C hina, Student Protests, 20th Century

Abstract

Prior to the twentieth century, student protest was a relatively uncommon phenomenon in China. The only large academic institutions that existed were state‐run academies populated by students who had performed exceptionally well in the civil service examinations. Most students were the sons of elites, and they were trained by private tutors or in very small village schools in the Confucian texts, so that they too would be able to pass the civil service examinations. In other words, student culture, to the extent that it existed, centered on the examinations and examination venues, where virtually all of the participants had been rigorously trained in the ideological orthodoxy that the state wished to perpetuate. By the early twentieth century, however, a new student culture arose, and it was one in which students took a leading role in calling for and shaping new political and social structures through protest. Throughout the twentieth century, Chinese students have used protest as a tool to try to accomplish political goals.