Normalization with the Asian Powers } 459
and the CCP’s core development strategies: close economic cooperation with
Japan as a key driver of China’s development effort.^59
The regime mobilized to rebut the students’ argument. Li Peng, then vice
premier, told an assembly of student leaders that a low-keyed approach to
Japan was a diplomatic necessity. Moreover, China retained the initiative in
relations with Japan. China should be self-confident, Li Peng said. Zhongguo
qingnian bao warned the students that closing China’s doors to the outside
world once again because of a few undesirable phenomena would be like “giv-
ing up eating for fear of choking.” Gu Mu explained to student representatives
that Japan’s economic activity in China was not aggression but was helping
China’s economic development.^60
These arguments did not suffice to end student activism. In November, stu-
dents began to mobilize for further demonstrations on December 9—the day
in 1935 when students had rallied to demand that Chiang Kai-shek abandon
his anticommunist policies and form a united front with the communists
against Japan. Clandestinely distributed publicity for the planned demonstra-
tion demonstrated how easy it was for anti-Japanese nationalism to morph
into criticism of the CCP regime. Democracy was necessary to fully mobilize
the Chinese people to “stand up in the world,” the flyer said. “Bloodsucking
princes” were “plotting their own private interests” and “taking advantage of
reform” while opening the door to Japan. These were powerful echoes of the
CCP’s indictment of China’s pre-1949 rulers—that they were partners with
imperialism, enriching themselves while allowing the imperialists to run
amuck in China. Once again the regime mobilized. The media’s main point
was that student patriotism could contribute to strengthening the nation only
under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.^61
Yet another round of student demonstrations spread across the campuses
of Chinese universities a year later, in late 1986. These demonstrations tar-
geted not Japan but a variety of domestic issues, with “democracy” being
their common denominator.^62 The period 1985–1986 was one of intensifying
conflict over the future of political reform in China. Increased contact with
the outside world, relaxation of controls on speech, and increased economic
dislocations associated with the monumental shift from planned to market
economics led to a sense of uncertainty and questioning. Liberal intellec-
tuals, tolerated by Hu Yaobang’s lenient approach, increasingly challenged
Marxist-Leninist politics and called for full democratization. One of the most
prominent of these intellectuals, Fang Lizhi, a professor of astrophysics at
Chinese University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui province, went
on a speaking tour of university campuses in late 1986. Fang was blunt in his
demands. At Shanghai’s Jiaotong University, for example, he said, “I am here
to tell you that the socialist movement, from Marx and Lenin to Stalin and
Mao, has been a failure. I think that complete Westernization [i.e., embrace
of “Western-style” democracy] is the only way to modernize.” Fang’s ideas