The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (China Studies)

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The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)

China Studies Published for the Institute for Chinese Studies University of Oxford

Editors

Glen Dudbridge Frank Pieke

VOLUME 9

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Shaping the Reforms, Academia and China (1977–2003)

By

Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

on the cover: The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

This book was published with ﬁnancial support from the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, the Netherlands, www.iias.nl.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISSN: 1570-1344 ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15323 3 ISBN-10: 90 04 15323 3 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

To my teachers

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes on the Spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xiii xv xvii xix

part i. introducing cass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Chapter One. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Aims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Questions, problems and methodological limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Collecting materials: politics, administrative organization and livelihood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Participant observation and the questions it raised . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Structure and contents of Shaping the Reforms, Academia and China . . 13 Chapter Two. Locating CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CASS and the political establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CASS as an organization under the State Council and Party supervision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CASS and the generation of ‘public discussion’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Internal and external organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professional titles and ranking at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lateral relations and personnel exchange. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Three. The Establishment of CASS and the Process of PRC State-Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Academic institutes and China’s state building process since 1949 The precursor of CASS: the Xuebu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Establishing CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The formation of CASS: a vote for order and informed authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Building state institutions and regulating academic life . . . . . . . . . . .

17 17 19 23 30 30 32

35 36 37 40 44 49

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table of contents

part ii. pre-1989 academic struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Chapter Four. Initial Reform (1977–1982)—Rehabilitations and Expectations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Leadership changes at CASS (1977–1982) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Chapter Five. Academic Democracy and Spiritual Pollution (1982–1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ups and downs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spiritual pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leadership changes at CASS (1982–1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Criticizing both Left and Right. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Six. Division among Intellectuals (1985–1988)—Socialist Modernization and the Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing the leadership of CASS (1985–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relaxation and some major hiccups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tying down Bourgeois Liberalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Repercussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Compromising political reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Closing the ﬁrst decade: intellectual dispute and co-option in a socialist nation-state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67 68 69 72 75

77 79 80 87 90 95 98

part iii. from critical to guided academic dispute (1988–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Chapter Seven. Increasing Open Conﬂict in the Ideological Sphere (1988–1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Revaluation of socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Disillusionment among reformists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Proponents of neo-authoritarianism and of democracy . . . . . . . . 113 Increasingly open debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Around the June Fourth 1989 demonstrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Leadership changes (1988–1991). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Punitive measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

contents

ix

Chapter Eight. Tightening Control and the Liberalization of Academic Research (1990–1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 The primacy of the CASS Party Committee and the ‘responsibility system’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 The implementation of the responsibility system and the ‘twenty-character guideline’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Yu Wen and the ‘Work Regulations for Academic Planning’ . . 136 Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Chapter Nine. Deepening the Reforms (1993–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Shaping the ‘Deepening of the Reforms’ and ‘Earning Money’ at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Change of leadership (1993–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 CASS leaders and state policy-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 State policy-making and research: spreading the message . . . . . . . . 155 The case of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Academic work under the aegis of Party Committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Chapter Ten. Who Works at CASS and Why? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Research and political requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Recruitment problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Working conditions at CASS (1989–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Promotion, beneﬁts and facilities at CASS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Rewards and beneﬁts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Financial burdens of CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Financial incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Conducting research at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Part three: from critical to guided academic dispute (1988–1998) 182 Leaders and the led: patterns of institutional development . . . . 182 Patron dependency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Leadership adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Regulatory functions of the academic hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

x

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part iv. reforms at cass: symbolic knowledge, party guidance, and academic streamlining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Chapter Eleven. National, Rational, and Symbolic Understanding in Academic China and CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Reconceptualizing the nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Feudalism and the backward nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Party-state and dissidence: diverging concepts of national strength and authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Symbolic and cognitive aspects of knowledge production . . . . . . . . 202 An example: Jiang Zemin’s symbolism and the mission of patriotic intellectuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 National symbolism and the rationality of research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Chapter Twelve. The Transformation of Party Guidance in CASS 213 Transforming party guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Practice as the only criterion for truth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Modernizing Marxism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Dealing with the failure of the political reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Re-identiﬁcation of Party loyalty with the nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Guidelines for academic writing under Socialism with Chinese Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 The Key Research Items and the Compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 The changing role of Party guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Chapter Thirteen. Streamlining CASS—From Direct Control to Regulatory Information Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Deepening of the Reforms in the early 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 The ‘Views’ and the Deepening of Reforms at CASS . . . . . . . . . . 236 Personnel management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Academic exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 The re-organization of disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Applied research at CASS—Jiang Zemin’s ascendance . . . . . . . . . . 249 Democratic centralism and bi-directional elections . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Part IV: reforms at CASS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

contents

xi

part v. shaping cass and the world under li tieying and after . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Chapter Fourteen. Li Tieying and the Role of CASS in State Policy-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 The reign of Li Tieying: appreciating CASS (1998–2003) . . . . . . . . 261 Role and leadership assignments to CASS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Li Tieying and the restructuring of CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 The information ﬂow between CASS and the CC of the CCP . . . 265 Streamlining CASS research and the reorganization of major research items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Working conditions at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Reforms at CASS under Li Tieying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Chapter Fifteen. Changing the System from Within? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Financial and political ties since the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Academic reforms and monitored freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Criteria for grouping intellectuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Academic guidelines, ceremony and ritual. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Authority, dissidence and symbolism under Jiang Zemin . . . . . . 293 Changing academic life (and the world) from within . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Appendix I. CASS Research Institutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Appendix II. Chronology of the Founding of the Xuebu and CASS Institutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Appendix III. Economic Research Institutes and Their Research Divisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Appendix IV. The History of the Leadership System of CASS . . . . . . 311 Appendix V. Selection of commemorations held at CASS from 1992 to 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Appendix VI. Ritualized Occasions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Bibliography: Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Bibliography: European Languages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 Chinese Glossary of Recurrent Concepts and Key Phrases. . . . . . . . . . 359 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). In particular, I would like to thank the Institute of Philosophy (where I stayed from September 1997 to June 1998) for its friendly welcome and hospitality. I am especially indebted to the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR), whose generous support made possible this study, the Netherlands Organization for Scientiﬁc Research (NWO) for its ﬁnancial assistance, and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) for giving me the opportunity to work on its revision and facilitate its editing. I also would like to thank the copy-editor, Robert Mory, for his dedication and precision. I would like to express my special thanks to Peter van der Veer, my Ph.D. supervisor, Sikko Visscher and Hans Sonneveld, who read and commented on the ﬁrst version of the manuscript, and Frank Pieke, who encouraged me to publish it. I am very grateful to Sytse Strijbos for introducing me to Min Jiayin, whose support and friendship have been invaluable to the writing of this book. I would also like to express my thanks to Zhang Nan, and Tony Saich for the materials they introduced to me. And of course there are Fang Yuji and Sun Cuihua, who have played a special role during my ﬁeldwork in Beijing. As always, I am thankful for the warmth I received from family and friends. And, ﬁnally, I would like to thank Alex Faulkner for his helpful comments on the manuscript, and his loving support.

ABBREVIATIONS

CAC CAS CASS CC CCP CIS CND E FLP GATT GNP IWEP KMT NPC PCODC PLA PRC RMB SERI SEZ’s SOEs SSTC WTO YB

Central Advisory Commission Chinese Academy of Science Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Central Committee Chinese Communist Party State Council Centre for International Studies China News Digest English Foreign Language Press General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross National Product Institute of World Economy and Politics Kuo Min Tang [Guomindang], Nationalist Party National People’s Congress Party Committee for Organs Directly under the Centre People’s Liberation Army Peoples’ Republic of China Renminbi (Chinese currency, also denominated as yuan) Social and Economic Research Institute Special Economic Zones State Owned Enterprises State Science & Technology Commission World Trade Organization Yearbook

NOTES ON THE SPELLING

Chinese terms and names are written in Hanyu pinyin, with the exception of a few names that are better known in the Wade-Giles transcription, such as Sun Yat-sen [Sun Zhongshan] and Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi]. I stick to the Chinese convention of names, writing the surname ﬁrst and personal name last.

TABLE OF FIGURES

Fig. 1 (p. 31) Fig. 2 (p. 167) Fig. 3 (p. 167) Fig. 4 (p. 174) Fig. 5 (p. 175) Fig. 6 (p. 176) Fig. 7 (p. 243)

Titles in the leadership hierarchy Numbers of personnel and professional staff (1977–1998) Increase in medical costs (1991–1993) Dwindling numbers of journals purchased (1986–1994) The increase in costs spent on literature (1991–1993) Housing Shortage (1993/4) Academic exchanges at CASS (1992–1998) (and the three ﬁelds with the highest numbers of academic exchanges) Fig. 8 (p. 267) The Rising Cost of Maintaining Academics

part i INTRODUCING CASS

chapter one INTRODUCTION

Aims This book is a socio-political history of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). It is an analysis of the role of CASS in national policymaking from the start of the reforms in 1978 and of the ways in which the reforms have shaped CASS. It is usually assumed that, since the start of the reforms, the role of politics in the social sciences has diminished. This study of CASS shows, however, that matters are not that simple: the study does this by revealing how changes in political pressures and guidelines have radically altered the set-up of the social sciences. These alterations were achieved gradually by the weaving of a complex net of regulatory devises for steering the organization and programmes of the social sciences. Furthermore, an evolutionary notion of the social sciences in China, conﬁrmed by a considerable number of scholars, has promulgated the idea that social science will be characterized by a relative freedom of speech and unrestrained debate. I disagree with this notion, arguing that even though the past has shown a trend in this direction, it is not likely to continue into the near future. In support of this argument, I show how political direction is given in the development of social-science debate, and how the contents of the debate are steered by encouraging modes of thought that eschew radical political change. Guiding debate is not done secretly; it takes place in the open, and it assumes the forms of rules, regulations, celebrations, guidelines, ceremonies, formal meetings, recruitment strategies, topical academic activities and ﬁnancial, material and social encouragement. Though much debate has concentrated on comparing and assessing differences between Chinese and Western academic institutions, I have no such ambition. I believe such contrasts to have little value as they easily lead to essentialist pronouncements and static views of complex processes of institutional development. Rather, I intend to provide an opportunity for the reader to think about how social science is steered

4

chapter one

and guided in various ways in various contexts, and how it is embedded in the institutional and political framework of nation-state formation. The analysis of the organizational structure of intellectual life and its link with the socio-political production of knowledge in a range of socialscience ﬁelds in China is relatively rare. This is probably so because, after the 1978-reforms, it became increasingly difficult to discern clear and simple ideological structures in the great diversity of academic papers and works published by CASS. Nevertheless, an institutional history of CASS produces useful insights into trends and functions of academic work. These insights could explain why, if it is true that the state has decreased its political interference in academic research, the state still pours money (and increasingly more since Li Tieying’s presidency) into some social-science research programmes and not into others? CASS is organized directly under the Ministry of Education, and it is advertised as China’s most prestigious institution of higher learning and academic advisory organ of all governmental bodies. Is it possible that CASS’s advisory function to the state is unrelated to its academic research programmes? A closer study of the link between the organizational structure of CASS and its research regulations, therefore, provides insights into how the so-called free competition among academic schools of thought is supported with political guidance. It also shows how political research in an academic environment is organized and how state policy-makers absorb a part of its research results. Another reason for studying CASS is related to the image of the strengths of academia. There is a tendency among observers of intellectuals outside and inside the educational system to ascribe to academia either the capacity for changing society at will or realist behaviour understood as a logical outcome of political strife. Both views ignore the relatively independent structural dynamics of institutes and the indirect role of pressures exerted by the decisions made about the structural organization of academic institutions. In the case of CASS, these indirect factors inﬂuence research planning and contribute to the lasting coherency of the institute. Finally, this book makes a distinction between the way in which intellectuals view their own role in the process of political and administrative change and the changes that actually took place, as illustrated by the reforms at CASS. Lip service is paid to an amalgam of ideologies that are easily subsumed under the encompassing concepts of Chinese ‘neonationalism’, ‘neo-conservatism’ and ‘post-modernism’. Those concepts,

introduction

5

however, indicate little more than the importance attached to notions of nationalism, Marxist conservatism, Chinese tradition, science and Western Enlightenment ideologies, and post-modernism in the work of Chinese intellectuals. What is actually done and the way that research themes are planned and developed are questions that remain unanswered. Additionally, a distinction between intellectuals in general (non-professional scholars) and academics at CASS provides us with insight into the motives for intellectuals to pursue an academic career, by looking at the circumstances of their employment and their alternatives. After all, it is as people that academics and administrators run institutes.

Questions, problems and methodological limitations The role played by CASS as an academic research institute in policymaking can be partly understood in the light of the way it is organized and supervised. Only a part of its staff is directly involved in advisory research, but all of its research projects are expected to make a contribution to the goals of China’s modernization. For instance, in the late 1990s, key projects formulated by the leadership enjoyed priority, and scholars who were engaged in other research projects had to work within the constraints of official ideological stipulations. This study can only make a rough estimation of such constraints on intellectual endeavour, as information about internal directives and decrees is limited, and as it is difﬁcult to check which of the numerous possible pressures on researchers actually affect their work. Collecting materials: politics, administrative organization and livelihood The study of the interaction between politics, administrative organization and the practical livelihood of intellectuals in an academic community requires more than data on the activities of separate intellectuals and politics.1 Whether in China or in Holland, not many academics are 1 Some very useful works as a general orientation on intellectuals and leadership decision-making in China are Wolfgang Bartke, Who’s Who in the People’s Republic of China (Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1981); Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1994); M. Goldman, T. Cheek, and C.H. Hamrin, eds., China’s Intellectuals and the State: In Search of a New Relationship (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press/The Council on East Asian Studies, 1987); Carol Lee Hamrin and Timothy Cheek, China’s

6

chapter one

aware, or like to admit, that the contents and forms of professional views are subject to social pressures, incentives and inﬂuences from the community that provides them with a living and an audience. It is not possible, I believe, to separate professional views from the academic and social contexts they exist in. One of the reasons for the suspicion of links between academic views and their environment is that, to scientists, it is a challenge to say new and relevant things about society that are not reducible to the situation and environment they are in. Not doing so would leave the way open for political and social reductionism. This is why ad hominem arguments are usually, and rightly so, regarded as ‘unfair’. I do not think one should muddle up an author’s theoretical argument by discussing the possible motives he or she may have had in constructing it. That is, it is not permissible unless one is making a study of the way the two are related. And although I subscribe to the view that intellectuals should ideally try to transcend the limitations of their environment as much as they can, this challenge can only be met by becoming aware of these limitations and the way they help to shape one’s intellectual production. This study therefore illustrates the intertwining of political, social and cultural factors that shape part of academic life. The issue of intertwinement is very complex, by deﬁnition. In CASS the discussion of how academic knowledge is produced is in itself subject to political debate and relevant to the allocation of ﬁnancial and material sources. For this study, I listened to and observed countless academic meetings, while gathering information about existing views on political affinities, working facilities, and academic organizations separately, and, later, cross-checked the accounts of individual researchers on their experience in the academic community. I set out by studying the history and the evolution of the organizational structure of CASS: the ways in which CASS has changed over the last decades, CASS policies on employment and promotion, and guidelines Establishment Intellectuals (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1986); Carol Lee Hamrin and Zhao Suisheng, eds., Decision-making in Deng’s China (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995); Lee Chinchuan, ed., Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism (New York: Guilgord Press, 1990); Lee Chin-chuan, ed., China’s Media, Media’s China (Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994); Kenneth G. Lieberthal and David M. Lampton, eds., Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1992); H. Lyman Miller, Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1996); Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman, eds., Science and Technology in Post-Mao China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1989); Who’s Who Editorial Board, Who’s Who in China Current Leaders (Beijing: FLP, 1994).

introduction

7

for conducting research and teaching. I was interested in the official aims and policies of the separate institutes and the connections between them, since they could tell me how established research policies are legitimized. I also checked out the reputations of well-known CASS academics with colleagues, in bookshops, newspapers, and periodicals. I examined the development of working conditions at CASS, current and past research projects, research aims, and the promulgation of regulations found in official documents and reports in the Yearbooks of CASS.2 The yearbooks of CASS also provided me with useful overviews of changes in higherlevel personnel, since they list important works written by CASS staff. I also tried to locate the position of CASS institutionally, with regard to the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter: Party), state and other higher institutions of research and education; and I looked into the procedures for deciding the research curriculum. Additionally, I collected estimations of the ﬁnancial situation of CASS, and its prospects, especially as a recipient of the distribution of ﬁnancial and material resources. Works important to discussions on the management of social science research and its regulation in this study include ‘Thinking on Management in Studies of Modern Social Sciences’ by Yang Zhi and Fang Yiming (1991), and ‘The State of Research and Developmental Trends in Each Discipline of Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (1996), edited by the National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office.3 I formed an idea about the kind of research done by PhD students and researchers by perusing the Academic Yearbooks, compilations by the CASS Scientiﬁc Research Bureau of ‘Abstracts of (the Work of) CASS Academic Theorist’ (1991–1993),4 and collections of Ph.D. theses from 1993 to 2 CASS Yearbook Editorial Committee (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Nianjian Bianji Weiyuanhui), ed., (199–) Yearbook of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1993–2002) (Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Nianjian ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾ƲĞ), (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 199–). Other useful overviews are those by Ru Xin and Yi Kexin, eds., ‘Handbook for Contemporary Chinese Social Science’ (Dangdai Zhongguo shehui kexue shouce pk̰ÝȁĀŒʳȤ8) and Zhang Zhuo’s ‘An Overview of China’s Social Science in the Nineties’ (Jiushi niandai Zhongguo shehui kexue yaolan ŀȒƲk̰ÝȁĀŒʳˉš). 3 National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office (Quanguo Zhexue Shehui Kexue Guihua Bangongshi), ed., ‘The State of Research and Developmental Trends in Each Discipline of Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (Zhexue shehui kexue ge xueke yanjiu zhuangkuang yu fazhan qushi ̓ʳȁĀŒʳÆʳŒʺľ̀Ŝ˱̌ǚȜ), (Beijing: Xueri Chubanshe. Yang Zhi and Fang Yiming, ‘Thinking on Management in Studies of Modern Social Sciences’ (Guanli silu: xiandai shehui kexue yanjiu ÕťȳƇ ʋkȁĀŒʳʺľ), (Hefei: Anhui People’s Publishing House, 1996). 4 CASS Scientiﬁc Research Bureau, ed., Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Keyanju ed., 1993–1995.

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chapter one

1997.5 I found a history of academic degrees in China in Wu Benxia’s ‘Discussing China’s Academic Graduation and the Education of Research Students’ (1993),6 and in the State Council’s National Registration of Schools of Higher Education and Academic Institutions That Confer the Titles of BA and MA’ (1987).7 Other useful works pertinent to academic policy-making at CASS and in general included reports and documents that gave me an impression of: – How academics become well-known, such are found in ‘A Gathering of Famous Teachers’, produced by the Education Affairs Office (1998), and ‘Confessions of a New Generation of Thinkers’ by Wenlin Haitao (1998);8 – How researchers are recruited and what kind of research is expected from scholars, such as are found in the ‘Subject Compass of the 1998 State Plan for Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (1997);9 – The latest developments on interdisciplinary research, such as is discussed in Jin Wulun’s ‘A Guiding Theory of Interdisciplinary Scientiﬁc Research’ (1997);10 and, – Official evaluations of the development of the social sciences since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These include ‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1999)’, edited by Li Tieying, et al. (main editor); ‘Looking Back and onto the New Era of Social Science and Future Prospects’, (1998), edited by the CASS General Office/Scientiﬁc Research Bureau; ‘China Philosophical Development Report 1999’, (2000), edited by the CASS ‘Philosophy Research’ Editorial Office; and,

5 CASS Graduate School Academic Degree Office (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Yanjiusheng Yuan Xuewei Bangongshi, 1994, 1997, 1998). 6 Wu Benxia, 1993. 7 State Council Academic Degree Committee, ed., (Guowuyuan Xuewei Weiyuanhui), 1987. 8 Education Affairs Office, ed. (Jiaowuchu ħɿW), ‘A Gathering of Famous Teachers’ (Mingshi Huicui Ƥȏ͙͚), (Beijing: Zhongguo Jingji Chubanshe, 1998; Wenlin Haitao, ‘Confessions of a New Generation of Thinkers,’ (Zhongguo xin yidai sixiangjia zibai ̰Ýʟ ˎkȳʓĕ͈), (Beijing: Jiuzhou Tushu Chubanshe, 1998). 9 National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office, ed. (Quanguo Zhexue Shehui Kexue Guihua Bangongshi Ýĕ̓ʳȁĀŒʳʺľÙô 1998 ƲŖɋ̨Ư), 1997. 10 Jin Wulun et al., eds., ‘A Guiding Theory of Interdisciplinary Scientiﬁc Research’, ŚʳŒʺľ˝Ə Kuaxueke yanjiu yinlun, (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyi Chubanshe, 1997).

introduction

9

‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1998)’, edited by the CASS Scientiﬁc Research Bureau.11 In short, I set out to gather written data on the following aspects of the structure of CASS’ academic policy-making: – The organizational structure and history of CASS since its founding in 1978, with a special focus on disciplines involved with creating national identities; – The dynamics of discussions and debates held by academics that put into perspective their conceptualizations of the nation and of the Party; – The special status of philosophy in the Academy and its role in policy formulations; and, – The inﬂuence of international academic discussions on redeﬁnitions of Chineseness in relation to the West, Japan and East Asia, and the ex-communist countries. Participant observation and the questions it raised I met a scholar involved in research on the evaluation system of socialscience research in China, who was using CASS as his research territory. He concluded that evaluation criteria were based on ‘peer review’, that is, on criteria prevalent in the social-science community, rather than on immediate political or economic considerations. The difficulty, we agreed, was that on an abstract level (other) subjective factors play a role in the evaluation of research results, while on a concrete level referees incline to conservatism as they tend to value highly the work of 11 Li Tieying et al., eds., ‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1999)’ (Zhongguo renwen shehui kexue qianyan baogao (1999) ̰ÝǦɲȁĀŒʳǏʼ Á), (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 1999); CASS General Office/Scientiﬁc Research Bureau (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Bangongting/Keyanju) ʟȔǇȁĀŒʳwþÑ˱ Ǐ̋ (Xin shiqi shehui kexue de huigu yu qianzhan) Looking Back and onto the New Era of Social Science and Future Prospects (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 1998); CASS ‘Philosophy Research’ Editorial Office (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan ‘Zhexue Yanjiu’ Bianjibu), ̰Ý 1999 ̓ʳ̌Á Zhongguo 1999 zhexue fazhan baogao (translated as ‘China Philosophical Development Report 1999’), Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe; Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Keyanju (CASS Scientiﬁc Research Bureau) (ed.), 1998, ̰ÝǦɲȁ ĀŒʳǏʼÁ (1998) Zhongguo renwen shehui kexue qianyan baogao (1998) (translated as ‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1998)’), Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe; and, 2000, ʟ̰ÝȁĀŒʳɽȒƲ Xin Zhongguo shehui kexue wushi nian (New China Fifty Years of Social Science), (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe).

