Current Situation
By the 1990s, the democracy movement seemed to be in decline, both within and outside China. This could be in part the result of the Chinese government tightening its control over its people's freedom of speech, thus giving the appearance of disinterest, or as a result of the overall economical and social reforms China has undertaken in recent years. The difficulties that the Soviet Union had in converting to democracy and capitalism was used to validate the PRC's official position that slow gradual reform was a wise policy. Structurally, democracy promotion organizations in the United States such as the China Alliance for Democracy, the Federation for a Democratic China and the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars suffered from internal disputes and infighting. Much support was lost over the issue of Most Favored Nation trade status and China's entry into the World Trade Organization which was popular both within and outside of China, but which were opposed by 79% of the American people (in a poll published by Business Week) and the overseas democracy movement.
Throughout the 1980s, these ideas increased in popularity among college educated Chinese. In response to the growing corruption, the economic dislocation, and the sense that reforms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were leaving China behind, the Tiananmen Square protests erupted in 1989.
Censorship in Mainland China is very strict, including in the Internet. The new generation finds it difficult to obtain, or are unaware of, the truth regarding several important historical events which occurred before they were born.
A generation gap has begun to appear between older and younger students when people born after the Cultural Revolution began entering college campuses. These students perceived the older activists as more pro-American than pro-democracy, and thus they are far more supportive of the Communist Party. The younger students also tend to be more nationalistic. Internal disputes within the movement over such issues as China's most-favored nation status in US trade law crippled the movement; as did the perception by many within China that overseas dissidents such as Harry Wu and Wei Jingsheng were simply out of touch with the growing economic prosperity and decreasing political control within China.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Democracy Movement
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