Saturday, March 21, 2015

This Day in 1989: The Democracy Salon is Revived in Peking University

On March 22, 1989, about a hundred students at Peking University attended a session of the Democracy Salon on campus. Wang Dan led the session and a graduate student gave a speech on the "New Authoritarianism," a trendy topic of the day.

The Democracy Salon was originally founded by Liu Gang almost a year earlier. In 1988, it hosted several prominent intellectuals, including American Ambassador Winston Lord, to provide interactive discussions with students. The Salon did not survive for long when the school banished it after an unrelated incident resulting to the death of a student. After that, Wang Dan had been hosting small, secretive sessions in his dorm building.

This is the first time the Salon is once again held outdoors in the open.


This Day in 1989

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