10

chapter one

researchers who are famous already. To remedy the problem of familiarity, the methods of blind evaluation and the publication of evaluation results are employed in an attempt to prevent such biases from slipping into the procedures. At CASS considerable effort is made to ensure evaluation methods are as neutral, consistent and precise as possible. This is accomplished by introducing various systems that judge research on its social, scientiﬁc and academic value, and by means of direct criteria (based on the aims set by the research itself) and indirect criteria (in comparison with existing research). Effort is put into making sure that evaluation criteria are suited to the discipline and methodology involved. This effort can be ascribed, partly, to the great importance academics attach to academic promotion, which has come to depend on the results of evaluation. The problem of subjective factors interfering with the evaluation of academic work remains unsolved on a higher, abstract level. Subjective factors lie in several indeterminate areas, and derive from the great variety of considerations involved when social scientists select research topics, approaches, methods, and hypotheses: the researcher takes into account the political sensitivity of research topics, and considers whether obtaining data on sensitive topics is politically desirable, whether certain terminology matches generally accepted formulations of similar research, and whether the research in question does not clash with the plans of superiors. Research plans, therefore, proceed from assumptions that researchers make about the expectations of other researchers and politicians. In order to understand these ‘subjective factors’ better, I attended lectures, conferences, tutorials, and research meetings. I found that explicit academic policies on academic research are sometimes difficult to distinguish from implicit ones. It seems therefore hard to say whether and to what extent academics write under the inﬂuence of explicit political steering, on the basis of pressures through indirect social, political, and psychological factors, or on the basis of scientiﬁc conjectures and refutations. According to some academics, punitive measures and rewards may occasionally and under certain circumstances seem to stimulate conscientious work and creative thinking. But, according to others, when political and ﬁnancial considerations come to lie at the basis of the academic’s motivation, sloppy work, corruption, and cunning manipulation may get the better of academics. When they perceive constant pressures as a threat to their integrity, a few political concessions in some areas may be a small price to pay for gains in others. For instance, if, by conducting politically safe, ‘conventional’ research one stands a better chance of pro-

introduction

11

motion, why not close one’s eyes to more ‘daring’ points of view? And, if, by becoming a Party member you can enhance your overall chances for a future promotion to the post of office leader, then why not prove the correctness of Deng Xiaoping Thought or Jiang Zemin’s Three Representations? Participating in such debates gave me much to think about. However, I never felt entirely at ease asking questions about academic standards and policies. Though I was encouraged to join meetings and ask questions, the formal interview did not seem the right forum to promote a conﬁdential atmosphere. I was happy to just ﬁnd people to talk with and be part of ‘the scene’. I only sometimes asked questions regarding difficult issues, such as ‘the freedom of research’. With great regularity, I was told that anything could be said and researched in China, as long as it was not made formal. I was also often told that, depending on the situation, it was possible to express any criticism of the government. The issue of ‘speaking openly’ raised an important question. While everyone I spoke with claimed that the contemporary academic atmosphere in China is characterized by ‘plurality of thought’, the same people were only willing to speak to me ‘off the record’. Informal discussions shed considerable light on the practical consequences of academic policy-making. I realized that even more important to understanding academic steering (or control) than the matter of ‘speaking openly’ was the extent to which professional thinkers are stimulated to limit their imagination to the elaboration of a prearranged set of templates. It became clear that the policy of stimulating ‘the plurality of thought’ in CASS severely restricts the freedom to select social-science problems and methods. Here, I had the opportunity to examine if and how such limitations are applied systematically and, possibly, are politically planned. In other words, if such limitations are not just the unintended result of processes of planning, but also the outcome of a conscious act of steering, then I faced a planning process in which political planners and leaders engage in the planned manipulation of the academic community. Such ‘experiments’ would weigh the effects of allowing initiative and various freedoms against the effects of applying guidelines and assorted straightjackets. I had been accepted by the Institute of Philosophy to explore the history of systems philosophy in China. Accordingly, I read up on the subject and attended tutorial sessions. Apart from studying systems theory, I looked for opportunities to listen to people and talk with them on research possi-

12

chapter one

bilities. Many researchers and students enjoy talking about their research, especially to a foreigner who is usually assumed to be quite ignorant about the ‘Chinese way’ of thinking and experience. The most fruitful experience, however, I found to be just listening to debates. I followed lectures at the Institute of Philosophy, and joined research meetings and conferences. I was allowed to record formal meetings, but in informal meetings I did not want to create an intimidating atmosphere by using a recording device. After all, I only wanted to be sensitized to the ways in which researchers and students experience the academic community. I asked researchers about scholars they admire, and why; I wanted to know how they hoped to contribute to academic debate, and what kind of impact they thought their research would have on society. I also asked researchers questions about working conditions at CASS, about alternative career opportunities and, in the case of PhD students, about their career plans. Since I concentrate on the relations between CASS scholars, academic leaders, and political leaders, this study does not attempt to present individuals as ‘whole’ persons. I do not pretend to provide insights into the extracurricular activities and private thoughts of persons. Instead, I focus on the institutional aspects of CASS and academic organization, which, naturally, do not capture the whole picture of the individual. By focusing on institutional developments and the overt aspects of academic work, I try to answer the following questions: how could the increasingly inﬂuential role of political regulation result in a greater diversity of academic debate? What role do the nation-state and the Party play in the formulation and implementation of research policies? In an intellectual atmosphere advertised as open, one would expect to ﬁnd open resistance to political interference: intellectuals are required to do their job ‘scientiﬁcally’, but they are hampered in their work through the effects of political steering. Looking back on the ﬁerce criticism of Party inﬂuence at CASS during the 1980s, one would expect open criticism of an increasingly elaborate system of academic regulation in the 1990s. Why did scholars celebrate the freedom of debate when they dared to speak about ‘sensitive topics’ only off the record?

introduction

13

Structure and contents of Shaping the Reforms, Academia and China Structurally, this book is divided into ﬁve parts, which are built around the various themes that highlight the socio-political history of CASS from different angles. In Chapter 1 I discuss the main questions raised in this book, and the research methods and sources used for this book. Chapter 2 describes the organizational structure of CASS, and deﬁnes its position vis-à-vis the state and the CCP. In Chapter 3, I brieﬂy outline the institutional history of CASS as a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, known otherwise as the Xuebu, and discuss changing relations between the state and academic work since 1949, and developments that led to establishing CASS. The themes of Part Two and Part Three of this book concern a historical overview of the pre-1989 political reforms and academic reforms at CASS (Part Two) and of the political changes and institutional relationship between academic leadership and researchers at CASS (1988–1989) (Part Three). Part Four discusses the structural link between official meetings and memorialization, Party ideology and the reform of academic research and organization (Part Four). Each chapter is built up around a historical, political or sociological theme and links up with the other chapters at the same time. In each of the chapters I ask questions that concern the increasingly close relationship between the role of politics and the bodies that regulate the social sciences. In the concluding ﬁfth part, I discuss institutional changes in CASS under the Presidency of Li Tieying (1998–2003) in relation to changing concepts of democracy and freedom of research. In Part Two, I consider the relationship between academic freedom and academic guidance by outlining the history of academic policy from 1977 until 1988. I show how the tension between freedom of research and the function of policy-advisor to the state alters over time, and argue that it is exactly the freedom of research that made extensive regulation a necessity in the eyes of policy-makers. In this account the demonstrations and academic struggles of the late 1980s were to come to be of paramount importance to the direction of the academic reforms. Chapter 4 shows how the initial support for intellectuals was complicated by conﬂicting views on China’s reform policies outside the academy. Although CASS leaders were regarded as reformers, CASS in its ﬁrst period could not be viewed as particularly radical in terms of support for democracy or freedom of research. From the beginning of the 1980s, debates on the eco-

14

chapter one

nomic and political reforms were variously couched in terms of images of the Chinese nation as socialist, liberal, democratic and traditional. Chapter 5 argues that, despite the experimentation with democratic and organizational forms at CASS, the ideological form dominated the contents of debate and at the same time limited the scope of its development. The increasing diversity of views held by intellectuals in the latter half of the 1980s was accompanied by an increase in political conﬂict. Chapter 6 reveals how, in this restless period, the intellectual autonomy sought by academics was dearly paid for by support owed to political leaders and their networks. It was also the last period in which intellectuals openly declared to be motivated by their wish to serve ‘the People’ and a genuine belief in the act of remonstration and an appeal to the conscience of the ideological leadership. Part Three deals with the changes in academic leadership in the 1980s and 1990s, and shows how the distinction between leadership and being led is a relative one. The relative nature of this distinction draws attention to the fallacy of automatically attributing an active leadership role to leaders and a passive role to researchers, and any generalizations about their political colour. My analysis of the academic leadership in the context of institutional change in the 1980s and 1990s draws attention to the importance of vertical cooperation in the organizational hierarchy regarding academic and political disputes. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 discuss leadership changes from 1988 to 1989, from 1990 to 1992, and from 1993 to 1998, respectively, while Chapter 10 discusses the changes in the working conditions and political climate in which academics conduct research, and their motivations for working at CASS. Chapter 7 shows how the increasing divergence of views on society in the academic world culminated in open political conﬂict. For CASS, a direct result of the clampdown on the demonstrations on June Fourth 1989 was the reorganization of the structure of its leadership, in which greater authority was allocated to the Party. The resultant primacy of the CASS Party Committee meant the introduction of the so-called responsibility system, which initiated largescale reorganization of the institutional structure of CASS. Chapter 8 shows how these reforms were combined with the trend of liberalization after Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Inspection Tour in January 1992. In CASS this led to the introduction of a policy called Deepening the Reforms. The examination of Party history and academia in Chapter 9 indicates that the increasingly tolerant Party Committee at the same time re-established itself on a stronger footing. It called for and oversaw the re-establishment of the Party in the various institutes, and it reorganized

introduction

15

election systems, resource allocation for academic research, and it introduced the concept of ﬁnancial autonomy. Chapter 10, then, closes with an investigation of the motives of intellectuals to stay on at CASS, by discussing both material and intellectual working conditions at CASS. Part Four follows the academic reforms at CASS and shows how a wide range of conceptualizations of the nation served as a framework for research and a platform for discussions on the reforms instituted by the Party and its leadership. For this, extensive free debate and a wide range of expression of opinion was required. At the same time, the reforms linked contending schools in a research paradigm tolerated by the leadership. In Chapter 11, I show how the integration between symbolic and rational knowledge plays an important role in steering academic research and the reform of Party ideology. In Chapter 12, I discuss why Party ideology had to reform and how the power struggles that moved it forward were dependent on the articulation of foreign ideas within the official ideology, that is, through the Siniﬁcation of foreign ideas. Chapter 13, in turn, examines how the reform of Party ideology was accompanied by the internal administrative and research organization. I show how the realization of these reforms was built partly on the efforts of the so-called Enlightenment intellectuals of the 1980s, whose idealism had created a basis for the rationalization of the research curriculum and administrative organization, an increased freedom of debate (within limits), and the decentralization of academic policy-making through indirect control mechanisms. Part Five, which comprises the two concluding chapters, deals with the changes introduced to CASS under the reign of CASS President Li Tieying from 1998 to 2003, and is linked to observations made in preceding chapters. Chapter 14 connects developments in CASS during the 1980s and 1990s to the introduction of the organizational overhaul under Li Tieying, including the reorganization of personnel, housing, welfare facilities, and the research curriculum. At the same time, it discusses the role of the principles of competition, which leads up to the discussion, dealt with in Chapter 15, of what is known as the freedom of research and its implication for academic research in and outside CASS in the twentyﬁrst century. I show how symbolic meaning is important in understanding academic and political taboos, which directly inﬂuence the work and identity of intellectuals. Finally, I explain why symbolic ritual and official meetings are of paramount importance to political and Party leaders in the process of shaping the reforms, academia, and China.

chapter two LOCATING CASS

Since the post-1978 reforms, state policies have increasingly emphasized knowledge as the basis of policy-making, which has led to ﬁerce competition for claims on academic knowledge. This competition also affected CASS’s ability to produce officially valued knowledge. In this chapter, before discussing the historical background of CASS (which I do in Chapter 3), I brieﬂy describe some of the interdependencies between political and academic leaders and their institutions, and point out some of the consequences of this relationship to show how the role of knowledge in policy-making has changed in the reform period. Additionally, by sketching some of the paths along which information and academic works circulate, I illustrate the ways in which the absence of autonomy from political supervision and the threat of intervention affect academic research and writing.

CASS and the political establishment After 1978, Deng Xiaoping’s mottos of ‘emancipating the mind’ and that of ‘seeking truth from facts’ were intended to harness intellectual resources on behalf of the regime. Accompanying this shift that favoured the production of knowledge, the attitude of the regime toward the management of knowledge and information underwent considerable change. Old-style propaganda had depended on limiting sources of information and modes of thought to those endorsed by the Party, i.e., it was a rigid public propaganda system composed of official elites and characterized by a belief in conspiratorial international information. The recognition of the need for policy coordination between various political and academic research ﬁelds led to bureaucratic restructuring and altered the formal authority of policy-making and research institutions in a way more conducive to the style of bureaucratic propaganda. In the early 1980s, an important step toward political reform was accomplished when the research effort was moved away from the Party’s propaganda system to its economic system under the control of newly appointed Pre-

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chapter two

mier Zhao Ziyang.1 Under Premier Zhao Ziyang in the State Council several ‘brain trusts’ gained unprecedented inﬂuence.2 Academic institutions, such as CASS and its graduate school, provided these organizations with newly trained scholars. Shanghai’s Academy of Social Sciences, the Institute of International Studies, and the World Economic Herald comprised adjunct think-tanks, connected to Zhao Ziyang through international affairs advisers and other prominent academics such as CASS Vice-President Huan Xiang.3 At the same time, parallel research groups in Party organs were formulating general Party directives and policy leads. The Central Committee of the CCP has its own inﬂuential policy-making Party Leading Groups, composed of central commissions (weiyuanhui ɪ˼Ā) and Central Leading Small Groups (lingdao xiaozu ƀrʙ͐). These high-level organs, each led by a member of the Politburo or its Standing Committee, include senior Party, state, and military officials. Such cadres are chosen for their expertise and responsibility in a given functional ﬁeld. Their primary task is the formation of major policy goals and guidelines. Lower level organs, including the State Council Leading Groups, mentioned above, work out concrete policies and oversee policy co-ordination and administration. But under Premier Zhao, these research centres on the lower level were only under minimal supervision of the Party Leading Groups. They operated largely as general research bodies without administrative responsibilities, and were consulted by the Premier’s Office and the State Council.4

1

Hamrin, 1994, 60–61. The newly created permanent research centres included: the Rural Development Research Centre, which was abolished, reportedly, as a result of changed policies after the June Fourth Movement of 1989; the Science Commission’s National Research Centre for Science & Technology Development (est. in the mid-1980s); the Economic System Reform Institute; and, the Economic, Technical, and Social Development Research Centre, which was run by CASS President Ma Hong [1983–1985], and which was still thriving in the 1990s. Additionally, the (short-lived) Centre for International Studies [CIS] was jointly set up under the State Council with CASS (Halpern, 1992, 132, 148; Halpern, 1989, 162). 3 Hamrin, 1994, 64. CASS Vice-President Huan Xiang, a foreign affairs expert, was regarded as Deng Xiaoping’s senior foreign policy adviser and an associate of Yu Guangyuan. Until his death in 1989, he headed the State Council Centre for International Studies [CIS] (founded in 1982), which was one of Premier Zhao Ziyang’s [1980– 1987] advisory organs. 4 Halpern, 1992, 132. 2

locating cass

19

By channelling information from various ﬁelds concerned with policymaking to the government and encouraging communication between the ministries, brain trusts have somewhat redirected the political balance of power, which had favoured Party leadership over the ministerial government. Conversely, research groups and commissions have also contributed to the centralization of authority, as their modern research methods have facilitated political analysis and the coordination of interministerial communication. As a result, a broad spectrum of research sources became available to top political leaders, in their formulation of policies and the drawing up of authoritative political documents. This made the control of the various Leading Groups and research commissions an important element in power struggles among Party and government leaders. For example, in the 1980s, conservatives led by Propaganda Chief Deng Liqun and CASS President Hu Qiaomu were engaged in several Campaigns—against Spiritual Pollution (1983) and against Bourgeois Liberalization (1987)—to slow down or even reverse the policies of reform and to open up to the outside world policies advocated by Premier Zhao Ziyang and Party Secretary Hu Yaobang. Research institutes under Deng Liqun (The Research Institute of the Central Secretariat) and under Hu Yaobang (The Office of the Central Secretariat, which several times changed names and structure), and research centres under the State Council organized by Premier Zhao Ziyang were fencing with each other for policies of economic and political reform.5 CASS as an organization under the State Council and Party supervision CASS is a national research organ situated under the control of the State Council. Due to its ministerial rank, its presidents and vice-presidents must be appointed by the State Council and approved by the National People’s Congress. At the same time, the CCP has considerable inﬂuence over CASS. The nature of its inﬂuence, however, varies over time, the implications of which I will discuss in the following chapters. The State Council is the highest organ of state administration; it is the executive organ of the National People’s Congress. Constitutionally, the National People’s Congress is the highest level of state power. With its Standing Committee, it forms the government of China.6 The top of the Party power hierarchy is the National Party Congress or its Central Commit5 6

Cf. Wu Guoguang, 1995; Goldman, 1994. Cf. Saich, 1995; Christiansen & Rai, 1996, Chapter 5.

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chapter two

tee. In practice, however, political power lies with the Politburo, its Standing Committee and, to a lesser extent, with the Secretariat.7 The organizational structure of CASS has changed several times since 1977/78, when it was set up. But since the reorganization of 1992, the internal organization of CASS has kept its dual organizational structure, consisting of the CASS Party Group (dangzu q͐), which belongs to the realm of CASS’ academic leadership, and the CASS Party Committee (dangwei qɪ), which belongs to the CCP administration.8 The CASS Party Group is subordinate to the Party Group of the State Council, formally headed by the premier (see ﬁg. 1).9 The CASS Party Committee is subordinate to the Party Committee for Organs Directly Subordinate to the CCP Central Committee. At lower levels the Party organization is differentiated into Party branches and cells. This form of Party organization is repeated in the institutional structure of the research institutes of CASS. Thus, most institutes are led by a Party Group, subordinate to a state organ, and a Party Committee, subordinate to a Party organ. Often, the head of a Party Group is also the head of the corresponding institute and secretary of the Party Committee, although there are many exceptions. The secretary of the Party Committee is responsible for daily affairs and issues of Party discipline. In this arrangement, the head of the CASS Party Group is held responsible for both administrative and Party affairs to the State Council Party Group, organized directly above it. In the 1990s, the head of a Party Group in an institute was appointed by the CASS Party Group and required approval from the Central Organization Department (COD), which mediates between the government and the Party. Changes in Party Committee leadership, however, are reported by the CASS Party Committee to the Party Committee for Organs Directly under the Centre (PCODC) (Party Central Committee). The PCODC has authority to reject decisions on Party Committee leadership and passes them on to the Central Organization Department.10

7

Ibid. CASS Party Group: dangzu (Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan dangzu); CASS Party Committee: dangwei (Zhongguo Shehui kexueyuan dangwei). 9 Su Shaozhi, E1995, 111–113. 10 Su Shaozhi, E1995, 111–117. 8

locating cass

21

Fig. 1. Party and administrative relations between CASS, government, and Party11

Since CASS as a subministerial organ has close relations with the Party and with the state, several functions of CASS are naturally aligned with state policies. The Central Committee of the CCP and Central Government hand over important issues to research committees put together from leading researchers at research organs residing under the State Council, such as CASS, the Propaganda Department and the Central Party School. Delegated academic research problems constitute ideologically urgent or sensitive issues, such as the collapse of the CCP in the Soviet Union, salary reforms in China, unequal distribution of resources over prosperous East China and poor West China, and matters of coastal development and defence strategies. Several other tasks tie CASS lead-

11

Su Shaozhi, E1995, 112.

