Toward a Democratic China: The Intellectual Autobiography of Yan Jiaqi
by Jiaqi Yan
Category: Biography & Autobiography

During the 1980s, as director of the Political Science Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Science - China's most prestigious think-tank - Yan Jiaqi proposed many of the political reforms undertaken by the Chinese government, including term limitations for high-level officials, separation of party and state, and creation of a civil service system. In this book, Yan summarizes the thinking behind these and other reforms yet to be adopted on China's difficult path to democracy. Originally published in 1989, Yan's account of his early training in science, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Incident of 1976, and the Democracy Wall Movement of 1978-79 gives a frank appraisal of the formative events in the intellectual development of one of China's preeminent political scientists. In new chapters written for this edition, he also describes the momentous events of the spring of 1989, culminating in his escape from China following the June 4 massacre and his subsequent life in exile. Supplementing Yan's narrative is a selection of essays representing different facets of this exceptionally cosmopolitan Chinese thinker, including several pieces written since June 1989 which reflect on recent Chinese history and give Yan's view of China's prospects for the 1990s.