Student lives, student voices : university politics in post‐Mao China

An original interpretation of the student movement in China can be derived by focusing not on the political demands made by the students on the party and state and the response of the bureaucratic leadership, but on the drudgery of students' daily life, their hopes and expectations of the reformers, and the frustration leading to revolt when these were not met. The combination of the pressures of reforms themselves ‐ their unintended consequences ‐ which remained partial and carefully controlled, on the one hand, and the lack, on the other, of recognized interest‐representing organizations that might become a bridge between the frustrated students and the wary authorities, resulted in the demonstrations, first, of 1986–87 and then the tragic protests of 1989. Finally, the shift from the Maoist political patterns of popular mobilization to the more contained attempts at political control is a project that will remain fraught with pitfalls unless the issue of democratizing the political system is seriously addressed by the Chinese leadership