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ership and official policy lines closely together: research staff perform various tasks that support burdened decision-makers; planning committees are expected to come up with new ideas and future plans that conform to official guidelines; the CASS Inspection Committee inspects and checks on discipline and the ideological and organizational environment of cadres. Ideologically, CASS is supervised by the Central Department of Propaganda, even though the two organs are of the same rank. For instance, the Central Propaganda Department can pass its criticism of CASS journals onto the CASS leadership, which in turn traces ‘mistakes’ back to the author through the leadership of the institute. Depending on the seriousness of the offence and the leniency of the times, the author may be disciplined with greater or lesser severity. The Central Propaganda Department, too, has the authority to cancel research projects proposed by CASS institutes on a yearly basis. The possibility of personal interference also made important the choice of who was to be placed in charge of the Propaganda Department.12 According to Su Shaozhi, who led the Marxism-Leninism Institute from 1982 to 1987, the conservative Wang Renzhong maintained good relations with the institute, but when Deng Liqun was in charge, relations were antagonistic. When Zhu Houze took over as head of Propaganda, it became possible to openly discuss the ways in which the Party line should be studied. According to Su, one of the functions of CASS lies in the realm of propaganda. Yan Huai, the former section chief of the Young Cadre Bureau in the Central Organization Department (1982–1986) and former Director of the Beijing Institute of Organizational and Personnel Studies (1986–1988), sums up the channels and institutes employed by the propaganda system:13 – – – – – 12

The Ministry of Culture; The Ministry of Broadcasting, Television, and Movies; The Bureau of Information and Publication; CASS; New China News Agency (Xinhua) (under the State Council);

Su Shaozhi, E1995, 115. Yan Huai, Understanding the Political System of Contemporary China (Occasional paper), Princeton Centre for Modern China (1991). Cited in Su Shaozhi (E1994), ‘Chinese Communist Ideology and Media Control’, in Lee Chin-chuan (ed.) China’s Media, Media’s China. Pp. 75–88. See also Yan Huai, ‘Organizational Hierarchy and the Cadre Management System’, in Hamrin and Zhao Suisheng, eds., Decision-Making in Deng’s China. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp. 39–50. 13

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– The People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao); – 1. Qiushi (Seeking Truth) the official Party journal; – 2. Other mass media and cultural establishments. CASS and the generation of ‘public discussion’ The concept of propaganda in this context should not be interpreted in the narrow sense of spreading fabricated lies or deceptive information. The manner in which the ﬂow of information is shaped into authoritative guidelines is better captured by the broader concept of bureaucratic propaganda. The speciﬁc historical and local context in which the production of propaganda is embedded is crucial in promoting certain kinds of information. In other words, one has to take into account the form propaganda takes as political legitimization, and the functions it serves in a state bureaucracy, formal organizations, and policies of modernization.14 According to the Chinese Big Dictionary for the Study of Public Opinion Propaganda (1993):15 Propaganda (xuanchuan ʰX) is the use of all kinds of thought by a certain social organization for spreading information and views with the purpose of leading and controlling the process by which the People’s thinking is given direction. The target of propaganda is to alter the opinions and attitude of people. Propaganda is an ancient concept. In ancient Chinese documents, its meaning refers to the political decrees of the feudal ruling class and military orders to ministers and officials in order to control all levels of the bureaucracy and to solidify central political power…. Sun Yat-sen considered the policy of inducing change by persuasion also as propaganda, while Mao considered educators, journalists, artists and communist cadres all as propagandists (Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, 849).

To Mao spreading propaganda had a much less sinister connotation than had the practice of ‘order-ism’ (minglingzhuyi ƥƁ̺˕), since he thought it was correct for the communist leadership to persuade the masses by means of propaganda, and not by military decree.16 Thus socialist propaganda here ﬁnds its legitimization supported by history in the ideal of a benevolent and wise leadership. Precisely in this vein, the Big Dictionary lays down the ‘Three Basic Rules for Propaganda’: ﬁrst, the basic interest of the target of propaganda and the masses must be identical; second, the content of propaganda and the direction of knowledge of the People 14 15 16

Ibid.: 2. Liu Jianming, 1993, 64. Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. I, 1965, 118.

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are uniﬁed; and third, the mode of propaganda and the People’s capacity for accepting it are uniﬁed.17 Therefore, in order to provide propaganda according to these ‘Three Unities of Propaganda’, the propagandist must stand above the People and decide what is in the interest of the People, how they think and what they are capable of. In the view of some observers, the concept of xuanchuan, which is commonly translated as propaganda, is better explained as ‘to publicize’ and ‘to make known’, and does more justice to the Chinese context than does, for example, ‘to manipulate for a speciﬁc purpose’. Stranahan, for instance, argues that propaganda in the communist movement of the 1940s was vital in communicating information to all levels of the Party hierarchy, from the Standing Committee down to the district and branch Propaganda Committees. Because it was a means to educate and to mobilize the masses in carrying out Party programmes, simple and direct language and the ability to reach targeted groups were vital.18 Nevertheless, in view of the current awareness among Chinese scholars of the ‘undemocratic’ nature of propaganda, the concept of propaganda cannot be regarded as only denoting some neutral, innocuous meaning such as ‘to make known’. The Big Dictionary for the Study of Public Discussion and Propaganda would certainly disagree with Stranahan. It regards the thesis submitted by Ikeda Daisaku and Arnold Toynbee that ‘ideal propaganda’ is a ‘neutral form of mass communication’ as one of the world’s impossibilities. This, the Big Dictionary argues, is illustrated by the different biases of press broadcastings on the behaviour of students and the police during public demonstrations on the streets.19 The concept of propaganda is usually related to political forms of governance and public opinion, illustrated by the Big Dictionary. As Lowell Dittmer argues, Marx denied the existence of public interest, conceding sociological authenticity only to classes.20 Similarly, with regard to Chinese propaganda, the CCP only refers to two categories, ‘leadership’ and ‘the masses of the People’, while discussions on public communica17 The Dictionary also makes a distinction between seven categories of propaganda: political propaganda, economic propaganda, theoretical propaganda, legal propaganda, military propaganda, civil propaganda, and science and technology propaganda. Additionally, the dictionary lists ten modes of propaganda: social propaganda, material propaganda, propaganda for meetings, news propaganda, advertisement propaganda, oral propaganda, written propaganda, direct propaganda, indirect propaganda, and wallposter propaganda (Liu Jianming, 1993, 64). 18 Stranahan, 1994, 31. 19 Liu Jianming, 1993, 65. 20 Lowell Dittmer, 1994, 89–112.

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tion use only two terms that both indicate consensus from above: ‘public discussion (yulun ˮƏ)’ refers to leadership views as reﬂected in the official media, which the masses are expected to share, and ‘the opinion of the masses (of the People)’ (renmin qunzhong de yijian ǦƠǢ̶w˔Ġ) refers to the more-or-less spontaneous opinions of a range of people, as reﬂected in letters to the editor, big-character-posters, and so forth.21 In this view of public discussion, social order is accomplished mainly through prescribed and institutionalized behaviour, deﬁned by Party cadres and politicians, with the help of groups of academic researchers. Contrary to what the formula of ‘three basic rules of propaganda’ in the Big Dictionary suggests, there can be no simple rules for the production of propaganda, if only for the reason that propaganda employed by regimes exhibits speciﬁc modes, timing, style and form that vary with speciﬁc political, economic and social circumstances. As Bogart argued, ‘propaganda is an art requiring special talent. It is not mechanical, scientiﬁc work. Inﬂuencing attitudes requires experience, area knowledge, and instinctive judgement of what is the best argument for the audience’.22 Policy-makers and leaders have to make sure that the members of targeted academic organizations understand the practical signiﬁcance of certain information for a particular audience. For this reason ‘scouting’ researchers make use of prescribed procedures in constructing official reports to represent what various audiences expect from Party organization. They need to take into consideration the discrepancies between the official view of reality and what many members believe to be true in order to enable officials to adjust instructive messages to ﬁt the targeted opinions of the ‘masses of the People’. Wu Guoguang,23 a speechwriter to Premier Zhao Ziyang in the late 1980s and a chief editor in the Editorial Department of The People’s Daily, argues that the Chinese Communist regime operates through directives from the oligarchic top leadership. Such directives have their main form of expression in political documents. Wu calls this form of governance ‘rule by document’, which is different from rule in autocratic systems based on personal ﬁat by a dictator. Documents are presented as representing the collective will of the leadership, giving the regime ideological legitimacy. A successfully completed document enjoys both symbolic and administrative authority. The drafting of such a document makes up a 21 22 23

Dittmer, 1994, 90. Leo Bogart, quoted in Jowett and O’Donnell, 1986, 15. Wu Guoguang, E1995: 23–38.

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central part of the political process and consists of several stages. First, ideas are developed that formulate the central issues, and an agenda is set. Next, leaders are appointed to select the drafters of the planned document. For a political document, a special drafting group may be set up, for which drafters are selected and borrowed from several political institutions and academic research organs.24 The institutes consulted by decision-makers of the Politburo and the State Council are usually closely allied with Party and governmental organs. Personal connections (guanxi Òʅ) can play an important role, as personal and political loyalties are crucial in the process of formulating documents that affect directives at a national level. Instructions and information ﬂow down from leaders to the drafters by means of discussion with the leader (or assistants), by phone or through special documents, until the drafters understand the preferences of the leaders. The drafters discuss the document and gather further information to complete the ﬁrst draft. When this work is completed, sessions are held with the leaders and revisions are made until the leaders are satisﬁed with the result. During the next crucial stage of persuasion and consensus building among top leaders (in the Politburo or the Secretariat), the draft is discussed and revised until accepted (or rejected). The resulting document is published in several stages in national newspapers, e.g. The People’s Daily, and follows a pecking order of dissemination, using the rule ‘First supervisors, and then subordinates; ﬁrst within the Party, then outside; and ﬁrst the officials, then the masses’.25 The ﬁnal stage consists of the open publication of the full document, and its careful study by Party working groups. There are various channels for the communication of ideas between the State Council and Party, and CASS researchers. Open forms of communication are of little importance, although it does happen that leaders draw the public’s attention to worthy academic works that set an example to others, or to those leaders who appear as the dramatis personae in a political work on themselves, such as Weng Jieming’s (et al.) Heart-to-Heart Talk with the President.26 The more regular communication ﬂow between leadership and CASS consists of the circulation of internal journals and various kinds of reference materials (neibu cankao ziliao

24 25 26

Ibid. Wu Guoguang, E1995, 33. Weng Jieming, Zhang Xi Ming eds., 1995.

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ư05őͅź). The latter are taken each day to a so-called ‘exchange sta-

tion’, where they are exchanged with those of other government organs.27 Access to the reference materials requires official clearance. There are several categories of written communication: Newsletters (tongxun ɔȰ), Academic Trends (xueshu dongtai ʳȫɂ), Bulletins (kuaibao ś), Important Reports (yaobao ˉ), and other specialist reports. An example of Academic Trends (xueshu dongtai) is Trends in Foreign Social Science (guowai shehui kexue dongtai ÝɝȁĀŒʳɂ). It is positioned ideologically rather far away from the official Marxist view. An example of the Bulletins (kuaibao) are the bi-monthlies, which distribute abstracts of the general research. Both Academic Trends (xueshu dongtai) and the CASS Newsletter (Zhongguo Shehui Kuxueyuan Tongxun ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾ɔʷ) report on social-science research and activities in CASS. The most secret and important category of report is the Important Report (yaobao), which is issued only at certain research institutes. The Important Reports funnel important research results directly to the Central Committee. They are thought to be few, but not many people know exactly, as their circulation is limited to higher cadres (gaoji ganbu ÀČº0). Most of CASS’s thirtyone institutes have more than one journal; CASS altogether issues more than eighty periodicals. The ones that introduce foreign research results into China are widely read in CASS. If the Central Committee (Zhongyang Weiyuanhui ̰ˁɪ˼Ā) of the CCP calls for opinions on certain issues, academics can submit a proposal for writing a report, which will then be written and handed over to the Central Committee. Researchers that undertake to submit their reports to the leadership must, ﬁrst, seek approval from the head of their speciﬁc institute and that of CASS. This process may require several meetings and assessments of the relevance and suitability of the materials concerned. Relevance here means relevant to state and Party policies, and suitability refers to the aptness of the formulations in the report. Depending on who is in power, who submits the report, and the political atmosphere, ideas may get through to the top, although possibly altered. Some critical recommendations are rejected initially, but in the course of time can be adopted as official policy. For instance, in 1979, Su Shaozhi and Feng Lanrui formulated a slightly different version of the theory of China’s ﬁrst stage of socialist development, which, at ﬁrst, was considered

27

Su Shaozhi, E1995, 114.

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unacceptable.28 Nevertheless, after its revision by the prominent scientist Yu Guangyuan, it was accepted as official policy by Zhao Ziyang at the Thirteenth National Party Conference in October in 1987, but attributed to the Resolution on Party History of June 1981. In the aftermath of the June 4th movement in 1989, the CCP distanced itself from placing China at a preliminary stage of socialism.29 Further into the 1990s, however, the analysis became official policy again. Currently, the theory of China being in a ﬁrst stage of socialism is ascribed to Deng Xiaoping, and has acquired authority as part of Deng Xiaoping Theory. This process of rejection and acceptance has been so common that some intellectuals venture the hypothesis that change in China comes about mainly through this dialectical movement of rejecting critics and adopting their ideas under a different heading when convenient. This practice puts officials in a difficult position, as it is hard to know which ideas are to survive and become standard policy-making material. To play it safe, some officials and scholars are said to adopt the tactic of Mr. Lü Ƌ, a ﬁctive person (note the Chinese character: a person and two mouths) that knows how to dialectically unite official and anti-establishment ideology in supracorrect double-talk. It is important to point out that intellectuals follow Party guidelines and prescribed research formulations only to various degrees. Intellectuals directly involved in the research of formulating political documents form only a small, though important, minority of leading scholars. One scholar jokingly explained to me ‘the four rules’ for interpreting regulations: ﬁrst, ﬁnd out if you can ignore them; second, look for all possible interpretations and support the one you can use; third, always make a show of following up on one or two details; and, ﬁnally, express your gratitude about the wisdom of all received guidelines. Accordingly, the extent of support of and resistance to official policies varies among researchers. As the following chapters look into this issue more closely, here it suffices to draw attention to an example of converging views between officials and researchers in the 1990s with regard to images of the West. Though in the 1980s a marked difference still existed between academic, discursive views of the West and official Party propaganda, various events and developments, such as the refusal to admit China into the World Trade

28 Su Shaozhi with Feng Lanrui, ‘The Problem of Stages of Social Development after the Proletariat Obtains Power’, Economic Research (Jingji Yanjiu) No. 5 (1979): 131–132. 29 Ernest Young, 1992, 17.

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Organization (WTO),30 the denial of China’s bid to host the Olympics in 2000, the experience of intellectuals abroad, the propaganda against the U.S. with regard to the Taiwan and Tibetan independence movements, and the ‘Western hypocrisy’ with regard to human rights—all have inﬂuenced the stance of scholars in the direction of official views as expressed in newspapers.31 However, as there are various relations of dependence, cooperation and negotiation between the leadership, the government, and certain groups of scholars, it is misleading to speak of intellectuals, Party, and state as separate entities in the ﬁrst place. There have been many efforts to co-opt academics by the Party. Party recruitment of intellectuals is an increasingly common trend, as their remobilization is considered indispensable to modernization. Party membership among intellectuals has increased in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1991, the entire CASS staff of 4,865 workers included over 3,000 Party members.32 Although scholars have had ulterior motives in becoming Party members, especially in the last decades of the twentieth century—for example to better their chances of promotion, or to improve their network of connections (guanxi)—and although Party membership does not necessarily command dedication to Marxism, membership does entail a commitment of loyalty to Party politics and legitimizes Party leadership. In its policy of encouraging intellectuals to be useful to their motherland, the Party does not only tolerate various non-Marxist views, but it promotes them as well, as long as they remain within the continually changing political boundaries of what is acceptable to Party leaders. Among philosophers, for example, many advocates of traditional values, of concepts of systems theory, and of the ideas of Western thinkers ostentatiously consider those concepts as possible building blocks for the construction of a new authoritative ‘Marxist theory of the 21st century’. Therefore, as long as, for instance, the philosopher Zheng Jiadong stuck to claiming that he was a progressive Marxist patriot politically, he could go on expounding his Confucian ideas academically. Only by closely viewing such double-edged scholarship is it possible to form a conception of the role of academic theory in the process of nation-state building and vice versa.

30 WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] on January 1, 1995. 31 Cf. Zhao Suisheng, E1997. 32 CASS Yearbook, 1993, 23, 13.

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chapter two Internal and external organization

Professional titles and ranking at CASS The terms that CASS and other academic institutes use to classify staff constitute an extensive hierarchical system. As CASS is organized directly under the State Council, its status derives from the bureaucratic hierarchy. In 1998, CASS numbered 3,767 staff members. Among them, 2,975 were researchers or professionals of whom 1,504 held senior professional titles (of whom 560 were ﬁrst grade, 978 second-grade professors) and 1,437 intermediate ones. Additionally, CASS employed 365 ‘ordinary’ workers and 427 administrative personnel.33 The main ranks among scholars are assistant researcher (zhuli yanjiuyuan ̻ťʺľ˼) or lecturer (jiangshi ĥȏ), associate researcher (fuyanjiuyuan ´ʺľ˼), associate professor (fujiaoshou ´ħȧ), and research fellow (yanjiuyuan ʺľ˼), which is the same as professor (jiaoshou ħȧ). Roughly, there are three levels of professors: assistant (zhuli), deputy (associate, vice-) (fuli) and full rank. A graduate student at CASS starts with ‘undecided research status’ (yanjiu weidingzhi ʺľɭ̤), studies for one ‘practical year’ (yanjiu shixiyuan ʺľȕʄ˼), and then specializes as a proper research student. In all, a scholar progresses through ﬁve levels: ‘undecided research status’ (weiding yanjiuzhi ɦʺľ̤) ‘teaching practice’ (shixi yanjiuyuan ȕʄʺľ˼), ‘assistant researcher’ (zhuli yanjiuyuan ̻ťʺľ˼), ‘associate researcher’ (fuyuanjiuyuan) and ‘full professor’ (yanjiuyuan). A Ph.D. degree holder, after one practical-year, can be promoted to associate professor (fuli yanjiuyuan). In other departments of CASS, for those that take care of work tasks, such as translating, editing, teaching, technical work, library work, accounting, economy, statistics, and health, a similar ﬁve level grading system applies. For example, in editorial work the lowest rank is ‘undecided copy editor’, the next rank up is ‘assistant-deputy copy editor’, followed by the ranks of ‘copy editor’, ‘deputy general copy-editor’, and ‘general copyeditor’. Holders of higher academic degrees have liberties that others do not. For example, they work at home a lot, engage in moonlighting, and do not turn up at meetings. However, since 1993 a stricter system of work evaluation and promotion has become effective. As the calendar year

33

CASS Yearbook, 1999, 3.

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approaches its end (late November, early December), researchers must report on their work, and give an account of their working time spent on publications, extra training, teaching, and other academic activities. All scholars are subject to evaluations, including leaders. Regulations stipulate that promotion is only awarded according to merit, while research achievements are judged by means of a voting system, in which evaluations of ‘excellent’ (youxiu ˧ʪ), ‘pass’ (hege èÄ), or inadequate (bu hege èÄ) are given. In evaluating achievements, the production of books and training of graduate students are especially valued. Finally, one scholar is assessed as the best achiever (ping ǂ) and appointed (pin ǀ) to a position at a higher level. The ‘winner’ receives a bonus at the end of the year. Those who do not pass receive a disciplinary warning once and those who do not pass for several consecutive years are in danger of losing their job. The levels of the hierarch of CASS leadership conform to those of state departments (guan benwei Óɮ):34 Fig. 1. Titles in the leadership hierarchy Chinese

Status in the Leadership Hierarchy

kezhang Ŗ@

section chief of office

chuzhang W@

head of office

juzhang Ń@

head of department

fubuzhang ´0@

vice-minister

buzhang 0@

minister

fuzongli ´͍ť

vice-premier

zongli ͍ť

premier

zhengzhiju de fuweiyuan ̝̯Ńw´ɪ˼

deputy committee member of the Political Bureau

zhengzhi de weiyuan ̝̯Ńwɪ˼

committee member of the Political Bureau

Though in general academics are encouraged to exert great efforts to obtain titles and gain status in the academic world, the status of intellectuals in Chinese society at large has dropped. At the time of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Academy, intellectuals were supposed to have equal 34 There are additional intermediate forms between the listed levels below, such as Vice-Heads or various grades of Heads.

