The Story of May Fourth and Chen Guangcheng

May Fourth is a significant yet often misunderstood day in China. Today, people know it as "Youth Day" when teenagers and students get half day off school. The origin of the day, however, was the May Fourth movement that culminated in famous intellectual demonstrations in Beijing on May 4, 1919. That history, like most history in China, has been told differently and some might say misrepresented, by the Chinese Communist Party and official views. Chen Guangcheng's story happening today in fact parallels the true idea of what May Fourth was about.

May Fourth, as it should be remembered, was the story of an intellectual rebellion. The connection to students remain because many of them, some of whom studied in the universities in the West, led the voices that culminated in May Fourth. They rebelled against the inequities of the day: a weak, unresponsive national government in Beijing; a country divided by warlords and incapable of solving great social problems; and a backwards culture that was dragging back China's progress into the Twentieth Century. China's suffering at the Versailles Treaty, despite contemporary accounts, played little role in the intellectuals' frustration.

That clash of ideas was what underscored May Fourth. Intellectuals of all stripes and persuasions came to voice their dissatisfaction with the country and proposed ideas for change. The times provided the opportunity for students to voice themselves and their dissent with authority. One of the ideas that attracted attention was Marx-Leninism, that China should follow the Russian Revolution that had just happened up north. But Marxism was not the only idea or the main idea behind the movement, contrary to what official history relates. May Fourth was about many ideas coming and clashing, rather than one idea triumphing.

Chen Guangcheng fits within the ideals behind May Fourth. His role in pointing out the inequities that exist in China today and daring act of fleeing to the American embassy are as audacious and ground-breaking as those of the intellectuals who led May Fourth. He, like many of them, is voicing displeasure at problems in the country and how the politicians were fostering them. His act of dissent - some may call foolhardy while others may call defiant - is what May Fourth is about. Celebrating May Fourth as a mere youth day betrays the true origin of what's it's about and its contemporary significance - and does more injustice to people like Chen Guangcheng. The Chinese Communist Party is fine with that, but what about you?