The Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 13th Central Committee(CC) were the first comprehensive central Party meetings to be convened in the aftermath of the suppression of the “pro–democracy” movement in and around Tiananmen Square. Although held roughly four months apart, they can be considered together insofar as both sought to consolidate and confirm the legitimacy of the new hardline leadership. While the agendas of the two plenums varied, both dealt with the impact of the momentous events of April–June particularly in terms of their effects on: leadership personnel; public security; ideology and propaganda; economic policy; civil–military relations; and foreign affairs.

The consumption structure in China has undergone a dramatic change since the economic reform started in late 1979. Durable goods ownership, an important aspect of overall consumption, has experi enced an even greater change both in variety and quantity. Analyses of general consumption in China are found in Lardy, Van der Gaag, Hu et al. and Zhang et al.1 Quantitative analysis devoted solely to durable goods consumption in Chinese cities has rarely been undertaken.

China's de jure urbanization level more than doubled in the five years between 1982 and 1987, jumping from 20.8 per cent to 46 6 per cent (Table 1). The Chinese State Statistical Bureau (SSB) officials explained that this unprecedented increase was largely the result of an increase in the number of urban towns since the mid 1984 relaxation of criteria for urban town designation.1 This is, however, only a partial explanation. My own analysis shows that much of the gain in the town population was in fact due to the post-1984 governing system of“town administering village” (zhen guan cun). Many newly designated urban towns (and some existing towns as well) have enlarged their administrative territories to include a huge number of agricultural residents in their official urban population. Most of these rural persons, however, judged by strict occupational and residential criteria, should not have been counted as urban population. The inclusion of many agricultural persons in the urban sector since mid 1984 has thus greatly exaggerated the actual urbanization level.2

Zhang Xinxin and Zhang Jie are two contemporary Chinese women writers. They began to publish in the post–Cultural Revolution era, and became well–known in the early 1980s for their fictional depiction of the problems of urban intellectual women attempting to resolve conflicts between love and career, love and marriage, and ideals and reality. Although the works of both authors present a limited challenge to traditions they believe have served to oppress women, a clear generational difference is perceptible in the attitudes they each express through their characters. Zhang Jie, born in 1937 and reaching adulthood in the idealistic climate of the 1950s, presents characters strongly influenced by both Confucian morality and socialist ideals, while Zhang Xinxin, who was born in 1953 and grew up during the Cultural Revolution period (a disillusioning experience for most of her generation), presents characters who show little enthusiasm for political ideals and are less constrained by traditional morality.