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value to workers and wore an outﬁt similar to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In the 1950s, however, there were very few regular professors, but their status was high, equalling that of a vice-minister or minister (fubuzhang or buzhang). At present, if one were to compare the rewards given to various kinds of jobs, the status of intellectuals has dropped steeply, verging on the status of a head or deputy head of a department (juzhang) in the ministerial bureaucracy. Of course, there are differences in status within the academic world. A professor with excellent credentials has an approximate status of a ‘regular head of department’ (juzhang). Some professors of extraordinary achievement, usually when they have reached an advanced age, sometimes receive the status that conforms to that of ‘vice-minister’ (fubuzhang). This means s/he can travel by plane or on a soft sleeper in the train. There are also various levels of medical treatment. For example, there are hospitals for higher cadres (gaogan À º). High cadre hospitals have no long waiting lists, and staff, medical treatment and medicine are of high quality. But units of CASS occupy a ministerial level (buji de danwei 0Čwnɮ). This means that the president and secretary of CASS belong to the grade of minister (buzhang) and can make use of ministerial facilities; the vice-presidents and vice-secretaries belong to the grade of vice-minister (fubuzhang) and can make use of viceministerial facilities. When they retire, they still enjoy the right of using those same facilities. Lateral relations and personnel exchange Apart from vertical promotions, horizontal transfers (with or without promotion) between state institutions of the same level take place frequently. When available, such an arrangement entitles political authorities as position leaders at politically strategic positions. This practice also reinforces the contacts and cooperation between institutes active in applied research. For instance, CASS and the Central Communist Party School (Zhongyang Dangxiao) are both high level, academic institutes engaged in the activity of generating Party ideology, philosophy, and social science. While formerly the two institutes were considered political counter-poles, the Party School as conservative and the CASS as reformist, their ideological differences have become much less extreme. The Central Party School formerly held a monopoly on matters of ideology and policy research, and, compared to CASS, its research tended to represent an orthodox perspective in research. In the 1990s, after the reorganization of CASS and since the Party School attempted to apply

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the policies of Deepening the Reforms and Opening Up onto itself, their approaches to state policy have increasingly converged. However, they have also come to specialize in different tasks. The Central Party School specializes in educating middle-and-higher level Cadres, while CASS is a scientiﬁc research unit. They both differ from the Propaganda Department, which functions as an ideological branch of Party culture. It is involved in the enterprise of propagating ‘cultural knowledge’, that is, ‘educational knowledge’ with a political edge, and publishes, for example, booklets in bookshops, articles in newspapers, and programmes on TV and radio. The Central Party School, the Propaganda Department and CASS are units of official rank (pinji de danwei ƿČwnɮ), or cadre units of ministerial rank. All three are under the State Council, and the State Council leads the Central Party School and the Propaganda Department. Among these four official units of equal ranking, exchange of personnel is allowed, and occurs on a regular basis. Thus, the head of the Propaganda Department or a leader of any of these state institutions can ﬁll the post of CASS vice-president. CASS Vice-President Teng Teng, for example, used to be vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), and vice-minister of the State Education Commission; Jiang Liu used to be chief of the Teaching and Research Section for Scientiﬁc Socialism, dean of the Central Party School of the Central Committee from 1977 to 1988, before he became vice-president of CASS in 1989 (until 1993). Conversely, CASS leaders moved to the Central Party School as well. For example, Xing Bensi, a former head of the Institute of Philosophy became vice-president of the Central Party School in 1988, and became the main-editor of the periodical Seeking Truth (Qiu Shi) in 1994; Zheng Bijian, former vice-president of CASS since 1987 (and former head of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought), in 1992 became the Central Committee Propaganda Department’s deputy head. Thus, the fact that the relations between the four institutions are of equal ranking (pinjide) means that leaders can be transferred and exchanged among the units. But only equals in rank (buji 0Č) are exchangeable (unless they are promoted): leaders are interchanged for leaders, and vice-leaders for vice-leaders. State policies that concern important theoretical issues undergo analysis at these institutes, especially when the drafting of documents is concerned. Usually one or two experts are invited from CASS, the Party School, and the Propaganda Department. One example is Jiang Zemin’s report for the 15th National Party Congress. A committee was put togeth-

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er to discuss and draft the report: from CASS, economist Wang Luolin, and engineer Liu Ji joined the draft committee; from the Central Party School, philosopher Xing Bensi joined the draft committee; from the Propaganda Department, political economists Zheng Bijian, and another vice-president of the Central Party School, Gong Yuzhi, who works on natural dialectics, joined the draft committee. Such a committee meets frequently. They study the matter under concern for about half a year before they report back their results. The process of consultation, drafting and checking is repeated several times until Jiang Zemin is satisﬁed. The occurrence of ‘unexpected theoretical break-throughs’, based on Marxism-Leninism and Deng Xiaoping Thought, are also required as part of the study process. Tasks are delegated, and distributed over various academic branches (fenpei yuanzhi ¤ƺ˾̠) and various committees may be set up.35 This kind of work can be very demanding and requires much patience as it involves scholastic perseverance in rereading standard works of Marxian authority, combined with propagandistic skills of choosing new vocabulary suitable to a new ‘historical era’, which China always seemed to enter just before a major Party meeting. Successfully completed documents sell well in the form of booklets and are reissued many times over. An example of a successful and consequential report is the proposal for economic reforms concerning state ownership. At present, economic reform is a crucial issue to the CCP. It is hoped that economic reforms will strengthen China in the twenty-ﬁrst century. If they fail, some leaders most certainly will have to step down. Research in the ﬁeld of economics in CASS is therefore of great importance.

35 Achievements based on Mao Zedong Thought alone have long since made place for ones based on Mao’s and Deng Xiaoping thought. The latter is supposed to be an updated improvement of the former. The theoretical explorations done by study committees of the late-1990s constitute the raw material for ‘Jiang Zemin Thought’, which undoubtedly will be added to the list of citations from the thoughts of great political leaders.

chapter three THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CASS AND THE PROCESS OF PRC STATE-BUILDING

After 1949 the social sciences were intended to help build socialist China. In this chapter I show how in the Xuebu, the precursor of CASS in the 1950s and 1960s, the social sciences were relevant mainly when they dealt with the political problems in China’s socialist development. It will become clear that without state protection, academic disciplines would not have the opportunity to mature. Starting in 1957 and accelerating during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), social science theory was largely replaced by political guidelines. Political state functions, which could have provided an institutional setting for the development of the social sciences, had been taken over by the Party, and Party rule meant the disintegration of the social sciences until the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). After 1978, however, the social sciences were assigned an important function in the reforms, and were to serve the goals of the Four Modernizations that pertained to agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. They thereby constituted an important role in the process of socialist state building.1 The establishment of CASS research departments and the CASS Graduate School, their organizational set-up, research subjects, and the selections of leaders were clearly meant to suit those purposes. The organizational efforts, planning, regulation and ﬁnancial investment, however, required both state and Party support. The institutional development of CASS was accompanied by ideological guidance from the very beginning, and it would continue to do so in the twenty-ﬁrst century. Establishing state institutions, such as a Constitution and a legal system, have been crucial to the further development of the social sciences in China. The policies of a separation of Party and government and rule by law have especially been of major importance in debates on Party

1 The Four Modernizations were announced at the First Session of the 5th National People’s Congress (NPC) (February–March 1978).

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leadership in the Deng-era. ‘Rule by law’ was established to prevent the anarchy of another Cultural Revolution and to provide social stability and order, legal protection of economic interests, and to serve as a new source of regime legitimacy. This policy, however, required a redeﬁnition of the relationship between Party and state. The intertwining relations between state and academic policy-making in CASS were illustrated by the parallel developments in the rebuilding of the Chinese state and the construction of CASS.

Academic institutes and China’s state building process since 1949 The revolutionary experience of the CCP hampered, rather than helped, modern nation-state building in China after 1949. As the state was expected to wither away according to Marxist-Leninist ideology, CCP ideology could not provide answers to issues of state building by means of conventional Marxist argument. It was in the 1930s that at the Yan’an base area, the organizational principles of the Party’s uniﬁed leadership and methods of mass-mobilization were established. They conditioned the CCP responses to new institutional challenges. Thus, after the founding of the PRC in 1949, the CCP relied on the army to enforce its rule, and mass-campaigns and revolutionary struggle to implement its policies. After 1949, institutions of social science, such as the Chinese Society of History, the Chinese Society of Economics, and the Chinese Society of Philosophy were organized to assist ‘socialist construction’ and international exchange. Although in 1950 three research institutes were established under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in the ﬁelds of archaeology, linguistics and modern history, the so-called bourgeois social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, political science and law were abolished in 1952. Nevertheless, by 1953, research institutes had been set up for philosophy, economics, literature, history, languages of minority nationalities and an Information Research Office. Beginning in May 1957, there was a brief period of liberalization when Mao invited intellectuals to criticize the bureaucratic practices. This ‘Hundred Flowers movement’ served to strengthen the Party by encouraging criticism and competition. The movement was cut short in June, when the ‘AntiRightist Campaign’ was launched against many of those who had raised their voice against the Communist Party. Nevertheless, between 1958 and 1964, six more research institutes were founded for law, nationali-

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ties, world economy, world history, world religions and world literature.2 These institutes mainly served the political agenda of the CCP. Under the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences of CAS, there were altogether fourteen research institutes linked to social science, which published academic journals such as New Construction, Economic Research, Law Research, Research on Nationalities, Philosophical Studies, Historical Research, Bulletin of Archaeology, Archaeology, Literary Review, and Chinese Language. Another thirty-seven social science organs, with their own local research institutes and journals, were set up in the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.3 The social sciences became involved in efforts of socialist state-building: economics was to bring about a Chinese socialist economic miracle; the translation and publication of the works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong were to popularize Marxist teachings; editions of Chinese ancient works, a number of works on Western social science, and Marxist textbooks on literature, history, philosophy, and economics were to be used in the dissemination of a national curriculum for education; language reforms and the standardization of Han Chinese were to create a uniform system of national communication and education; studies of Marxism, the history of the Chinese revolution, and Chinese history were to establish a revolutionary-Chinese national identity; and the investigation of the societies, histories and languages of minority nationalities were to strengthen China as a socialist nation-state that was uniﬁed and multinational. The precursor of CASS: the Xuebu After liberation, on the ﬁrst of June 1955, a division for the social sciences was established under the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) (Zhongguo Kexueyuan ̰ÝŒʳ˾). Following the model of the Soviet Union, CAS mainly concerned itself with the sciences.4 Thus, the Chinese study of society became a division of CAS, called the ‘Academic Division for Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Xuebu ̓ʳȁĀŒ 2

See APPENDIX II. China Handbook Editorial Committee, 1983, 175–176. 4 It had a few research institutes in Peking, such as those of mathematics, chemistry and physics. Other research institutes were located in the Northeast in Shenyang (metallurgy), in Wuhan (The Wuhan Institute of Physics [Wuhan Wuli Yanjiusuo]) and Qinghai (The Institute for Nuclear Physics). There were also research departments unknown to the outside world, in which research was conducted into military equipment. 3

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ʳʳ0), or, Xuebu ʳ0 (academic division), for short. The priority given to engineering and science was evident from the organization of CAS, as only one of its four divisions was devoted to the social sciences and philosophy. The ten foci of the academy’s ﬁrst ﬁve-year plan, outlined by the famous historian Guo Moruo (1892–1978), who headed the Xuebu in the second half of the 1950s and 1960s, referred to the social sciences only in that they concerned ‘research in the fundamental theoretical problems in China’s national construction in this transitional period’.5 The discipline of history received considerable attention, probably partly because Guo was a historian himself. The Institute of History was divided into compartments, as were most disciplines. It comprised three departments, consisting of the ‘ﬁrst department’ (yisuo ˎȿ) of ancient history, the ‘second department’ (ersuo ȿ) of the history of the middle ages, and the ‘third department’ (sansuo Ƕȿ), whose subject was modern history. Additionally, from 1955 to 1966, there were departments within CAS for archaeology, economics, literature, foreign literature, linguistics, and minorities. There was no common academic journal (Yuankan ˾ō), but the various institutes had their own periodicals. Eventually, an Information Research Office (Qingbao Yanjiushi Ǘʺľȡ) was founded in 1957, which occupied a complex of buildings.6 It issued translations and introductions for textbooks, gathered information on research, and built information networks in the service of science, and in the role of leadership in decision-making. The main building, at that time, together with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, had the additional function of an ideological centre. The layout of the complex must have facilitated this function: the majority of the institutes were located in the same building, except for the Institute of Economics and of Minority Studies, and all the main offices were located on the grounds of the main building. During the Cultural Revolution, intellectuals all over China had been made to work and learn discipline by following Mao Zedong’s ‘May 7 Directive’ of 1966. By 1969, all research personnel in the Xuebu were undergoing ‘political re-education’ under the direction of the Workers and Liberation Army Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team. Office

5

Wong Siu-lun, New Construction (Xin Jianshe) No. 7, 1955, 64. In 1961, it was renamed the Academic Materials Research Office, and in 1975 expanded to the Research Office of Information (Qingbao Yanjiushi). In 1985, it became a combined Document and Information Institute, with the Information Research Institute as its base. In 1992, it was changed to the Document and Information Centre. 6

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buildings were turned into dormitories, where academics had to perform communal tasks and undergo ideological reform. The militants at the Xuebu were divided into two factions: the majority faction was called the ‘company’ (liandui ű), and the minority faction the ‘squadron’ (zhongdui ̰). The factions were in protracted conﬂict, both willing to engage in proletarian struggle in the name of Mao Zedong. By 1970, around twenty million academics and other professionals were labouring in Cadre Schools set up throughout China. At the Xuebu, too, most institutes sent their ‘regiments’ to the May Seventh Movement Schools for Cadres. They were mostly spread over districts outside Beijing and beyond, into Hebei Province. Most intellectuals had to stay on for several years to ‘obtain knowledge through labour’, ‘learn from the peasants’ (xiaxiang ʇʐ) and engage in thought reform. Many intellectuals felt they were wasting time by this method of acquiring knowledge.7 Research at the Xuebu suffered. Most departments became dysfunctional or largely so because of factional struggles and material poverty. The Xuebu had only a few research students, as opportunities to take exams were scarce. No attempts were made at recruiting students on a regular basis either. Even though fourteen institutes were recognized, only the institutes for archaeology, linguistics and minorities were under Party-state protection. There were only three academic journals left: Archaeology (Kaogu őÏ), Chinese Literature (Zhongguo Yuwen ̰Ý˳ɲ), and History Research (Lishi Yanjiu Ūȗʺľ). Problems of a political nature were severe at the Xuebu, and factionalism, false accusations, a deﬁciency of material facilities, and ﬁnancial problems nearly brought research to a halt. In 1966, the Xuebu became an important political enemy (zheng di ̝ |) of the perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution in Beijing. Partly under their inﬂuence, the Xuebu brought forth some well-known ‘Leftists’ (zuopai ͑Ʒ), such as Guan Feng, Lin Yushi, and Wu Chuanqi. Posters were hung up, meetings convened, and mass rallies held. Diverse audiences came to have a look at the rallies, because some members of the Xuebu were said to have ‘gone up to heaven’ and to have become ‘fellow inhabitants of heaven’ (tongtian ɕɍ), or Zhongnanhai ̰ƯÞ, the seat of top leaders in the Central Committee. Although some academics of the Xuebu were members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, they were only a few among many. Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Xuebu

7 For an account of this experience by a researcher of the Institute for Foreign Literature in the Xuebu, see Yang Jian, E1982.

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housed around 2,500 workers, staff members and their families who lived together as regular residents and workers. By 1973 the Cultural Revolution movement at the Xuebu was no longer vibrant. Responding to the request of Zhou Enlai, the Xuebu recalled intellectuals from the May Seventh Cadre Schools, but most research did not resume until 1976, the year in which Zhou Enlai (January 8) and Mao passed away (September 9). Soon afterward the gang of leaders of the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four—Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, and Kang Sheng, Chen Boda, and Yao Wenyuan—was rounded up (October 6). An end was put to the ‘Ultra-Leftist policies of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four’, and the Cultural Revolution became the target of debate and criticism. Many students had been active as militants, and the Institute of Philosophy protected some of the young Cultural Revolution activists in view of their young age. However, Guan Feng, Wang Li, Qi Benyu, Chi Qun and Wu Chuanqi were purged, as they were regarded as Lin Biao’s ‘Black Guards’ and ‘big mess-makers’. Qian Zhongshu, who in 1983 became a vice-president of CASS, expressed his unease about the way intellectuals dealt with the Cultural Revolution. He summarized his feelings concerning the three main groups of participants in the following way: the victims will be left with indignation; the gullible broad masses will be left with remorse; and the conscious instigators of revolutionary witch-hunts will be left with shame. But he added, ‘An acute sense of shame can result in selective amnesia: no one wants to remember things that have caused him or her a loss of face or embarrassment. It is not surprising then that uncomfortable memories can slip unnoticed from conscious recollection into oblivion’.8 Establishing CASS Under Hua Guofeng’s reign as chair of the State Council (premier), some Ultra-Leftists remained powerful. Though it was recognised that much work had to be done to regain the former standard of education, millions of people who had been labelled had to wait for rehabilitation. One of them was Deng Xiaping. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Deng had risen to a high position in the Central Committee, but was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. In late 1975, another campaign had ﬂared up against Deng, and in March 1976, CAS formally announced a

8

Qian Zhongshu, ed., preface to Yang Jian, E1982, 12–13.

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denunciation of China’s ‘capitalist roader’.9 But by 1977, after the arrest of the Gang of Four and Mao’s death in 1976, Deng was rehabilitated as vice-premier to the Politburo and the Military Affairs Commission. In 1978, Deng became the chairman of the CCP Central Committee, a position that only Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai had held, and which had been vacant since 1964. In his policies of reform, Deng also received the steady support of the secretary-general of the Party, Hu Yaobang, and Premier Zhao Ziyang, who headed the State Council’s ‘Science and Technology Group’. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP, held in December 1978, announced the decision to focus the entire country’s working efforts on socialist modernization. In 1977, the Department of Philosophy and the Social Sciences was upgraded and the Central Committee of the CCP gave permission for the founding of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). CASS is known as the highest academic research institution in the ﬁelds of philosophy and the social sciences, as well as a national centre for comprehensive (zonghe ͌è) studies, a large pool of loosely integrated, functional disciplines of strategic value, including economics, politics and area studies. The 1977 decision to assign a greater role to the social sciences entailed the establishment of a number of new research ﬁelds, such as international relations and foreign area studies, demography, law, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Academic societies were set up, the number of academic journals was increased, long-term plans were designed, and debates on ‘the criteria of truth’ were undertaken and became widespread. These debates on the criteria of truth allegedly involved many millions of people, though they attracted the attention of philosophers in particular. Since July 1977, after Deng Xiaoping’s excoriation of the Two Whatevers (liang ge fanshi ŵÅȝ), the First Congress on Truth Criteria (1978) followed suit. It was decided that Mao Zedong Thought ‘needs to be grasped comprehensively and accurately as a scientiﬁc system’. The ‘Two Whatevers’ stood for the principle that all Mao’s political decisions should be held onto, and the principle that all instructions Mao had ever given must be obeyed.10 Despite Hua Guofeng’s preference to continue Mao’s policies, the Two Whatevers came to an official end. This debate in Marxist cir9 10

Spence, 1999, 611–612. Deng Xiaoping, E1984, 51–52.

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cles is claimed to have revived the Communist Party’s ‘ﬁne tradition of seeking truth from facts’, and is regarded as ‘lively education in Marxism’. Initially, the Party had been slow to publish the procedures of the rehabilitation of intellectuals, and the preferential treatment of the exRightists that were Party members was endemic. In CASS, nearly half of the approximately 2,100 intellectuals had run into political trouble during the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution, especially during the so-called Four Clean-Ups (siqing ȵǖ) movement of 1963–1964 and in the early years of the Cultural Revolution. By mid-1979, however, over eight hundred of them were rehabilitated, including well-known academic leaders, such as philosopher Yang Xianzhen, president of the Higher Party School, the famous economist Sun Yefang, the prominent historian of science, Xu Liangying, historian of philosophy Hou Wailu, historians Liu Danian, Li Shu, and Luo Ergang, and archaeologist Xia Nai. By then only forty-ﬁve Rightists were still employed by the Academy. Of them, forty-four were absolved. Others had died, and many had been sent to farms and then to work outside the Academy.11 In 1982, in order to enhance the status of intellectuals, the State Council and the Central Committee of the CCP resolved to send Party and state cadres to study under famous specialists. Furthermore, the Party’s theoretical journal, Red Flag (Hong Qi), recommended the selection of talented intellectuals as leaders. Some intellectuals became trained as models, other skilled intellectuals with favourable class backgrounds were considered for Party membership, while the working and living conditions of intellectuals were improved.12 The reputation of most academic disciplines was cleared; new ones were established, corresponding to their expected value for society. Whereas philosophy was to play a central guiding role in the ﬁeld of ideology, in the ﬁeld of Marxian science, and in the coordination between different scientiﬁc disciplines, economics was to discuss economic laws under socialism, and the readjustment and restructuring of the economy. Discussions of major theoretical issues conducted by Chinese literary critics and historians were to emancipate people’s minds and to assist research. For example, the 1981 symposium in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of China’s famous short-story writer Lu Xun (1881–1936) and the symposium in commemoration of the seventi11 12

People’s Daily, July 14, 1979 (quoted in White 1987, 255). White, 1987, 256–257; 258–261.

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eth anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, sparked discussions on Chinese revolutionary history, the struggle (and triumph) of the Chinese nation, and the meaning of socialism. A fresh look at Marxist theory was hoped to speed up China’s modernization; this time, it was to be in concert with the ‘universal truths of science’. Practice, now, would be the only criterion of truth, and largescale economic development and restructuring was going to be the ﬁeld of practice that would prove the true strength of China. Large numbers of researchers were to participate in investigations on the macroeconomic approach to socialist reconstruction, organized by government departments and enterprises; jurists were to build a socialist legal system and to formulate its guiding ideology; ethnologists were to study minority nationalities and their socialist transformation; and, sociology was to study real life phenomena, such as youth behaviour. Freedom of debate was to be guaranteed by the Double-Hundred policy of ‘letting a hundred ﬂowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend’. Debate was to be incorporated into the Party Constitution so as to prevent the schools from premature withering.13 Furthermore, the policy of Opening Up (kaifang) would render it possible for Chinese social scientists to learn from the ‘advanced experience of foreign countries’, from the ‘study their achievements’, and from the capacity to ‘absorb what is of value’. These set phrases would reverberate in thousands of academic texts. The establishment of social science disciplines did not only require political legitimization by the state, but also ﬁnancial support for the creation of a new disciplinary infrastructure. Funding of CASS research institutes was established by governmental mandate, so that the plans of research institutes largely depended on state policies. Even ﬁnancially independent groups that wanted to found an organization, journal, or commission required official ﬁat. The great increase in academic activity led to more, rather than less, state involvement in steering, controlling, and deﬁning new boundaries for scientiﬁc research. Apart from loosening up ideological guidelines and clearing away obstructions to research into ‘forbidden zones’, the creation of an infrastructure of a discipline required active support, strategic planning, and political engagement with the enterprise that steered the production of knowledge. As the funding of the social sciences and the number of research projects in13 Article 47 of the Constitution speciﬁes the freedom of speech and the press and ‘freedom to conduct scientiﬁc research, literary and artistic creation, and other cultural activities (Wang Ruoshui, E1986, 79).

