| Author | Wei Jingsheng |
|---|---|
Publication date | 1978 |
| The Fifth Modernization | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 第五个现代化 | ||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 第五個現代化 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
"The Fifth Modernization" is an essay by human rights activist Wei Jingsheng, originally begun as a signed wall poster placed on the Democracy Wall in Beijing on December 5, 1978.1
Summary
The poster called on the Chinese Communist Party to add democracy to the list of the Four Modernizations, which already included industry, agriculture, science and technology, and national defense.2 It openly stated democracy was an additional modernization that needed to be pursued if China truly wanted to modernize itself.
References
References
- Brook, Daniel. [2005] (2005). Modern revolution: social change and cultural continuity in Czechoslovakia and China. University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-3193-2, ISBN 978-0-7618-3193-8.
- Schell, Orville. Shambaugh, David L. [1999] (1999). The China reader: the reform era. Random House, Inc. ISBN 0-679-76387-2, ISBN 978-0-679-76387-1.