Ones and Tooze The Economics That Drove the Tiananmen Square Protests
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Apr 3, 2026 
Adam Tooze, Columbia history professor and Foreign Policy economics columnist, offers a compact historical-economic take on the 1989 Tiananmen protests. He traces inflation, overheating growth, and widening socioeconomic displacement. He maps policy responses, Deng's 1992 pivot, US-China reintegration, and how those shifts shaped China’s long-term political-economy.
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Tiananmen Was Driven By Economic Overheating
- The 1989 Tiananmen protests were as much socioeconomic as they were political.
- Rapid 11% growth produced overheating, 20% inflation, and redistributional conflicts that drove students, intellectuals, and workers to protest.
Chinese New Left Reframes 1989 As Global Economic Moment
- Adam Tooze recounts meeting Wang Hui and reading the Chinese New Left perspective.
- That view frames 1989 as part of global neoliberal upheaval from Thatcher/Reagan through Eastern Europe to China.
Price Liberalization Sparked Political Backlash
- Price liberalization proposals in 1988 triggered panic and redistributional struggle.
- Calls for comprehensive price reform made people withdraw savings, risking financial crisis and mobilizing public servants and academics against reformers.