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creased, research planning was needed to coordinate research to the effect that they could support official research priorities. Means of directing research were developed so as to coordinate the requirements for socialist-state building and modernization with the institutional research setting. In the 1980s, research centres involved in ‘urgent’ research, such as border-regions research and political science, were promoted to a higher institutional level; and, in the 1990s, the disciplines considered less productive or problematic were demoted. To ensure an efficient and effective method of allocating funds among institutes, a bidding system for priority projects was developed, and several foundations were set up to award grants for promising talent and the publication of outstanding books. Other means designed to encourage politically relevant research were the recommendation and discouragement of certain trends and topics by important leaders. Promises were made granting work security, material beneﬁts, and promotions. Status was conferred upon ‘model scientists’, and official recommendations were made of the study of certain historical movements. These movements included the May Fourth movement, and the beginning of the Xia period. Historical personae included, in particular, famous philosophers and revolutionaries. The formation of CASS: a vote for order and informed authority As described above, CASS grew out of the Xuebu, a division of CAS since 1955. Party Chairman and Premier Hua Guofeng on May 7, 1977, authorized the separation of CASS from CAS. The establishment of CASS had Deng Xiaoping’s full support, as he believed that socialist science had to be ‘instrumental in achieving the goals of the Four Modernizations’, declaring that intellectuals were to be regarded as a part of the ‘socialist working class’.14 Deng believed that ‘Only by making our country a modern, powerful socialist state can we more effectively prevent capitalist restoration, cope with aggression and subversion by social-imperialism and imperialism, and be more certain of gradually creating the material conditions for the advancement to the great ideal of communism’. Therefore, science was to be regarded as part of the productive forces and ‘the overwhelming majority of intellectuals are part of the proletariat’. Further, ‘a mam-

14

Deng Xiaoping [Teng Hsiao-ping], ed., 1978, 9–18.

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moth force of scientiﬁc and technical personnel, who are both red and expert (you hong you zhuan ˬîˬ̿), had to be assembled in order to combat China’s backwardness; and, ﬁnally, a system of division of responsibility among institute directors under the leadership of Party Committees would ‘strengthen the leading role of the Party Committees while bringing into full play the role of the specialists’.15 Thus, socialism and expertise, apart from making China more prosperous, promised to protect China from the imperialist West by means of modernization. In March 1978, it was decided to draw up three- and eight-year plans for the social sciences, parallel to the national economy and science plans for 1978–1980 and 1978–1985. After that, planning would focus on the implementation of the plans synchronously with the nation’s ﬁve-year plan. CASS was delegated by the Leading Group for the National Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences to coordinate research forces in, and draw up a ﬁve-year plan for, the country’s philosophy and social sciences. It acted for the Leading Group in taking charge of the State Social Science Foundation. It also edited the annual Directory on the Selection of Subjects Covered by the National Social Sciences Foundation, and it handled matters pertaining to applications for research subjects and related ﬁnancial assistance.16 During the ﬁrst years, considerable attention was paid to the recovery of the social sciences from the Cultural Revolution and to formulating national plans for rebuilding social-science research. Though the Deng camp supported the enhancement of the status of intellectuals, such an effort was bound to take much time and devotion to Party politics in order to groom ‘a mammoth force’ of intellectual advisors. In 1978, important vehicles of propaganda, such as The Peoples Daily (Renmin Ribao), the Liberation Army Paper (Jiefangjun Bao), and The Red Flag were still under the inﬂuence of so-called ‘Ultra-Leftist’ policies of ‘uniting, educating, and reforming of intellectuals’. Furthermore, the journals of the ‘two schools’ (liang xiao ŵʚ), Beijing and Qinghua Universities, had retained much of their inﬂuence, too. During the Cultural Revolution, people from these schools (and others) had written lengthy and ﬁerce articles under the pseudonym ‘bridge schools’ (liangxiao ųʜ) (‘bridge’ [liang] is homonymous with ‘two’). Deng Xiaoping, however, did not have an authoritative theory at hand to combat these forces and, at that time, he had no crowd of people writing for him yet. Such concerns also led to the upgrading of the Xuebu into CASS. And as the Xuebu build15 16

Ibid. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences—A Brief Introduction, 1988, 34.

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ings were too old and dilapidated, plans were made for the construction of a new building. Apart from the official reason of stimulating the social sciences, there were other motives for setting up CASS. One reason, according to Su Shaozhi, derived from the need for separating the natural sciences of CAS from the system of propaganda. Such separation would entail a separation between science and social scientiﬁc disciplines, and the continued monitoring of the social sciences through the propaganda system.17 In this way CASS remained under the supervision of the Propaganda Department, while the sciences of CAS could continue a separate academic life in relative freedom from the scrutiny of the Propaganda Department. Another reason for the separation of the sciences and the social sciences was the importance attached to the latter as a think-tank for the modernization policies under the Deng-regime. During the Mao era, Mao’s Red Book had served to reﬂect the ‘truth’, and was taken as the point of departure by great numbers of people writing articles on all kinds of pseudoscientiﬁc subjects. Only a few people knew how to write independently. Students had to study articles in the newspapers and Party documents, after which they had to discuss them, and then make known their position, and, ﬁnally, criticize their own writings. The new separation of sciences and social sciences had made possible the production of social knowledge that could be moulded to the needs of the Party, while at the same time it had taken away some of the political burden from the sciences. The creation of theoretical backing for Deng’s regime tempered the aggressive tone of discussions that had held sway during the Cultural Revolution. Education policies had been attuned to the adage of ‘Today’s Soviet Union Is Our Tomorrow’ (Sulian de jintian jiu shi women de mingtian ȹŮwİɍŁȝɷƙwƢɍ): most academic materials, ranging from philosophy, economy, and literature to ethnology and genetics, had been translated materials from the Soviet Union. At the present, the only way out for China was ‘opening up’ and ‘to learn from the achievements of the West’. Politically, the loosening of ideological reins required extreme caution. For social scientists this meant keeping the propagated ‘free’ debate within the bounds of Party guidelines and the politics of ‘no-change theory’ (bubianlun -#Ə), that is, the absence of political reforms.

17

Su Shaozhi, quoted in Miller, 1996, 96–97.

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The changes in the tasks of the social sciences required institutional growth. The Xuebu, in 1976 had counted a staff of approximately 2,000 members and included fourteen more-or-less paralyzed institutes, but during the ﬁrst ﬁve years of CASS’s existence, from 1977 to 1982, thirteen institutes were added.18 The growth of the ﬁeld of economics between 1978 and 1982 exempliﬁes the trend of ‘increase through differentiation:’ ﬁve institutes split away from the Institute of Economics (see Appendix III). Furthermore, the number of area-studies institutes grew extremely fast. After the founding of the South Asia Studies Institute in 1978, CASS disciplines multiplied until they covered the entire world. In fact, the Institutes of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies (1965/ 1981) were returned to CASS from the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee (CC) of the CCP (zhonglianbu ̰Ů0), where they had played a role, mainly, in applied foreign policy research. In the same period, the editorial committees and offices for the society for Chinese Social Science Periodicals, the China Social Science Publishers, the Graduate School and the Guo Moruo Society were set up. After 1981, the Research Centre for Chinese Borderland History and Geography (1983), the Institute of Politics (1985), the Institute of Asia-Paciﬁc Studies (1988), and the Institute of Taiwan Studies (1984) were added (see Appendix II). In the course of time, disciplines were also grouped into clusters. Thus, disciplines were assembled into the modules of economics, philosophy, history, literature and international studies; on the basis of the internal structure of the disciplines and their interrelations, some branches were combined into comprehensive projects, such as ecological economics, artiﬁcial intelligence, future studies, national defence economics, computer linguistics, and prediction studies for socio-economic development (yucexue ˹9ʳ). The Graduate School of CASS, set up on September 25, 1978,19 enabled CASS to increase its capacity from 150 to 448 students.20 Until the Graduate School quarters were completed in 1985, there remained a shortage of residential facilities.21 About 400 people resided in the student quarters of other universities or had to rent rooms. Nevertheless, the future conditions for students looked more promising than ever.

18

See APPENDIX II. Before the Graduate School was founded, the Xuebu had trained many graduate students in the period from 1956 to 1964 (CASS Graduate School 1998: 11). 20 CASS Graduate School, 1998, 14. 21 Ibid.: 28. 19

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For decades much time and talent had been expended on a wasteful class struggle, but now the students, possibly future leaders, were to live together in unison. This atmosphere was jokingly referred to as ‘First Class Whampoa’ (Huangpu Yiji), invoking the images of loyalty and a team spirit associated with prominent communist graduates, such as Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao, in the military academy near Canton in the 1920s. Of course, in the eighties, it was the power base of Deng Xiaoping that was at stake, and the phrase of Huangpu Yiji was used as an invocation for a strong and loyal future leadership. Conforming to Deng’s policies toward science and technology, criteria for evaluating competing research proposals were devised to ﬁt in with the demands of modernization. In most of the sciences, standards could be unspeciﬁc with respect to political principles, so that the newly set up Science Foundation of CAS supported projects that answered to its general needs.22 The theoretical sciences and the social sciences, however, were in a more knotty predicament. On the one hand, they were expected to ‘seek truth from facts’, requiring academic freedom, while, on the other hand, they owed obedience to the Party leadership, with its requirement of forsaking academic freedom. Similarly, the conﬂicting adages of the Double-Hundred policies and the guideline of upholding the Four Cardinal Principles—the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat (changed to the People’s Democratic Dictatorship), the leadership of the CCP, and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought—required intellectuals to hold on to a double standard of concepts such as ‘freedom’ and ‘truth’. Adherence to the political guidelines for academic research, in the years to come, would lead to various responses among intellectuals, such as uneasiness, uncritical acceptance, and rebellion. Nevertheless, these guidelines did not stop applicants from choosing an academic career, especially during the ﬁrst decade of the reforms, when the relevant material and social circumstances of intellectuals promised improvement.

22

White III, 1984, 17.

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Building state institutions and regulating academic life Compared with the doctrinal development of the social sciences in the ﬁrst decade after liberation, the social sciences after 1978 were given far more ideological space for diversiﬁcation. Paradoxically, this development of liberalization involved increased efforts by the state to keep the development of the social sciences within a politically acceptable scope of expansion. However, it was an absence of a protective authority, or, as present leaders prefer to believe, an absence of organized state protection and authority, that had made possible the persecution of intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution.23 Before the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, state power had already faded. Thus, in June 1958, a recentralization of the leadership in the Party had reduced the autonomy of state, judicial, and social institutions, as well as that of the press. The CCP Politburo retained the power of decision over major principles and policies, but transferred authority for concrete policy, legislation, and oversight from the state and judicial bodies to the CCP Secretariat. The government became in essence the executive organ of the Party, rather than of the state. In 1959 judicial organs were merged into the public security organs at all levels, and the Ministry of Justice and notary offices were abolished. All state supervisory organs were replaced by Party ‘Supervisory Committees’ (jiancha weiyuanhui ě<ɪ˼Ā).24 Central to this change in structure was the formation, beginning in 1958, of the Central Committee’s leading small groups, duplicated in lower-level Party Committees. This change introduced dual subordination in professional affairs for each organ to the relevant Leading Group at the same level, as well as to the next higher level. At ﬁrst, during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), Mao attempted and failed to increase economic productivity by means of mass organization, radical collectivization of peasants into ‘people’s communes’, and the decentralization of industrial production. The concentration of power in Party organs was accompanied by a general decentralization of state power. But in the early 1960s there was a reconcentration of power at higher levels. Regional Party Committees with no counterpart in government took over much of the authority of lower-level Party Committees.25

23 24 25

Cf. MacFarquar, 1993. Hamrin, 1992, 98. Hamrin, 1992, 98–99.

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After the restoration of the Party Secretariat in February 1980 under Hu Yaobang as general secretary, and the reorganization of the State Council in September under Zhao Ziyang as the new premier, Deng, Hu and Zhao initiated major changes in the Party and state structures as well as in personnel. In general, the changes were modelled after the Eighth Party Congress set-up of 1956, with some innovations, such as the creation of the Central Advisory Commission and a Party Disciplinary Commission.26 Through procedural, institutional, and legal reforms, the Party managed to delegate authority and responsibility to state organs, although it did not quite give up its monopoly on political power. As state investment in the social sciences grew, and the ideological regime was loosening up, state inﬂuence on the social sciences increased. In the years following the reforms of 1978, the number of state institutions (agencies, bureaux, ministries, offices, and commissions) increased fast enough for Deng Xiaoping to call the process to a halt in 1982. While state institutions were recuperating after the Cultural Revolution, the Party lost no time in regaining control through the CCP Secretariat (February 1980) and the departments of the Party Central Committee. In 1977, the CCP re-established the Party Group system, which has Party Core Groups and Party Work Committees, organized to be parallel with and in state institutions. Although the Party stressed that government issues were to be decided upon by the State Council or local governments, the Party Central Committee after 1980 continued to circulate Party documents and circulars with the State Council. As in the 1950s, in this new state system responsibilities and interests between Party and state were intertwined. Though the number of interlocking posts was drastically reduced, the dual organizational structure still continued to exist. Nevertheless, during some periods, more power and responsibility were assigned to administrative institutions than during others. This was also the case in CASS. For example, in CASS, the administrative leadership had considerably more authority and decision powers after 1982 than it had before, and even redelegated powers to the lower-level institutes in 1984, making possible democratic elections among peers. However, the increased academic freedom also gave political leaders more leeway to put together their own research-advisor

26

Cf. Hamrin, 1992, 106; Saich, 1995, 44.

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groups among intellectuals. An adherence to Party decisions made place for more ﬂexible networks tied to powerful political patrons. Thus, a rough parallel can be drawn between changes in state power and the evolution of the system of academic organization of CASS. In the 1980s, both systems had been working towards a greater inﬂuence for the administrative leadership. In September 1982, the new Party Constitution, adopted at the Twelfth National Party Conference, stipulated that, from the centre to the basic level, activities of all Party organizational units and members must be consistent with the Constitution and laws of the state. Article 5 of the 1982 Constitution stipulates that state organs, the armed forces, political parties, and public organizations and enterprises must abide by the constitution and the law. At the same time, in CASS more power was delegated from the CASS Party Group to the administrative leadership. But in the absence of institutional independence and procedural guarantees, legal principles had little effect. Similarly, attempts to increase the freedom of academic debate were frustrated by close political supervision. One reason for the lack of success in separating the functions of the Party and the state lay in the motivation of this reform. The objectives of the new system were deﬁned directly in reference to the competition between capitalism and China as a socialist system: In the drive for socialist modernization, our objectives are: economically, to catch up with the developed capitalist countries; and, politically, to create a higher level of democracy with more substance than that of capitalist countries. We also aim to produce more and better-trained professionals than they do. It may take us different lengths of time to attain these three objectives. But as a vast socialist country, we can and must attain them. The merits of our Party and state institutions should be judged on the basis of whether or not they help us advance towards our objectives (Deng Xiaoping, ‘Reform system of Party and state leadership’, in Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (1975–1982). (Beijing: FLP, 1984), 305)

The establishment of state institutions independent from the Party had not been the ﬁrst or main objective, but a means to a greater purpose: becoming better than the capitalists. The rules protecting the independence of state institutions therefore were bound to harbour the needs of a desired strong Party-state. When in the 1980s it became clear that Party power could grow independently from Party ideology, socialist ideology started experimenting with updating itself by incorporating imported theories and ideas and concepts from Chinese tradition into its propaganda repertoire. But when in 1987 intellectuals increasingly slurred Chi-

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nese tradition and advertised Western liberalism and democracy as a method to become a strong and prosperous nation-state, Party seniors were robbed of their capitalist enemy and deprived of China’s tradition and revolutionary legacy. Resulting frictions between conservatives and reformers eventually led to Hu Yaobang’s departure, and brought in Deng to give Premier Zhao Ziyang an opportunity to prepare another reform package for his presentation at the Thirteenth Party Congress.27 In it he reiterated the arguments for separating Party from state: the need for a different Party role in a decentralized economy, and the inefficiency and unsuitability of Party organizations in taking on administrative functions, an unsuitability that stemmed from a fundamental difference in the nature of Party and state. As a result, Zhao argued, neither state nor Party do a proper job: conﬂicts and incompetence come about especially as a result of interfering Party departments and core groups in government, and therefore they must gradually be reduced or abolished. Though these policies were implemented gradually, they remained incomplete. And, though efforts at democratization in the Party Congresses were put into practice, it only took place at the lower levels of the hierarchy. Deng Xiaoping had also lowered the age of retirement substantially, but he himself held on to the inﬂuential post of Chairman of the Central Military Commission by changing the Constitution. Though Deng Xiaoping explicitly argued for changes in the leadership of the State Council, including ‘a clear distinction between the responsibilities of the Party and those of the government’, he was only partly successful.28 When on 19 May 1989, Li Peng announced the imposition of martial law, attempts by intellectuals to persuade the NPC’s Standing Committee of its constitutional illegality failed, indicating that constitutional means had no effect in preventing the subsequent use of force. Though attempts had been made to diminish the inﬂuence of the Party Core Groups, in the end they had failed. At the Thirteenth Party Congress in October 1987, Zhao Ziyang proposed to abolish the county and local level Party Core Groups in government agencies, but the decision to do so was revoked in August 1989. The Party Core Group system was restored to a full in government institutions on all governmental levels.29

27 Zhao Ziyang, ‘Advance Along the Road of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, FBIS-CHI, 26 October E1987, 10–34. 28 Deng Xiaoping, E1984, 304. 29 The People’s Congresses still depend on the Party’s organization department to provide background information about nominees for government positions and have to

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As will be described in more detail in Chapters 5 and 6, in CASS the power of the Party Group system was restored in 1989, so that the administrative leadership became accountable to it. Though a beginning of a separation between state and Party institutions was made, after 1989, the policies of Party withdrawal were reversed. Still, CASS had achieved an advanced degree of separation between Party Groups and leadership, as was apparent from, for example, the growing number of institutes without a Party Committee. However, in the beginning of the 1990s this process was to be reversed, and the design of the Chinese nation-state was to be renewed by a version of Chinese socialism that would include the legacy of Chinese tradition. As political and academic issues were frequently intertwined, academic deﬁnitions of Chinese tradition and socialism could easily be changed into political issues at any time.

stick to the list of candidates recommended by the Party Committee (Zheng Shiping, E1997, 173–177).

part ii PRE-1989 ACADEMIC STRUGGLE

Since the start of the Dengist reforms in 1978, freedom in academic life has increased considerably. In this part, I discuss the ups and downs in academic regulation in CASS in relation to the Chinese reforms. A rough historical sketch divides PRC time into three periods: the ﬁrst is from 1949 to 1977, the second is from 1978 to 1989, and the third is from 1990 until 1998. In the ﬁrst period, the social sciences and humanities were either abolished or suppressed; and the ones that were studied overtly had clear functions in policy-making. Since the late 1970s, the social sciences were encouraged to become independent but were still meant to fulﬁl political functions on which policy-makers could rely. In the 1990s, however, this mutual relationship would become very indirect. I will describe in this part some trends in periods of alternating restriction and relaxation of academic freedom in general, and at CASS in speciﬁc. The efforts of political leaders involved in CASS and the rehabilitation of intellectuals showed their importance in the reforms and in the high expectations of the political and economic yields of social science knowledge. The promise of academic knowledge brought political leaders to mobilize intellectuals for their authority and as tools for strengthening their own political agendas. The ways in which political leaders employed groups of intellectuals on different sides of political disputes express the clashes of different strategies for ‘strengthening China’. The role of the state was of great importance here, for various conceptualizations of China as a nation-state also had implications for how to rule it most suitably: it could be through socialism, liberalism, democracy, enlightened dictatorship or other political ideologies. This pre-1989 period saw the generation of many comprehensive theories that aimed to include various aspects of society, including the economy, science, philosophy, culture and the life sciences. They were characterized by fresh foreign translations and included scientiﬁc inﬂuences, futuristic scenarios, and an increased emphasis on culture and tradition as solutions to China’s political and economic problems. Finally, this part describes the tension between scholars’ intent to acquire intellectual autonomy and their dependence on political patrons.

