Growing Influence of China's Private Sector

The growing influence of China's private sector can be seen as early as 1989, specifically during the student protests of that same year.

Among the most ardent supporters of the student protests were said to be geitihu (个体户, individual owners) who banded together in squads and raced around Beijing on motorbikes, organizing resistance to the army. Many donated food and drinks to the protesters, while a few gave generous financial support.

Indeed, according to Jasper Becker, the Tiananmen incident "demonstrated how, for the first time in forty years, the private sector was capable of wielding political influence and constituting something like an opposition to the Communist Party."

Hence it was unsurprising that in the aftermath of the protests, the Party begun a large-scale investigation of private companies, and started yet another propaganda campaign, accusing them of evading taxes and selling pornography.

"Self-employed traders and peddlers cheat, embezzle, bribe and evade taxation," wrote then new Party chief Jiang Zemin (江泽民).

Even the children of private businessmen were attacked.

A survey published in the China Education Daily Survey found that "many of their children are often involved in fighting, drinking alcohol, gambling and reading pornographic materials. Eighty per cent of them are tired of collective activities and duties. One student even paid his classmates to do classroom cleaning for him for the whole year."