Abstract

During the reign of China’s Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong (1949–1976), any political or academic dissent was brutally suppressed. With Mao’s death in 1976, China, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and his successors, opened China to the outside world and loosened political controls over the intellectual community. As China moved to a market economy and engagement with the Western world, the party loosened controls over intellectual endeavors. Nevertheless, a small number of intellectuals who criticized party’ policies and publicly called for democratic reforms were silenced and a a number of them were imprisoned. Though, intellectuals enjoyed more personal and academic freedom in the post-Mao era, if they criticized the party’s policies or practices directly, they were ostracized from the intellectual community and a small number were imprisoned.