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This tension increasingly thwarted the positions of intellectuals, especially those who carried the brunt of politico-academic disputes. Nevertheless, campaigns became less fanatical and mass rallies rare. The campaigns that succeeded, such as those against Bourgeois Liberalization and Spiritual Pollution, culminated from these political struggles, whose consequences seemed to have been less traumatic.

chapter four INITIAL REFORM (1977–1982)— REHABILITATIONS AND EXPECTATIONS

In the years following his second rehabilitation in 1977, Deng Xiaoping regained power over Premier Hua Guofeng and regained the loyalties of former officials and intellectuals. Deng’s demand of giving priority to the employment of intellectuals in the reforms was supported and justiﬁed by parts of the media, in particular Guangming Daily (Guangming Ribao), an intellectual newspaper, and People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao). Hu Yaobang became an important inﬂuence in these reform efforts. As a Vice-President of the Central Party School (of the Central Committee of the CCP), Hu made a great effort to counter the dogmatism advocated by the Party. During his one year as director of the CCP Central Committee’s Organization Department (Dec 1977–Dec 1978), and after December 1978, as Secretary-General of the Party and head of the Propaganda Department (1979–1980), he oversaw the rehabilitation of tens of thousands of intellectuals purged under Mao in the mid-1950s. Furthermore, Hu had great inﬂuence on the so-called Theory Conference, held in the ﬁrst quarter of 1979. Although the conference aimed at creating ideological unity among intellectuals and although it was officially supported by the Propaganda Department and CASS, under Hu’s direction the conference questioned official versions of PRC history and the leadership of the Party, and it attracted thinkers who were to play an important role in the Reform debates in the 1980s, such as Yang Xiguang, Hu Jiwei, Zhou Yang, Yu Guangyuan, Wang Ruoshui, Su Shaozhi, Zhang Xianyang, Li Shu, Yan Jiaqi, Li Honglin, Yu Haocheng, Hu Qiaomu and Hu Sheng. From this period onward, Hu Yaobang gained a reputation as spokesman for scholars in general and protector of reform-minded intellectuals in particular. When funding was made available to CASS, a ﬁrst group of leaders was appointed, and as the planned production of knowledge was taken seriously, prominent leaders were given important positions. Early leaders of CASS, such as President Hu Qiaomu, and Vice-Presidents Deng Liqun and Yu Guangyuan, were all members of the State Council Political Research Office, the think-tank of Deng Xiaoping. CASS academics

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under Hu Qiaomu’s reign provided Deng Xiaoping with ample ammunition against Hua Guofeng. Initially, the three (Yu Guangyuan, Hu Qiaomu, Deng Liqun) were united in their opposition to the Gang of Four and Maoist dogmatism, but their relative positions changed shortly after the defeat of the Maoists. Yu Guangyuan was closer to Hu Yaobang, and aspired to criticize both the errors of the Cultural Revolution and the period before that, including the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Great Leap Forward. Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun, who were closer to Chen Yun and Peng Zhen, the ‘Old Guard’, wanted to conﬁne criticism to the Cultural Revolution.1 Those loyal to Hu Yaobang were in favour of reforms aimed at the political renewal of China, while those loyal to Chen Yun, had more interest in the centralized structure of the socialist past. The difference between the two factions was not absolute but the conﬂicts did have consequences for the pace and nature of the economic and political reforms, and therefore also for academic research. Throughout the reform period, reformist and conservative academic leaders alike were part of broader movements with comprehensive political programmes that included more than academic issues alone. In political struggles concerning programme items, such as the reforms or reuniﬁcation policies,2 political negotiation could force academic leaders to compromise against the interests of their supporters in the Academy, in the press, and at universities. For example, when in 1979–1980 tension arose in the leadership over a number of issues, including the future of Hua Guofeng, the evaluation of the Mao and pre-Mao era, and the Democracy Wall Movement, Deng Xiaoping put a stop to the Democracy Wall Movement and the political activities of the democracy advo-

1 Chen Yun (1905–1995) was an inﬂuential ﬁgure in China’s economic planning, and helped the economy to recover after the Great Leap Forward. During the Cultural Revolution he was criticized, but returned to high-level politics as a ‘conservative’ opposed to radical economic change; Peng Zhen (1902–1997) in 1944 became head of the Central Party School in Yan’an. He was Mayor of Peking from 1951 to 1966, but was demoted during the Cultural Revolution. After twelve years of disgrace, he was rehabilitated in 1979 and played an important role as head of the ‘Political and Legal Commission’ of the CCP Central Committee in the creation of a Criminal Code. (Cf. Potter 1986, 31– 48). 2 Agenda items such as market reform, political reforms, the development of industry and agriculture, foreign investment, the reform of State-Owned Enterprises [SOEs], and democratic elections, the relationship between Party and government, the expansion of foreign relations, and the reuniﬁcation policies with Hong Kong and Taiwan, were all potential sources of political and academic conﬂict.

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cates.3 Demonstrators, such as Wei Jingsheng,4 who had called for a multi-party system and had even dared to criticize Deng Xiaoping, were imprisoned. However, most democracy activists, though they criticized dictatorship, had no intention of overthrowing the socialist order, and saw as their long-term goal the construction of a form of socialist democracy, that is ‘true socialism’.5 Although one would expect the clampdown on democracy activities to have aroused the indignation of many liberalinclined intellectuals, there was little evidence of open protest. As it had been precisely the reformist leader Deng Xiaoping who had conceded to take these measures, and as the champion and supporter of intellectuals, Hu Yaobang, had tried to persuade the activists to stop their activities, academic protagonists of democratic reform had no one else to turn to. Without Deng, the economic reforms would have been at risk, and the youth of academic organizations and journals still could have been easily crushed.

Leadership changes at CASS (1977–1982) The choice of the ﬁrst group of CASS leaders, hand-picked by the Central Committee, showed the Committee’s concern with building CASS into a mainstay of socialist research activities: signiﬁcant value was placed on both the intellectual ability of leaders and their support for economic reforms and science. All CASS leaders spoke in favour of promoting the status of intellectuals and emphasized their important role in the reforms. In this initial period, the position of China in the world and her future was in a stage of redeﬁnition. Discussions ranged from a reinterpretation of China as a socialist country in the ﬁrst stage of socialism to a postponement of the death of imperialism and the demise of the capitalist 3 The Democracy Wall Movement had no united ideas or organization. It emerged from various self-styled ‘mass societies’ such as the China Human Rights Alliance and the Enlightenment Society (Mok E1998, 21). 4 Wei Jingsheng in a wall-poster on the Xidan Democracy Wall on March 23, 1979, asked for a ﬁfth modernization: democracy. This zoo engineer edited the journal ‘Explorations’. In the special edition of March 25, he asked ‘Do We Want Democracy or a New Dictatorship?’ and spoke out against the Four Cardinal Principles (Schell 1988, 206–210). Wei was sentenced to ﬁfteen years in a labour camp (Sophia Woodman 1997, 249–272; Wei Jingsheng E1997). Other early (underground) pro-democracy journals were Beijing Spring (Hu Ping), Fertile Soil (Wang Juntao), Red Bean (Zhongshan University), The April 5 Forum of Science (Beijing University) (Mok E1998, 25). 5 Cf. Goldman (1981).

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world; they also ranged from China as an alienated society to the redeﬁnition of Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought to include ‘Socialist Humanism’. A major issue reverberating in the various debates was the extent to which economic reforms could solve social problems, while political reforms remained taboo if they meant delegating power away from the political establishment. Social unity and collective leadership were emphasized in rebuilding CASS as a supportive academic organ in the undertaking of rapid national development. Nevertheless, setting up an organization with academic authority and political advisory functions was bound to take time, considering that notions of ideological commitment to socialism and China remained important in academic life. This did not mean, however, that the nature of academic organization did not alter. In fact, considerable experimentation with leadership organization would characterise the development of CASS in the ﬁrst decades of its existence. Even the beginning of CASS’s existence was characterized by changing notions of leadership. Hu Qiaomu headed CASS (Nov 1977–May 1982),6 and in September 1977 the CASS Party Group (Yuandangzu q ˾͐) was set up.7 Its General Secretary was Hu Qiaomu and it ViceSecretaries were Deng Liqun, Yu Guangyuan, Liu Yangqiao, Chuang Yiping, Wu Guang, and Mei Yi. In July 1980, however, the Party Group withdrew, and the CASS Party Committee (Yuandangwei ˾qɪ) was established. Hu Qiaomu served as its First Secretary-General, while Mei Yi, Huan Xiang, Ma Hong, and Peng Dazhang served as Deputy Secretaries. In the two years from 1980 until 1982, the Party Committee reigned over CASS and overshadowed the administrative and intellectual leadership of CASS. Hu Qiaomu (1912–1992) in the 1940s had been active at the Yan’an base, where he conducted propaganda work in the then CCP Central Organization in Sha’anxi; he succeeded Chen Boda as Mao’s Secretary in 1945, and wrote the ﬁrst official Party History.8 In 1978, he was elected to the Standing Committee of the Fifth NPC, and was regarded as the Party elders’ principal theorist.9 Ma Hong, one of the Vice-Presidents 6

Its name changed from Zhongguo Kexue Yuan Zhexue Shehui Kexue Xuebu ̰Ý

Œʳ˾̓ʳȁĀŒʳʳ0 to Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾. 7 Its members were Zhou Yang (day-to-day affairs), Xu Dixin, Huan Xiang, Ma Hong, and Zhang Youyu (see APPENDIX IV). 8 Zhongguo Gongchandang de sanshi nian ̰ÝÍ=qǶȒƲ, 1954. 9 During the last two years of his CASS Presidency, Hu also served as Secretary of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP. Hu had also supervised the Resolution on History,

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of CASS (and in 1983 successor to Hu), may have been picked for his reputation as a Party ideologue for high cadres and as an ardent industrial reformer. The ﬁrst CASS Vice-President, Deng Liqun (Nov 1977–May 1982) had been the editor of the Party journal Hong Qi, and worked as a cadre of the State Council with Chen Yun, and served as the Secretary of Liu Shaoqi, who, in the early sixties, was earmarked as successor to Mao. Vice-President Yu Guangyuan (b. 1915) had been a member of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Research Institute where he worked together with Hu Qiaomu, and was regarded as the founding father and patron of the natural dialectics community in China.10 This reputation stemmed from his supervision of both the natural and social sciences as Head of the Propaganda Department Science Office in the 1950s. Beginning in 1956, as a Deputy Secretary of the State Planning Commission under Chen Yi, Yu had been responsible for the direct supervision of the CAS’s natural and social science planning in the State Council. Throughout his career, Yu had been known as a promoter of professional norms in the science community and of relatively liberal interpretations of MarxismLeninism. Yu also recognized the need to ‘develop’ Marxism in the 1980s and became known for his formulation of China as a country in the ‘ﬁrst stage of socialism’. Zhou Yang (1907–1989) had been regarded as Mao’s czar of academic matters and, in 1963, Zhou had spoken against ‘revisionism’ and ‘humanism’ in his speeches, but during the Cultural Revolution he was regarded as a ‘Bourgeois Humanist Dressed Up as a Revolutionary’. After his rehabilitation, he was given high-rank posts, such as Chairman of the All-China Federation of Literature and Art Circles, and VicePresident of CASS; and, from 1980 to 1982, he served as Deputy Head and wrote about alienation and the beauty of human life before he passed away in 1992. (Cf. ‘On Humanism and the Issue of Alienation’ [Guanyu rendaozhuyi he yihua wenti]; ‘Man Is Even More Beautiful that the Moon’ [Ren bi yueliang geng meili]). His ashes were returned to the earth of the Yan’an base. Cf.: www.CASS.net.cn, 12 April 2000. 10 After 1949, Yu became an important ﬁgure in Party propaganda, ideology, and academic affairs. He edited the Party journal Study (Xuexi), and in the 1950s he served in the Party’s Propaganda Department. In the mid-1950s, he became intensely involved in the reorganization of CAS, and was appointed a member of the Standing Committee of the Xuebu. As the head of the Science Section of the Party Propaganda Department, Yu was the indirect leader of the Philosophy Institute, especially the study of natural dialectics. He had persuaded over a dozen PhD students to study natural dialectics at CAS under him, including Yan Jiaqi, Li Huiguo, Lin Xiashui and Jin Wulun, all of whom became well-known scholars in the 1980s.

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of the Propaganda Department. In late-1981, he offered his resignation as Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department, because he had been held responsible for the Bai Hua affair,11 which expressed the struggling loyalties between the Party and the Chinese Motherland, and was accused of laxity in ideology. Nevertheless, his resignation was rejected. The attack on Zhou Yang had more to do with the political struggle around the role of the Party in the Chinese reforms than it did with Zhou’s lack of patriotism. The accusations of ‘anti-patriotism’ and ‘Bourgeois Liberalism’ against Bai Hua failed to address the underlying problem of ‘feudal superstition’ upon which, according to Bai, rule under Mao had been based (instead of socialist principles), and the damaging role of the Party during the Cultural Revolution.12 These issues were relevant precisely because conservative military leaders, in particular, tried to gain legitimacy to power by inducing discipline based on the model of the Yan’an Rectiﬁcation Campaigns of 1942–1944.13 The ‘Maoist’ approach to leadership caused a rift between conservatives and reformers: the latter wanted to replace the political style of the former, based on campaigning and authority with a more indirect and regularized Party supervision. The hard-line approach Deng Xiaoping took against Bai Hua may well have been an attempt at compromise with the anti-reformist military, whose attacks showed their rejection of Hu Yaobang, who was close to Bai Hua.14 Deng’s lenient way of dealing with the military was not a promising sign for the academic reforms. In February 1981, the Party issued Central Directive No. 7, restricting work in the arts by demanding of artists their support for the Four Cardinal Principles, their support for the Four Modernizations, that they do not harm the image of the Party, that they do not support illegal publications (such as the journals issued by the Democ11 Bai Hua was the author of Unrequited Love (kulian řŰ, literally, ‘Bitter Love’), ﬁrst published in October (Shiyue Ȓ̀) in September 1979, and showed as a ﬁlm to a limited Party audience in the spring of 1981. Bai saw himself in the tradition of Qu Yuan, who, when his pleas with the ruler over prevailing policies were ignored, patriotically killed himself in 278BC. The ‘unrequited love’ refers to the inability of an artist who has just returned to his beloved homeland from Japan to serve the Chinese people since his love for his country had become distorted by the ‘feudalistic worship’ of Mao (Kraus 1986, 194; Goldman, Link & Su 1993, 132–136; Cheek 1988, 47). 12 Cf. Kraus (1986). 13 Ideological methods used in the Yan’an Party Rectiﬁcation Campaigns included media attacks on intellectuals, criticism and self-criticism sessions, denunciation by one’s peers, and public confessions (Goldman 1994, 211). 14 Hamrin in Goldman, Cheek & Hamrin (1987, 291).

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racy Wall movement), that they restrict the exchange and purchase of Hong Kong political magazines, and that they limit criticism of the AntiRightist Campaign of 1957 and the Cultural Revolution.15 Nevertheless, Deng’s allies at the time, Chen Yun and CASS President Hu Qiaomu, played a major role in forging compromises between Party reformers and the conservatives. Hu Qiaomu and his assistant Deng Liqun oversaw the drafting of the Resolution on CCP History (1981). The Resolution is the key document that criticized the ‘old Mao’ for his mistakes, but left intact the part he played as the young leader of the Revolution; it criticized the Gang of Four and Lin Biao, but did not damage the reputation of the CCP. Furthermore, Hu and Deng were also responsible for the compilation of speeches, memoirs, and the writings of respected Party veterans, including Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping. Still, the high proportion of reform-minded intellectuals in the CASS leadership made it a breeding ground for reformist ideas. Premier Zhao Ziyang, appointed in 1980, succeeded in expanding his basis for policy research in pursuit of new development strategies by creating several think-tanks under the State Council, state commissions, and ministries. In this project, Zhao had the full support of Hu Yaobang, and CASS vice-presidents Yu Guangyuan, Ma Hong, Zhou Yang, Xing Bensi, and Huan Xiang. Nonetheless, the support base for democracy or criticism of the Party was still narrow.

15 Ke Xin, ‘Yin ren guanhu di zhonggong qihao jiuhao shierhao wenjian’ (The Noteworthy Central Committee Documents Nos. Seven, Nine, and Twelve), Jingbao 4, 10 (April 1981): 7–8, quoted in Kraus (1986, 205).

chapter five ACADEMIC DEMOCRACY AND SPIRITUAL POLLUTION (1982–1985)

In early 1982, Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu were placed in key positions in the ﬁelds of propaganda and culture, reﬂecting the Party’s resolution to tighten control on ideological matters. Soon afterwards, a campaign to strengthen patriotism and Communist morality followed. Some intellectuals who had been adamant in their critique of the Party role during the Cultural Revolution were purged. For example, Zhang Xianyang, a member of the CASS Marxist-Leninist Institute, continued to criticize Mao after the Theory Conference of 1979. Zhang questioned the Leninist political system, in particular the notion of ‘democratic centralism’, and had called Hu Qiaomu an ‘anti-humanitarian’. When Deng Liqun became head of the Propaganda Department in 1982, Zhang was forced to step down as head of the Marx-Engels Research Office in the Marxism-Leninism Institute. Zhang withdrew from direct engagement in political activities and joined Yu Guangyuan and Su Shaozhi in editing materials on socialism, but in the fall of 1985 he was allowed to re-register as a Party member and resumed his former administrative position. Though Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu retired from their posts as active leaders of the CASS Presidium, they retained their ties with CASS as advisors of the leadership and through their connection networks. The shifting of leaders between academic, political, and administrative organizations did not seem to yield great problems or even debate. In 1982 Deng Liqun became the head of the Propaganda Department, one of the supervisory organs of CASS, when Zhou Yang retired as its deputy head to become Vice-President of CASS. At the Twelfth National Party Congress in 1982, Hu Qioamu joined the Politburo and was put in charge of culture, while Deng Liqun joined the Secretariat and became responsible for propaganda. He also took over the management of the PolicyResearch Office of the Secretariat. The consequences of these academic and political shifts were felt at CASS and the relational networks between political leaders and intellectuals.

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chapter five Ups and downs

The political think-tanks created by Premier Zhao Ziyang drew on the research experience of reform-minded intellectuals such as the economists Yu Guangyuan and Xue Muqiao. Apart from looking after the careers of young reformist intellectuals, Premier Zhao also expressed his intention to lighten the ﬁnancial burdens and improve the poor living conditions of middle-aged intellectuals in a speech on June 28, 1982. Moreover, the CCP Central Committee repeatedly stressed the selection and promotion of younger cadres (i.e., middle-aged Party intellectuals) and the assignment of them to important posts.1 After the Twelfth Party Congress, just when conservatives were preparing to slow down reform plans, Zhao and Hu Yaobang launched their plans for commercial reform in agriculture and in the urban regions. The clash that followed put a temporary end to these plans. Similarly, in the ﬁeld of theory, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Marx’s death, Hu Yaobang gave a speech in which he advocated China’s adoption of ‘advanced culture’, implying a policy in favour of young, educated intellectuals instead of older, uneducated, ‘revolutionary’ cadres. He also favoured a more ‘creative’ approach to Marxism.2 At the celebration of Marx’ Centennial in March 1983, Su Shaozhi, who in 1982 had replaced Yu Guangyuan as head of the CASS Research Institute of Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong Thought, argued that Chinese Marxism had become obsolete. It needed updating through the exploration of the achievements of the modern sciences and social sciences in the West. Such exploration, he argued, was not just an issue of expanding knowledge. Su recognized that the contemporary capitalist state plays the role of protecting the ‘organism of society’ and ensuring the entire process of expanded reproduction. The emergence of such a modern state, Su argued, made it necessary to reappraise Lenin’s thesis of the state being purely an instrument for exploiting the oppressed classes.3 Su pointed out that since capitalism could renew itself by means of technological revolution, instead of discussing the time of death of capitalism, China needed to concentrate on the challenges posed to Marxism by ‘post-industrial’ society and the ‘information revolution’. 1 Wang Hsue-wen (E1983, 15–16) (the speech lines are quoted from Guangming Ribao, June 29, 1982). 2 Cf. Hsüan Mo (E1983, 29–39). 3 Shambaugh (1991, 75).

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Other controversial themes Su and Zhou Yang touched upon pertained to human emancipation, which, according to Su, in a healthy society complemented economic liberation. They also touched on the issue of the meaning of socialism and the applicability of the term to China. When, at the insistence of Zhou, Wang Ruoshui decided to publish these views in The People’s Daily, the ﬁerce reaction of the Propaganda Department ushered in a full-ﬂedged campaign against Spiritual Pollution in late 1983. Spiritual pollution In his Party Plenary speech of October 1983, Deng Xiaoping allowed Deng Liqun and his propaganda officials to have their way in dealing strictly with ‘Rightist’ views among Party officials and ‘bourgeois’ trends among intellectuals. Deng Xiaoping officially deﬁned Spiritual Pollution as ‘disseminating all varieties of corrupt and decadent ideologies of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes and disseminating distrust towards the socialist and communist cause and to the communist leadership’.4 Immediately, a host of anti-Party activities and Spiritual Pollution were reported among social scientists. As a result, Zhou Yang was forced to engage in self-criticism, Hu Jiwei and Wang Ruoshui lost their posts as main editor and vice-editor at The People’s Daily, and Su Shaozhi’s Institute of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought was threatened with closure. In spite of these measures, it was announced that the Campaign was meant to eventually allow the revival of the Double-Hundred policy; the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution was claimed to be no ordinary campaign, but an attempt at establishing spiritual civilization.5 By November, the three-year Party Rectiﬁcation Campaign, which had been called for by Hu Yaobang in the previous year, was to include wiping out Spiritual Pollution, as a result of which Party intellectuals became vulnerable to sanctions. Only six weeks later countermeasures were taken. As early as December 18, Deng Liqun was pressured into announcing that the Central Committee had decided that six areas of science were immune from pollution: the study of all science and technology, new branches of science in between social science and science, scientiﬁc debate, comparing for-

4 5

Gold (1984, 952). Gold (1984, 955).

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eign with Chinese experiences, the freedom to choose research projects, and deviating opinions.6 Additionally, Zhao Ziyang’s October speech recommending research into the ‘new scientiﬁc revolution’ is thought to have softened the effect of the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution in the social sciences. Nevertheless, this ‘100-Days of Cultural Revolution’ came to a formal end only in early 1984, when foreign speculation on the instability of the regime and an adverse effect on social-science activities were felt to endanger the economic reforms. Hu Yaobang diplomatically took a strategic stance by attacking both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ in the Worker’s Daily, and several articles in The People’s Daily protested against the exaggerated attacks by the ‘left’. Ma Hong, who, with the support of Zhao Ziyang, had just been made CASS president in November 1983, adopted the same tactic of attacking both left and right, but he attacked the left more seriously than the right.7 After Deng Liqun was criticized at a meeting of the Secretariat, in his address to the National Conference of Cultural Departments he started to pull back from the Campaign. On January 3, 1984, Hu Qiaomu’s speech at the Central Party School brought the Campaign to an official end. The speech was the result of a collective effort by scholars at Peking University, Red Flag, CASS, People’s University, the Central Party School, and the Liberation Army Daily. Though Hu denounced the use of the concept of alienation in analyzing the problems of socialist society, he did accept humanitarianism as an ethical value in cases of emergency. Humanism, however, he related to the bourgeois phase of history and individual rights.8 People, according to Hu, have to be explained and justiﬁed by means of the society they live in. They have duties and contributions to make to society. Marx had realized this and therefore dropped his earlier humanism. It follows, concluded Hu, that historical materialism is superior to humanism.

