Yang Jianli
- Surviving Tiananmen, Envisioning Democracy
(winter2015)
“The desire for freedom and dignity is intrinsic. Sooner or later, people will do something to demand these freedoms. The problem right now is that China’s government has created fear among the general public to deter them from taking collective action. The fear factor still works today. Whenever its effect is reduced, the government does something to bring it back—by making more arrests, for example. As far as I can understand, many members of the elite in China, although they act as apologists for the political status quo, know that democracy is good for China. They may not actually be afraid of democracy—what they’re afraid of is democratization. The process scares them.”