here and here, among others) from the Western media on the danger this anniversary might pose, but I would be very surprised if anything happens. The students who protested twenty years ago lived in a much poorer, much more restricted China. There was no internet. College graduates were forced to accept government-assigned jobs. Students lived 12 to a room in horrible conditions and ate barely edible food three meals a day. The party, after raising hundreds of millions out of poverty and allowing more personal freedoms, now enjoys much more support from students and population at large. Even those elements that are pushing for more freedom probably would not risk incurring the Party's wrath by demonstrating on this occasion. Many people remain ignorant about the event and a large number of those who are aware believe that the government did what it had to in order to maintain national stability.

There are millions of people with legitimate grievances against the government, but it will take a seismic event, not just the echoes of one, to spur them to the level of civil disobedience that the students reached twenty years ago.