6

Renmin Ribao, December 18, 1983. Ma Hong, a prominent economist, as Deputy Director of the State Economic Commission had participated in a project organized by Li Fuchun, head of the State Planning Commission and the member of the Party Secretariat in charge of industry and planning, to draft the industrial regulations as a part of a plan for industrial reforms in 1961. As Vice President of CASS, Ma concurrently functioned as vice-chairman of the State Commission for Machine Building Industry, deputy secretary-general of the State Council, and adviser of the State Commission Technological and Social Development Research Centre. He was regarded as a proponent of industrial reforms, and freedom of debate in the social sciences. 8 Goldman (1994, 127). 7

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After this official ending of the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution, Deng Liqun only nominally retained his post as head of Propaganda. Deng Xiaoping, by mid-1984, had refocused the Rectiﬁcation Campaign to the repudiation of the Cultural Revolution, hinting at his impatience with the continuation of the Campaign. Now, he also targeted ‘Leftists’, aiming directly at the Radical Left in the military. Despite efforts to emphasize stability in the ideological sphere, ups and downs in discussions on ideology continued throughout 1984 and 1985, a period in which Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu were under pressure to vacate their posts, and Hu Yaobang redeﬁned his ideological position toward the freedom of writing in the press. Nevertheless, campaigns were not as fanatic as they had been during the Cultural Revolution. No longer were there mass rallies and public denunciations of various categories of people, but now even denounced writers retained the respect of their colleagues, generally enabling them to continue their work.9 In 1985, there were moments of ideological relaxation, such as when the newly appointed member of the Political Secretariat, Hu Qili, a mechanical engineer from Beijing University and a protégé of Hu Yaobang, publicly promised Party support for ‘freedom and creativity’ in art.10 Hu Qili was one of the few higher officials with a university education and he organized experts to advise on the urban reform program launched on October 20, 1984. Intellectuals were asked to explain the reforms through the media, and Zhao Ziyang used their knowledge in think-tanks. Furthermore, intellectuals for the ﬁrst time were encouraged to set up private consulting services, research institutes, and schools. At the same time, the state announced the gradual withdrawal of ﬁnancial support from CAS and CASS. This plan was based on the aim of changing those state organs into ﬁnancially self-sufficient institutes of education and research. There were also moments of renewed tensions, such as when, in February 1985, Hu Yaobang at a Party Meeting of the Secretariat gave a speech on the freedom of the press. He described the press as the ‘mouthpiece of the Party’, and deﬁned the main content of news on Chinese society as cheerful and hopeful. To correct the imbalances of newspaper space, he prescribed a proportion of eighty percent of positive news, while the 9 Among the hostile categories were landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, Rightists, renegades, hostile agents, stubborn capitalists, and, the ninth, stinking category of intellectuals. 10 Hamrin (1987, 297).

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remainder could be dedicated to the darker aspects of society. Writers, Hu explained, are only indirect mouthpieces of the Party, as they can write whatever they want. But publishers do not automatically accept their work: ‘Writers can never use their freedom to deprive the editorial boards of their freedom’.11 This speech remained an internal document, until Hu Qiaomu published it in April in The People’s Daily without Hu’s permission. Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun praised the speech with great enthusiasm: Deng resurrected the model of Lei Feng and Hu deﬁning patriotism as the love of socialism and the Party.12 At the same time Hu Qili’s call for ‘creative freedom’ came under attack by Chen Yun, while Hu Yaobang himself mellowed his liberal position on the need for creative freedom.

Leadership changes at CASS (1982–1985) Although on the whole the reformist current had been dominant, ups and downs in the Party Leadership occurred and were reﬂected in the various positions of the CASS leadership. One clear sign of academic reform was the establishment of the Academy Affairs Committee (yuanwu weiyuanhui ˾ɾɪ˼Ā) in May 1982. It decided to change the CASS Party Committee System (dangweizhi qɪ̬) into a CASS Party Group System (dangzuzhi q̬͐), emphasizing the administrative and intellectual leadership over the Party ideological leadership of CASS. This new governing body of CASS in 1982 was composed of thirty-eight academy officials, heads of institutes, and vice-heads. It had the authority to make decisions on important issues concerning research, administration, and personnel. It could also nominate the CASS President and Vice-Presidents. The aim of this second alteration in the CASS Party organization was to put more weight onto the administrative leadership and give more leeway to reform initiatives. Party Committee dominance was expected to decrease. In 1983, the newly appointed second group of CASS leaders (the administrative leading group) included Ma Hong as President, and four

11

Goldman (1985, 12). Lei Feng was a Young PLA (People’s Liberation Army) soldier whose selﬂess behaviour and tragic death has been held up as a role model in various propaganda campaigns for over three decades. As a role model, he was ﬁrst brought to prominence in 1963 by Lin Biao. (Cf. Chiang Chen-ch’ang E1984). 12

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new Vice-Presidents: Xia Nai,13 Qian Zhongshu,14 Liu Guoguang,15 and Ru Xin.16 Its general Secretary was Mei Yi. Deng Liqun, Hu Qiaomu and Yu Guangyuan disappeared from the Presidium, but stayed on as advisors to the Leading Party Group, while Deng Liqun continued his relation with CASS as the Director of the Propaganda Department (from early 1982). From 1982 to early 1983 Deng and Hu Qiaomu formed an inﬂuential pair as, respectively, vice-head of CASS and vice-head of the Propaganda Department. In 1983, Ma Hong had been appointed CASS President through the efforts of Zhao Ziyang, who tried to mobilize ‘thought emancipation’ (sixiang jiefang ȳʓī¡) in aid of the reforms.17 Under Ma’s reign, hundreds of social scientists worked on a systems approach to socio-economic development, and its result, Report 2000, was published in English to enhance the institute’s and Ma Hong’s reputation, thereby building public support for the Seventh Five-Year Plan and its architect, Zhao Ziyang. Ma not only argued against Rightist trends, but also against interference from the ‘left’ in social science. In May 1985, he called for freedom in the natural as well as in the social sciences.18 In the Marx Centenary Conference in March 1983, CASS Vice-President Zhou Yang repudiated the Maoist assertion that ‘humanism was absolutely incompatible with Marxism’.19 Zhou repeated the humanist

13 Xia Nai, Head of the CASS Institute of Archaeology since 1962 had been active in the Xuebu since its inception in 1955. Xia only joined the CCP in 1959, but headed many archaeological expeditions abroad, which may have been the reason for his presence at the historical reception of President Nixon by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972. 14 Qian Zhongshu was born in 1910 and used the pen-name Zhong Shujun. He was an eminent writer and researcher of literature, and occupied a post as professor at Qinghua University from 1949 until 1952. Qian had been a major target during the Cultural Revolution, a period that deeply inﬂuenced his writings. 15 Liu Guoguang (b. 1923), a protégé of Sun Yefang, remained Vice-President until his removal in 1993. He served as Director of The Research Office, research fellow, and Director of Economic Research Institutes of CAS and CASS from 1955 until 1980, when he was promoted to the post of Deputy Director of State Statistics Bureau [1980– 1982]. He wrote extensively on the socialist economic reforms and strategies of economic development. 16 Ru Xin (b. 1931) joined the CCP in 1948. In 1963–1964 (when Mao began his attacks on Soviet Revisionism), Ru, Wang Ruoshui and Ruan Ming became members of a small group of scholars who, under Zhou Yang’s leadership, studied European interpretations of Marxism in order to repudiate them and to reinforce Mao’s attacks on Revisionism. In the 1980s, all three became known as reform-minded intellectuals. 17 Hamrin (1987, 293). 18 Hamrin (1994, 63); Goldman (1994, 127, 160). 19 Goldman (1994, 119).

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philosophy of the then-deputy editor of The People’s Daily, Wang Ruoshui on the ‘Objective existence of various forms of alienation (yihua ˙õ)’. Such forms of alienation had come about, he argued, through a lack of democracy and a legal system: political alienation as a result of bureaucratic power, economic alienation from the environment as a result of irrational economic practices, and ideological alienation as a result of the personality cult of Mao.20 But after Marx’ centenary, the discussion of topics like humanitarianism and alienation were no longer tolerated. Hu Qiaomu criticized Wang Ruoshui for having substituted humanism for communism. However, on March 16, Wang published Zhou Yang’s speech in the The People’s Daily. Shortly thereafter, Wang, Zhou, and Qin Chuan (the then editor-in-chief of the The People’s Daily) were summoned to the Propaganda Department and Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu accused them of creating chaos in literature. Wang was removed from his post as deputy editor of the The People’s Daily. Zhou and Wang were told to write a self-criticism, which only Wang refused.21 Ru Xin (b. 1931) in 1979 had become deputy head and research fellow of the Philosophy Research Institute, and was elected Vice-President of CASS in 1982. He wrote extensively on Western philosophy and aesthetics, advocated a new Marxist humanism, and wrote on Marxist censorship in the philosophy of science. Ru criticized Zha Ruqiang, at that time the head of the Institute of Philosophy, for his use of modern scientiﬁc inventions as instances that prove Marxism,22 and he urged that advances in the sciences, such as cybernetics, systems theory, biotechnology, and computers, be incorporated into ideology. But he also encouraged intellectuals to incorporate elements out of China’s traditional culture and ideology.23 He fell into disgrace during the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution (October–December 1983). After Hu Qiaomu’s attack on his friend and colleague, Wang Ruoshui, and on himself (1983), Ru hoped to avoid further attacks by writing a very long self-criticism, which was published in the The People’s Daily. He repudiated his previous views on humanism in favour of those of Hu Qiaomu. He then turned against

20 Apart from the alienation of labour, Wang points out the relevance of intellectual, political, and economic alienation to the Chinese situation. (Cf. Kelly 1987, 165– 168). 21 Goldman (1994, 118–121, 130). 22 Cf. Kelly (1984). 23 Goldman (1994, 120).

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Wang, and at the time of the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign in 1987, he would speak out against Fang Lizhi, Liu Binyan, and Wang Ruowang for advocating Western values and institutions. Ru Xin’s revision of his position enabled him to continue his, now less radical, reformist inﬂuence in academic policies and external relations. But since he had acted at the expense of his friends and like-minded colleagues, some regarded him as a traitor, while others saw him as a victim of forces beyond his control.24 In 1988, Ru Xin retained his post as CASS Vice-President, and became head of the Institute of Philosophy. Xing Bensi,25 former Vice-President of CASS and former director of the Institute of Philosophy, like Ru Xin turned against Wang Ruoshui. In 1963, he and Ru had been members of a study group on alienation under the leadership of Zhou Yang. But Xing, comparatively early in the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution, had rejected the concept of alienation, and became a member of the team that wrote Hu Qiaomu’s speech of January 3, 1984, opposing political reforms. Like Ru Xin, he continued his career and was given the post of Vice-President of the Central Party School in 1988. Criticizing both Left and Right Deng Xiaoping had put constraints onto campaigning, trying to prevent an escalation of ideological struggle. Its effect reaffirmed the authority of his position and his determination to continue the economic reforms. Deng’s way of containing the conservative faction was the widely used tactic of criticizing both Left and Right, indulging the wishes of both parties, but in the end choosing a way out conducive to his own political priorities. CASS President Ma Hong and Hu Yaobang used the same tactic, proving their role as political actors. Vice-Presidents Zhou Yang, Qian Zhongshu, Liu Guoguang, Ru Xin and Xing Bensi had all been known as reform-minded intellectuals. Zhou Yang, Ru Xin and Xing Bensi, however, had been deeply involved in discussions on alienation, 24

Interview with Wang Ruoshui, January 1996. Vice-President Xing Bensi (b. 1929), a philosopher, in 1957 became a researcher and academic Secretary of the Institute of Philosophy of the Xuebu and remained so until 1966. Xing as Head of the Institute of Philosophy (Marxism-Leninism) of the Xuebu actively recruited students, such as Zhao Gongqi, a researcher of dialectical materialism, and Xu Chongwen, a philosopher of Marxism. In the 1980s he would write extensively about Humanism in European History of Philosophy, the Humanism of Feuerbach, and On the Ideological Front. 25

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humanism and democracy, and were all pressured into conducting selfcriticism (ziwo piping ͈ɷƽǂ). The issues discussed had been more than part of a theoretical debate on forms of human organization and political strategies of organizing human behaviour rationally. The concepts of humanism, alienation, and democracy were heavily laden with symbolic meaning. And it is this symbolic logic, as will be discussed in detail in Chapter 11, which made discussions around these topics so predictable. As humanism and democracy are believed to originate in the capitalist West, even though they have a positive ring to them and have played an important historical role during, for instance, the May Fourth movement, they could be of no political use to Chinese authorities convinced of China’s socialist superiority. That is, they were of no use unless they were redeﬁned in socialist or Chinese terms. For example, ‘democracy’ replaced ‘proletarian’ in the ‘people’s proletarian dictatorship’, so that China became a ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’ instead; and, democracy became the ‘people’s democracy’, unconvincingly adding ‘people’ to a concept that is already deﬁned as ‘people’s rule’ (democracy = minzhu Ơ̺). Similarly, the concept of humanism could not be tolerated as it was identiﬁed with the bourgeois phase of history and individual rights, but ‘humanitarianism’, or ‘socialist humanism’ did not carry the symbolically problematic load of bourgeois origin. The concept of alienation, too, could be understood to exist only under capitalism. Interestingly, in Hu Qiaomu’s argument, the meaning of alienation spilt over from the realm of materialistic determinism into the cultural ﬁeld of contagion: people’s behaviour, according to Hu, had to be explained by means of the society they live in and in which they exert inﬂuence upon one another. Intellectuals have contributions to make to society, as a consequence of which incorrect ideas sometimes affect people’s thinking and spritit. Though in this view, materialist determinism still forms the ultimate explanation for the existence of alienation, the phenomenon of alienation had to be reconsidered and redeﬁned from the point of view of socialist society. This also explains why it was possible for Spiritual Pollution, an expression of alienation, to have contaminated a pristine society such as that of socialist China.

chapter six DIVISION AMONG INTELLECTUALS (1985–1988)— SOCIALIST MODERNIZATION AND THE REFORMS

Although the increasing diversiﬁcation of views among intellectuals in the early 1980s can partly be attributed to changing ways of representing views in the press, growing differences in the background of intellectuals were largely responsible for clashes of views in the academic community. These clashes were partly expressed in the great difference in attitudes towards policy-making in the social sciences. One explanation for these varying attitudes is related to the growing proportion of scholars in the 1980s with tertiary education at government posts and the Party, especially in high-level jobs. By 1985, 62 percent of the members of Leading Groups in government at the provincial and ministerial levels had enjoyed at least some tertiary education. The People’s Daily reported that the increase for 1982–1985 among high ranks was about 45 percent. In the Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth CCP Central Committees (1977, 1982, and 1987, respectively), the proportion of college-educated members comprised 23 percent, 32 percent, and 67 percent.1 The increased proportion of educated workers in government gradually led to an overall greater interest in and support for Party reforms and the structure of society. At the same time, this trend caused further disquietude among orthodox thinkers, especially among the older generations, and provoked ﬁerce reactions. Without attaching too much value to the age factor in explaining political attitudes towards academic scholarship, generational experiences of intellectuals have without doubt contributed to the ways intellectuals reacted to the post-1978 reforms. ‘Generation’ here refers to commonly acknowledged important historical events that have had formative inﬂuence on the social character of individuals in a certain age group, especially in adolescence.2 The largely uneducated generation of the founding revolutionaries, the ‘Old Guard’, or ‘Long March’ generation, who 1

White III & Li Cheng (1988, 54). For a discussion of the generational concept and its relevance to the Deng-generation, see Cherrington (1997). 2

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were by now over the age of seventy (born around 1915), had been used to a system in which individuals were expected to mould their thinking and behaviour according to instructions received from the Party leadership. The ideal of the Yan’an model, based on ideological unity forged by Party discipline, and still alive among the elders, in the 1980s clashed with the growing diversity of societal ideals and the plurality of interests among younger generations.3 Leaders in their sixties, many of whom have enjoyed foreign education, are generally more ﬂexible in their attitude toward adjusting Marxist theory to modern needs. In solving problems of modernizing socialism, however, like their elders, they look for solutions in the ﬁeld of morality and institutional leadership. Leaders born after 1935, who lived their adult life under the PRC and often enjoyed a technical education, inclined toward pragmatic support for modernization and a revision of Marxism, and seemed to be more eager to accept loosely deﬁned versions of Marxist national ideology. This ‘pessimistic generation’, brought up under high expectations and acceptance of Communist Party authority, is thought to have been disappointed by the initial results of communism and its treatment of intellectuals. They were succeeded by the ‘political generation’ brought up under the Cultural Revolution. This so-called ‘lost generation’ of Red Guards (weihongbing ɰî() was encouraged to eradicate the ‘subversive elements’ of socialism. The activism of this poorly educated generation ended in disillusionment, which is thought to account for their (generally) more open attitude to ‘Western’ forms of organizing society. It tended not to have many qualms about shaping society on the basis of modern scientiﬁc insights. This generation is often associated with both political radicalism and ‘Western liberalism’ but, among them, there are many that eschew any political activism.4 It has been the younger ‘reform generation’ that had fewest scruples about going out onto the streets to demonstrate in pursuit of their ideals. After the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao and Zhou Enlai, they experienced the beginning of a ‘new age’ of reform and expectations. They chose to put their money on education in the hope of climbing the ladder of social mobility. The delay of desired socio-economic advantages and political inﬂuence in the reconstruction of China may account for a great deal of the growing frustration in the latter half of the 1980s with the pace of the reforms among this ‘unscarred generation’. Looking to 3 4

Cf. ‘“Harsh criticisms’ should be laid to rest,” Renmin Ribao, May 20, 1987. Cf. Xiao Ping (E1986, 160).

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the West, to Chinese tradition, or to the ‘Asian miracles’ for solutions to the perceived predicament of the Chinese nation may have been ways of dealing with this frustration. A host of new liberal intellectual journals, founded in the latter half of the 1980s, seemed to reﬂect this trend.5

Changing the leadership of CASS (1985–1988) The new CASS leadership, on the whole, was far more reform-minded and willing to experiment with new forms of institutional leadership election compared to the previous one. The third group of Administrative leaders, appointed in June 1985, apart from Honorary President Hu Qiaomu, included Party historian Hu Sheng as President,6 and, the openly Christian scholar, Zhao Fusan, Qian Zhongshu, Liu Guoguang, the reform-minded international expert, Li Shenzhi,7 and Ru Xin as Vice-Presidents. Hu Sheng, Zhao Fusan and Li Shenzhi were newly added to the Presidium. In 1985, the CASS leadership introduced reforms in its election system. This had been made possible by the document titled ‘The Reform of China’s Education Structure’, issued by the Ministry of Education in 1984. Higher civil servants were to be elected instead of appointed by the Party. The CASS’s President and Vice-Presidents, as before, were appointed by the Party leadership or, in euphemistic Party jargon, ‘chosen by the People’ (renmin xuande ǦƠʲw), but some of the heads of CASS 5 Some of the well-known liberal journals founded in the latter half of the 1980s were Zouxiang weilai (Striving towards the Future) (1986); Wenhua: Zhongguo yu shijie (Culture: China and the World) (1987); Xin qimeng (New Enlightenment) (1988); Sixiangjia (Thinker) (1989); Du Shu (Readings) (old liberal monthly). 6 Hu Sheng (b. 1918) would keep the post for thirteen years, until February 1998. As a close associate of Hu Qiaomu, he had been involved in setting up CASS. Hu Sheng is known as a historian and philosopher, who specialized in modern history and Party history. In 1975, Hu began serving in the State Council Political Research Office and in the Small Group for Editing Mao Zedong Selected Works. In 1982 he became the Head of the Party History Research Centre of the CCP Central Committee. In 1985, apart from starting his CASS Presidency, he also began to work on the Commission for Drafting a Legislature for Hong Kong. In 1991, he was to edit the Concise History of the Communist Party of China, a well-known authority on Party history. 7 Li Shenzhi, a former aide to Zhou Enlai, built up the CASS Institute for American Studies, established in 1981. He stayed on at CASS until he was removed from his post in August 1990, because, according to an investigative report, he had refused to deal with the students responsibly: he had ‘refused to handle the students at gun-point’. Li also colluded with Ding Weizhi in drafting a petition that condemned Hu Sheng’s leadership, and pressured the CCP Central Committee.

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institutes now were elected by their peers, usually for ﬁve years. In two institutes, heads were chosen that ‘the People’ would not have appointed. Thus, the literary critic Liu Zaifu was elected head of the Institute of Literature (wenxue yanjiusuo ɲʳʺľȿ) at the age of forty-four. He was associated with the network of Hu Yaobang, and one of the few that during the early 1980s accepted some responsibility for the excesses of Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution. He was a specialist on Lu Xun and active in academic political movements, but not generally supported by his superiors. He had been active during the movement against Spiritual Pollution and the Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalization and would be active during the June Fourth movement. The same is true of Su Shaozhi and Yan Jiaqi. Yan, at the age of forty-ﬁve, in 1982 became head of the controversial new Institute of Political Sciences, where he encouraged the study of the international political system and the translation of Western theories and ideas on politics.8 Relaxation and some major hiccups New trends in the social sciences had their reﬂection in tasks assigned to the social sciences by the leadership. The ﬁrst years of CASS’s existence had been dedicated to setting up a social-science structure compatible with both China’s development strategy and what is considered to be Western, modern social science. Gradually, it became clear that state-deﬁned versions of Marxism were no longer palatable to foreign theory-devouring scholars. They had become keen on devising their own versions of socialism and alternative, non-socialist views of society. It also became clear that importing foreign technology and engaging in joint-ventures would not automatically lead to a modernized socialist society. Gradually, a greater variety of theoretical perspectives on the relationship among culture, society, economy and technology emerged, and the creation of theories that could accommodate all four aspects became common. Science leaders, such as Qian Xuesen, Song Jian and Yu Guangyuan, and the think-tanks of Premier Zhao Ziyang, emphasized the need for such comprehensive theories. The development of theories of science management, the discovery and exploration of the laws of the historical development of science, and the deduction of the 8 Yan had majored in physics at China’s University of Science and Technology in 1964, but became a student of dialectics of nature under Yu Guangyuan at the Xuebu. He soon switched to the study of history and politics.

