University of Westminster (boxun.com)

8 June 2004

The Centre for the Study of Democracy is holding a workshop to reflect on political and cultural change in the People¡¯s Republic of China on the fifteenth anniversary of June 4, 1989. The day¡¯s events will be organised around a Chinese language panel in the morning session and an English language panel in the afternoon.

The focus of our discussions will start with the international significance of June 4 in the context of developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The events in China had both direct and indirect influences on events elsewhere, though with very different effects. In China, the complex configurations which produced the June 4 movement involved the shifting influence of political and cultural forces, radical economic change and the increasing divergence between elite interest factions and popular interests. Emerging at the end of the Cold War, the resulting disjuncture of interests and passions signified enormous political and cultural challenges in a world that seemed to be increasingly dominated by the interests of global capitalism. In the Chinese context, these challenges demanded a focus on issues concerning political change, social and cultural freedoms and human rights in a complex agenda negotiated between international capitalism and the domestic consumer market, and between Western interests in maintaining Communist control as a safeguard of global capital and Communist interests in maintaining domestic control. From today¡¯s persepective, this challenge may seem to have diminished in explicit political terms, but it is maintained in different organisational practices in China addressing issues such as social marginalisation and exclusion, internal and external migration, HIV/AIDS, and the Falungong. The field of contestation highlighted by June 4 has thus shifted from the explicitly political to the social and cultural. In the process the political edge to the challenge of June 4 has acquired new meanings. But what does 1989 now signify? A continued challenge to he hegemonic priorities of global capital or support of an agenda of change that sustains the global status quo? What we make of June 4 fifteen years after the events that shook the world is the core theme of this workshop.

To address such issues, the workshop will bring together academics, writers, cultural practitioners and political activists and commentators, from China, the UK and the United States.

WORKSHOP DETAILS

Address: THE CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY£¬100 PARK VILLAGE EASTLONDON NW1 3SR

Nearest Underground station: Mornington Crescent or Camden Town

NB: These workshops are free, but places are limited. If you would like to attend, please contact Ma Jian or Harriet Evans to reserve a place.

Morning Workshop

In Chinese Language only

10am ¨C 12pmChair: Yang LianPanel: Shao Jiang, Ma Jian, Wang Dan

To reserve a place, contact Ma JianTelephone: 020 8960 1553e-mail£ºmajian53@hotmail.com

Afternoon Workshop

In English

2pm ¨C 5pmChair: Harriet EvansPanel: John Gittings, Tienchi Martin-Liao, Wang Dan, Yang Lian

To reserve a place, contact Harriet Evans evansh@westminster.ac.uk (boxun.com)