The ‘New Authoritarian’ Debates

Abstract

The origin, tenor and collapse of the debates on new authoritarianism (NA) in China in the late 1980s have been amply documented and disputed. The debates are said to have been rooted in discussions that began in 1986, to have been initiated in Shanghai, to have been halted because of the central leadership’s campaign against ‘bourgeois liberalization’, to have emerged again because of the failure of reformers to eliminate the dual-track price system, and to have broken down completely during the student demonstrations in 1989.¹ NA’s theoretical inception is said to be rooted in Zhao Ziyang’s theories², in Deng Xiaoping’s theories³, in a combination of Zhao’s and Deng’s theories,⁴ in the theories of Su Shaozhi,⁵ and in the views of the so-called ‘Princelings’ (Taizidang).⁶

Putting this in historical perspective, it is clear that the debate on the nature of ‘modernised values’ in China today does hark back to the still unresolved debates of the last century…. That is, can China maintain a social structure based on traditional Chinese norms while adopting Western technology for practical application? (Burton, 1986, p. 273)