Crackdown: Explaining Military Repression of the 1989 Protests in China

• In Event: Protesters, Soldiers and the State: Re-Examining Military Response to Resistance

Abstract

When faced with mass unrest, an authoritarian leader’s political survival often depends on whether the military remains loyal to the regime. When do authoritarian armies side with the regime and when do they defect? In this chapter, I examine an important case of military loyalty: the repression of student-led protests in China in 1989. As the protests grew in force and spread across China in April and May 1989, it was not clear if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would crack down. Indeed, some key officers privately expressed reluctance to use force and the nominal head of the party expressed sympathy for the students. Yet on June 3rd and 4th, 1989, key PLA generals ultimately remained loyal to Deng Xiaoping and other conservatives, using tanks and bullets to clear protesters from the streets of Beijing and other cities.

This chapter draws on new qualitative and quantitative evidence to explain the logic underlying military loyalty in 1989. My central argument is that leaders take into account both social ties to leaders and social ties to protesters when selecting which officers will participate in violent repression. Drawing on a new dataset of military officers down to the group army level, and new information on the units that participated in the crackdown, I show how party leaders strategically selected military units based on connections to key conservative leaders and to local communities. I also examine newly released internal documents that illuminate the thinking of key leaders. Finally, I examine whether officers were who participated in the crackdown rewarded for their behavior later in their careers. The chapter illuminates the key role of social ties in military loyalty in authoritarian regimes.

Author

• Daniel Mattingly, Yale University