The end of the liberal world as we know it?

an article by James Wang published in Eurozine

While the rest of the world concentrated on the fall of the Berlin Wall, another wall in China brought about a different type of change. The economic power the most populous country has accumulated is now challenging the western claim that only liberal democracy would provide ideal circumstances for capitalism.

Walls are perhaps the most iconic and enduring images from 1989. The political imaginary of Americans and Europeans alike centres on one iconic photo: that of exuberant East and West Germans breaking down the Berlin Wall on the night of November 9th that year. The wall was the physical embodiment of Cold War division and authoritarian rule; its destruction reflected liberal aspirations for a world soon to be remade in the image of America and western Europe. Yet, for those of us who care to remember, in China we start with images of another wall. This one culminates not in a story of liberation, however, but in the violent drama at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Full text (PDF 6pp)

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