Instead, today China feels the consequences of rejecting this path of reform. The same corruption that motivated the opposition 20 years ago is today an open sore on the face of Chinese society. Eighty percent of China's wealth is thought to be controlled by the top 10 percent of party officials. And it's visible. Corruption distorts every aspect of Chinese society, from the shoddy workmanship of the elementary schools that collapsed during last year's earthquake (while the homes of party officials stood firm) to the summary displacement of more than 300,000 Beijing citizens in the name of "beautification" to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. No wonder, then, that corruption is still the largest source of alienation between the CCP and the population. Endemic corruption is the grievance cited in an estimated 100,000 major protests each year in China.

To the outside world, Chinese society has prospered. But internally, it has atrophied morally and socially. China maintains its competitive edge through a base exploitation of its workers, who labor without rights or avenues of recourse. Even the most advanced free market economies find it hard to compete. The Chinese government becomes rich, but ordinary people do not. The average Chinese citizen contributes less to the country's GDP today than he or she did in 1988.

One of the most famous slogans for China's reforms has been to "cross the river by feeling stones." Surely, Deng Xiaoping meant to infer a gradual notion of change. Instead, the metaphor today mockingly describes a society at odds with itself, lacking direction to support its ever-looming one party structure. The contradiction will not easily go away -- and will likely flare again, just as it did two decades ago. Zhao Ziyang foresaw this perpetual confrontation years ago, arguing that unless the Chinese government moved toward real democratic reform "it will be impossible to resolve the abnormal conditions in China's market economy."  

They were prophetic words, indeed. Today, even as China's leadership has moved further from Zhao's vision, the Tiananmen ideals never left the political dialogue. More than at any time in the last two decades, people might just be willing to protest to bring those ideals back again. Until then, we are left to confront the equally predictive words of the Soviet-era dissident, Andrei Sakharov: "The world community cannot rely on a government that does not rely on its own people."