It could be that no people have ever outdone the Chinese in ascribing moral virtues to the state or in deprecating the worth of the individual. First Confucianism and then the Chinese version of Leninism went all out in extolling the importance of rulers and society and in minimizing the rights of individuals. The gap between the moral worth and the recognized rights of state and citizen in China was and remains huge both because of the way the Chinese have consistently given paramountcy to the state and the ways in which they have subordinated the individual to the group. The extraordinary imbalance in the relations of the state and individuals provides both the structural and the cultural bases for the human rights practices which are now the most contentious issues between China and the west, especially the United States. What is outrageous to Americans can be for most Chinese normal expectations – although since Tiananmen a majority may feel that the state has gone too far.

In May of 1989 urban workers burst suddenly onto the Chinese political scene. They marched by the tens of thousands in huge Beijing street demonstrations, in delegations from hundreds of workplacesacts repeated on a smaller scale in cities throughout the country. While organized strikes were rare, small groups of dissident workers formed dozens of independent unions and other political groups from Sichuan to Shanghai, and from Inner Mongolia to Guangdong. The most visible, the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Union, set up in mid-April, had an organized presence on Tiananmen Square beginning in the week of the student hunger strike, claimed thousands of members, published dozens of handbills and political manifestos, and played an important role in organizing demonstrations after the declaration of martial law. The workers' unprecedented political response helped transform a vibrant student movement into the most severe popular challenge to Communist Party rule since 1949.

The institutional framework of agriculture defines the context in which the relationship between the peasant and the state is enacted. In China from the mid-1950s until 1979 that framework was characterized by a collectivist and interventionist ethos. The state–peasant relationship weighed heavily in favour of the state. The three tiers of agricultural organization–commune, brigade and production team – facilitated control of the economic activities of individual peasants by the government, whether at central or local level. Individual initiative was largely limited to those activities which could be carried out in spare time or on private plots. The relationship between effort and reward was frequently tenuous and distribution was guided by egalitarian principles.

The military is a key actor in the political life of many nations. Across the developing and socialist worlds, the armed forces have served as far more than guarantors of national security as they sustain civilian elites in power or often seize it themselves. In China there has been a long tradition of military rule during much of the modern era–one need think only of Li Hongzhang and the Beiyang Army, the Republic's first president General Yuan Shikai, the warlords of the 1920s, or Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Guominjun (the twin sibling of the ruling Guomindang). In post-1949 China former and active-duty military officers (as well as the military as an institution) have been central actors in the political life of the nation, effectively administering the country from 1949–52 and 1967–73. However, this article is not so much about the militarization of politics in China as about the politicization of the military.

The relationship between the Chinese intellectual and the communist state experienced some significant changes during the 1980s, although some of the basic patterns established since the 1930s and 1940s were not altered. This contrast is in line with the overall impact of Deng Xiaoping's limited reforms, which gave more room, and more weight, to society vis-à-vis the state, while the basic structures of the latter were left untouched. Social change was the new element which allowed the intellectuals to enjoy more autonomy in organizing their associations and in articulating new ideas. The intellectual with an autonomous base in a more autonomous society emerged from the prevalent pattern of technocratic intellectuals operating within the state framework, a state whose totalitarian scope had deprived them of any social base.

The three birth cohorts which have passed through the youth stage of their life course since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 have had radically different relations with the Party-state. This has brought serious consequences for the Party-state itself, the Party-state's relation with succeeding youth cohorts and for the integration of Chinese society.