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required actions for the present from futuristic pictures of technological society were hoped to form a solid basis upon which China would catch up with the world soon. The atmosphere at CASS brightened up in August 1985, when Zhu Houze replaced Deng Liqun as head of the Propaganda Department, even though Deng remained in charge of intellectual matters in the Secretariat. Research institutes were given more ﬁnancial independence as well as more ideological freedom in their curricula, and academic research was re-emphasized as essential to economic progress in general. Wan Li (b. 1916), a member of the Politburo and the Secretariat since the Twelfth Party Congress, at the May 1985 Conference on National Education emphasized the importance of education in Confucian China. At CASS itself, relatively young scholars were replacing elderly ones in important positions, and formally purged dissenters returned in public and resumed their criticism of the Party leadership. Thus, Wang Ruoshui, who had been relieved of his post in 1983 for being ‘a source of Spiritual Pollution’ and ‘having illicit relations with a foreign country’, reappeared in public discussions,9 and taught a graduate course for editors and journalists at the Institute of Journalism at CASS. While Wang criticized Hu Qiaomu’s rejection of humanism, Su Shaozhi and Zhang Xianyang from the Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought Institute renewed their call for ideological pluralism. In between signs of ideological relaxation, ‘academic’ controversy did not cease to lead to political tensions. Ma Ding (Song Longxiang), a philosopher cum economist from Nanjing University, in November 1985 criticized the role of ideology in building a socialist economy and the trend of making a fetish of the GNP in the official newspaper Renmin Ribao (The Worker’s Daily). According to Ma, such trends prevented economists from improving their understanding of theories from the West, such as Keynesian theory, neo-classical theory, and the application of quantitative methods of input-output analysis and linear programming. Only after the article was criticized in a New York, Chineselanguage newspaper, Zhong Bao (Central News), and relayed back to Beijing, did an attack ensue against fawning on foreign theories.10 The atmosphere deteriorated when Beijing University students demonstrated against Japanese goods and the visit of Japan’s Premier Nakasone Yasuhiro. Hu Yaobang had enraged various leaders, such as Chen Yun, by 9 10

Cf. Xsiao Ch’eng-hsiang (E1986, 18–19). Goldman (1994, 162).

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inviting Premier Nakasone for an official stay in China and organizing a Welcome Committee for him. An especially tender issue was Nakasone’s 1985 visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, at which he had paid his respects to war victims.11 Though the demonstrations were tolerated initially, when they spread to Tiananmen and to universities nationally, they became widespread through propaganda and the persuasion of leaders of mild reputation, such as Hu Qili.12 Nevertheless, a group of conservatives, including Chen Yun, Hu Qiaomu, Deng Liqun, and Secretariat member Li Peng, arranged for critical articles on Ma Ding’s views to be published in the media, including a reprint of the Central News article on March 6, entitled ‘Marxist Economics has Great Vitality’.13 Counterattacks followed: Zhao Ziyang criticized the corruption of Hu Qiaomu’s son; Yu Guangyuan argued for the need for studying Western philosophy and economic theory as well as Western science and technology, and Zhu Houze called for further explorations in ideology. Another controversy, which began in early 1986, centred on Liu Zaifu, the newly elected head of the CASS Institute of Literature, who had encouraged the introduction of literary theories such as semiotics, deconstruction, structuralism, and psychological analysis. In February 1986, one of Liu’s speeches was attacked for his lack in revolutionary spirit in Guangming Daily by former Secretariat member Chen Yong. However, the attack turned out to be short-lived when theoretical exploration and creativity were defended in the May 12 People’s Daily and underwritten by head of Propaganda, Zhu Houze.14 In April 1986, Deng Xiaoping repeated his 1980 call for administrative reform and the elimination of bureaucratic obstructions and corruption, while stressing the separation of Party from government. For a while, it seemed that the Hu Yaobang network of reformers was gaining the upper hand in public discussions on political reform, the revision 11

Nakasone & Umehara (1996, 91). Democracy was a topic only sparsely mentioned during the early demonstrations. When it was, it was soon linked to a wide number of issues found problematic by students, as, for example was rote-learning, repetitive study materials in textbooks, a lack of modern equipment, knowledge, and information (Zhang Xuequan E1987, 68–69; Yang Deguang E1987, 71–72). Most criticism pertained to teaching methods, and the great emphasis on discipline and obedience, in place of a positive emphasis on originality, competition, creativity, and independent thought (Kang Wandong & Xie Jinglong E1987, 44– 47). During the 1986/87 demonstrations, the link between dissatisfaction with teaching methods and facilities and democracy was considerably stronger. 13 Goldman (1994, 162). 14 Goldman (1994, 164–165). 12

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of Marxism, and institutional change. A major encouragement for intellectuals to participate in political discussion was the closing speech by Politburo member Wan Li at the National Forum of the State Science and Technology Commission (SSTC) on Research in the Soft Sciences in July 1986. In that speech he recommended the use of the soft sciences (systems engineering, operations research, information theory, cybernetics, and computers) in scientiﬁc policy-making.15 This line of policy linked up with Zhao Ziyang’s efforts in the early 1980s to establish think-tanks and encourage their staff and their activities in modern scientiﬁc analysis. Wan Li also spoke about the necessity of protecting policy researchers by law. The spring of 1986 brought a national avalanche of meetings on political and legal reform at universities, CASS, professional organizations and even the Central Party School, while articles on political reform ﬂooded the major Party newspapers and academic journals. Nevertheless, at a forum of newspaper editors convened by the Propaganda Department in Harbin, Deputy-Chief of Propaganda Teng Teng (and in 1993 the vicepresident of CASS) rejected the request for the establishment of semiofficial newspapers.16 Teng Teng’s rejection was ignored by several organizations, such as the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the Youth Federation, and professional organizations, and led to the conﬁscation of many illegal publications.17 Furthermore, in 1986 the World Economic Herald (established in 1980 by Qin Benli) became a semi-official forum for views that supported political reform, complementing the reforms of the economic base of society. It had the protection of Premier Zhao Ziyang, and included former CASS Vice-Presidents Yu Guangyuan and Huan Xiang on its board. The World Economic Herald gave space to daring views, such as that of historian Li Honglin. Li aired a view rarely heard among intellectuals: that peasants have a right to political power. By contrast, CASS reformists such as Yu Guangyuan and Su Shaozhi still focused on inner-party democracy as a condition for the one-party state to spread democracy over the entire political system The renewed relaxation of ideological controls prompted academics to organize commemorative meetings centred on historical occasions

15 Speech delivered at a National Forum of the SSTC on July 31, 1986, translated in FBIS, August 19, 1986, pp. K 22–23. 16 Goldman (1994, 171–172). 17 The 1986 statistics for Liaoning Province, for instance, uncovered hundreds of illegal publications (Xue Jiannong E1986, 29–30).

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important to the treatment of intellectuals. One such occasion was the commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the ‘Double Hundred’ policy (May 16, 1956). Yu Haocheng and Wang Ruoshui reasoned that the Double-Hundred policy in 1956 had failed due to the lack of legal protection of free expression and political democracy.18 Yu argued for the adoption of a concept of civil law designed to protect rather than to punish people. He insisted that law is not just determined by class, but also by its social character (e.g., laws that protect the public), or by no character at all (laws on hygiene and pollution).19 He boldly invoked an old saying about the emperor in defence of democratic law: ‘It is enlightening to hear all sides, otherwise you will be uninformed’. ‘But the emperor himself ’, he argued, ‘was not enlightened’. ‘This is why’, Yu explained by digging up the words of Deng Xiaoping, ‘to safeguard people’s democracy, the rule of law must be strengthened’.20 Wang Ruoshui, in his quest for socialist emancipation, began to argue for the need of an institutional change that would make intellectuals responsible for their attained freedom, instead of forging a moral leadership that would allow freedom of thought through discipline.21 Furthermore, Wang argued against Hu Yaobang’s 1986 speech on the requirement of reporting optimistic news, and he criticized Hu Qili’s concept of ‘Freedom of Creation’ as something bestowed upon the People, instead of a civil right.22 These arguments were all based on Wang’s interpretation of Marx, as was his assertion that ‘The free development of each individual is the condition for the free development of all men.’23 Wang expressed his conviction that Marx was against all forms of alienation, including that of economic and ideological alienation in Chinese society.24 The commemoration of the Double-Hundred policy was used by academic organizations also to appeal for its support in accordance with their views. On May 29, a discussion meeting on the Double Hundred was held by the Marxism-Leninism Institute of CASS, the Society of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, the Chinese Writers Associa18

Yu Haocheng (E1986a, K10); Wang Ruoshui (E1986a, 25–26). Yu Haocheng (E1986c, 45–50); Yu Haocheng (E1986b, 2–3). 20 Yu Haocheng (E1986b); Ibid., 44. 21 Wang Ruoshui (E1986, 79). 22 Wang Ruoshui (E1986b, 83); Wang Ruoshui (E1986, 78). 23 ‘Wang Ruoshui Publishes Article on Marx’ Philosophy of Man’, Hong Kong Zhongguo Xinwen She (China News Agency), 1430 GMT, July 18, 1986. JPRS-CPS 86072, 20–21. 24 Wang Jian, E1987. 19

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tion, the Society of Political Science, the Federation of Economics Organization and the Dialectics of Nature Society. More than 250 scholars attended, including Zhu Houze, the Director of the Propaganda Department. As was common in discussions of a sensitive nature, contention and complaints were couched in mild or vague terms. Some participants said that, owing to the absence of an environment in which academic freedom is the norm, they have to put ‘other considerations’ above the desire to pursue truth. Others suggested that the Double-Hundred policy is really a policy for democracy in the political-ideological sphere, and therefore ‘letting a hundred schools of thought contend’ should include, too, the discussion of political issues. Several other meetings on political reform were held. A forum organized by graduate students of the Central Party School (supported by some of its leaders) discussed Deng Xiaoping’s 1980 speech on the ‘excessive concentration of power’. In the spirit of the meeting, Propaganda Chief Zhu Houze urged the study of political reform in Eastern Europe and the West and the revitalization of ideology. Subsequently, the Marxism-Leninism Institute of CASS decided to hold a symposium on the reforms of the East European political system on which it based its discussions of political reform in China. In the summer of 1986, Yan Jiaqi and his associates at the CASS Institute of Political Science called for the establishment of external restraints on Party power. In June, at a meeting of ‘young social scientists’, sponsored by the CASS journals and the Institute of Political Science, Yan openly called for the participation of all citizens in political decisionmaking and argued for the need of protection against errors in the political leadership.25 Even when Party elders at the sixth plenary meeting of the Twelfth Central Committee in September 1986 demanded an end to public discussions of political and legislative reforms, discourse on democracy continued to spread.26 In the same month, Yan Jiaqi criticized ‘Chinese strategies of resisting alien culture’, such as the pretext of defending the purity of Marxism against democracy and science. Referring to ‘interference by Marxist epistemology in various disciplines of

25

China Daily, June 9, 1986, FBIS, June 11 1986. Resolution of the discourse appropriated the democratic reforms (by deﬁning them as ‘the development and perfection of the socialist system), socialist legality (embodying the will of the People), the Party, and the State leadership system by the Central Committee’ (Resolution on the Guiding Principles for Building a Socialist Society with an Advanced Culture and Ideology 1986, 3, 12–14). 26

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science’, he asked, ‘How can we expect that Marxism will help to solve speciﬁc problems of all disciplines of science?’27 Yan could not justify the role of Marxism in science, nor could he defend its function of ‘serving the People’ in the Party-State. Arguing against Mencius’ concept of ‘benevolent rule’ (but in fact affirming the existence of a corrupt and illegitimate Party-state), Yan asserted that the existence of government in itself proved that people are not all good. And if some people in government are bad, it is clear that good laws and a separation of powers are required to prevent the combination of ‘evil human nature’ and ‘power’, as well as to protect the People against government.28 Though the state is legally protected against counter-revolutionaries, he argued that it is not clear what protects the People from getting labelled counterrevolutionary.29 More value was also attached to the role of culture in economic development. Yu Guangyuan, for instance, stressed the importance of cultural economics and cultural management in the reforms. Furthermore, he did this by using scientiﬁc terminology.30 In May 1986, a forum on cultural-development strategy generated debates on the need for new, ideological concepts and further political and legal reforms, and the guarantee of intellectual freedom to fulﬁl these needs. The urban reformer and member of the CCP Central Committee’s Political Secretariat, Hu Qili, supported this trend and so did the Propaganda Chief Zhu Houze. The reasons for advocating culture were not concealed; culture was explicitly given instrumental value. Liu Zaifu, for example, proposed to change the traditional dragon boat festival (the ﬁfth of the ﬁfth lunar month) into China’s culture day as part of China’s modernization programme. In a broad sense, Liu argued, culture includes science, technology, literature, and education. Apart from commemorating the great patriotic poet Qu 27

Yan Jiaqi (E1986a, 18–19). Yan Jiaqi (E1986b, 61–63). 29 Article 102 of the Criminal Code of Law lent itself to equating counter-revolutionary behaviour with any act or opinion diverging from State or Party policies: ‘Whoever for the purpose of counter-revolution commits any of the following acts is to be sentenced to not more than ﬁve years of ﬁxed-term imprisonment, criminal detention, control or deprivation of political rights; ringleaders or others whose crimes are monstrous are to be sentenced to not less than ﬁve years of ﬁxed-term imprisonment: one, inciting the masses to resist or to sabotage the implementation of the State’s laws or decrees; and, two, through counter-revolutionary slogans, leaﬂets or other means, propagandizing for and inciting the overthrow of the political power of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist system’. FLP (E1984, 38). 30 Cf. Yu Guangyuan (E1985; E1986). 28

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Yuan, Liu said, the ‘celebration of culture day will help raise the prestige of scientists, teachers, writers, and artists’.31 Liu, at the same time, wanted to openly deal with the guilt left over from the Cultural Revolution. His sense of national consciousness prompted him to advocate a public form of introspection.32 Chen Yong, an associate of Deng Liqun in the Secretariat, in his book Literature and Art Theory and Comment reacted to Liu’s plea by calling for a more open intellectual environment so that the voices of the conservative elders could be heard, too.33 Additionally, Wu Jianguo’s ‘Reﬂections on the Question of Freedom’ made a distinction between political freedom (social freedom) and philosophical freedom (based on epistemology), arguing that without a Marxist outlook there can be no creative freedom.34 The article was edited by Hu Qiaomu and reprinted in the national press. One of the many indignant reactions came from Yu Haocheng, who protested that the two freedoms (political and creative) should not be confused as it would result in a situation in which scientists would be persecuted, just as Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno by the Church had been in the medieval dark ages.35 Tying down Bourgeois Liberalization In September 1986 the ﬂow of reformist articles in the official press on political reform subsided, but complaints about discussions around a multi-party system multiplied. At the Sixth Plenum of the Twelfth, Deng Xiaoping included a statement against bourgeois liberalization, but since the documents were initially kept for internal circulation, calls for political reforms continued. Though Hu Yaobang was replaced by Zhao Ziyand as leader of the CCP Central Committee’s Central Commission on Political Structural Reform, new reformist members such as Yan Jiaqi (September 1986–October 1987) joined the group.36 Renewed calls for 31 Qu Yuan was the hero philosopher who gave his life after his remonstrations with the Emperor had failed. Guo Moruo wrote a play about Qu Yuan’s wisdom and patriotism. (Cf. Guo Moruo E1984). 32 Others, such as Minister of Culture Wang Meng, Wang Ruoshui, and Liu Binyan (see below) made a similar point by also delegating responsibility to the People for their part in the Cultural Revolution (Goldman 1994, 184). 33 Goldman (1994, 186). 34 Wu Jianguo, ‘Reﬂections on the Question of Freedom’, Red Flag, September 1, E1986. Wu Jianguo was on the journal’s board. 35 Yu Haocheng (E1987, 13–17). 36 The task of this research office was to design political reform plans for the Thir-

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opening up to Western ideas invoked the examples of ‘Confucian’ Korea, Taiwan and Japan to show that economic success can be acquired without losing one’s national characteristics. Furthermore, Yu Guangyuan reinterpreted the call for ‘Spiritual Civilization’ by the conservatives at the Sixth Plenum as meaning openness to the outside world and the capacity to assimilate foreign culture. Demonstrations in late 1986 ensued from increased impatience with the slow pace of political reforms. Though the demonstrations had potential for escalation, diplomacy and threat put an end to them. The way the demonstrations were dealt with has been compared with the Party style of the Cultural Revolution, as, again, negative examples were made in the press, and were held up as a warning for others. However, the treatment of targets was relatively lenient, as the campaigns were. The Party in 1987 singled out only three intellectuals as the instigators of the December demonstrations: liberal writer Wang Ruowang,37 journalist Liu Binyan,38 and astrophysicist Fang Lizhi.39 All three had suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution and had built up high hopes for the post-1978 reforms. When their hopes for Party-initiated reforms were frustrated, and they felt that their efforts at changing the system from within were ineffective, they took to openly criticizing the Party and expressing their views directly to their respective constituencies in, mainly, intellectual circles.

teenth National Party Congress to be held in October 1987. Other high proﬁle members of its Committee were Zhao Ziyang, Bo Yibo, Hu Qili, Tian Jiyun and Peng Chong. Though Yan was known as a reformist, until 1987, when he left the Commission, he wanted reform to be handled by the Party and through rational regulation (Hua Shiping E1994, 104). 37 Wang Ruowang at the Fourth National Congress of Literature and Art Workers in 1979 had shown himself to be a true liberal by employing the Taoist formula ‘rule by nonaction’ (Wu wei er zhi ɹɨ̯) to criticize Chen Yi for his Leftist tendencies. He advocated a free market, welcomed millionaires, and recommended democracy. 38 Liu Binyan (b. 1925), a well-known journalist employed by The People’s Daily, sought to be an upright communist, despite his long history of persecution. In 1978 he was given a position in the CASS Institute of Philosophy. Liu Binyan is well-known because of his use of ‘reportage literature’ (baogao wenxue Áɲʳ) to expose corruption, ﬁrst used in his ‘People or Monsters’, in which he discussed the conditions that facilitated corruption. Liu was removed from the Communist Party on January 23, 1987, for following the ‘capitalist road’. 39 Fang Lizhi (b. 1936), sometimes called China’s Sakharov, initially supported the Dengist reforms, but in December 1980, Fang criticized developments in the academic world that prioritized modernization just for the sake of raising the status of science or strengthening the leadership (Fang Lizhi E1987).

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Fang Lizhi was the only academic leader who openly gave his support to the September 18, 1985, student demonstrations against ‘the second (economic) invasion of Japan’ at Beijing University. During the November 4, 1985, demonstrations, Fang gave a speech in support of the students’ demands for the free expression of opinion and an increase in foreign communication. Fang publicly violated the Four Cardinal Principles by openly declaring his view of young intellectuals as a ‘check against Party power’, and introducing four new ones: science, democracy, creativity, and independence.40 The student demonstrations of late-1986 began ﬁrst at Fang’s university, Kejidaxue or Keda (University of Science and Technology) in Hefei. Fang’s motto, ‘Democracy is not a favour bestowed from above; it should be won through people’s own efforts’, became known in academic circles all over China. When the reformist Wan Li came to Hefei to restrain the demonstrations through disciplinary measures, he was ridiculed for his insufficient understanding of democracy.41 It is doubtful, however, whether many of the students had more profound views on the subject. Even their leaders had a rather narrow view of democracy, usually reserved for a limited group of an educated elite. Fang’s view of scientists as the best equipped truth-seekers was perhaps used provocatively, but it must have been ﬂattering and encouraging to gullible and/or elitist students. For most students, the meaning of democracy remained undeﬁned and vague, since they were more interested in matters of their lifestyle, such as school meals, university administration, and education methods. In some universities the students had obtained a voice in the leadership as part of the President’s Advisory Council. Some universities withdrew the policy of making campus cafeterias ﬁnancially self-sufficient, and made improvements in administration and services.42 Other concerns were study fees, the reorganization of examination methods and evaluation systems, and the facilities and rules in living quarters. ‘Democracy’ was used to popularize student demands from authorities, and to acquire a bigger say in decisions concerning student matters. In Hefei, the students’ demand to nominate their own candidates for the elections of the local People’s Congress was satisﬁed, and its success inspired students in 40 41 42

Schell (1988, 129–139). Ch’en Chang-chin (E1987, 58); Goldman (1994, 200). Cf. Mok (E1998, 27); Schell (1988).

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other universities.43 Though Deng Xiaoping, at a meeting of the Military Affairs Commission in early December, had urged Hu Yaobang to stop the demonstrations from spreading further, Hu deﬁed Deng’s orders by his refusal to arrest the demonstrators in December and early January. Hu’s policy of inaction included his refusal to purge Fang Lizhi and Wang Ruowang. In turn, Propaganda Chief Zhu Houze restrained the propaganda apparatus, and Ruan Chongwu held in check the public security forces. But when Deng Xiaoping ordered the students to return to the classroom they obeyed, and the movement lost its vigour. Students that had been active were criticized and subjected to sessions of political reeducation; some were sent to ‘learn through labour’ on farms and in factories in the summer break. Repercussions On January 16, 1987, an expanded meeting of the Politburo forced Hu Yaobang to resign from his post as General Secretary.44 The meeting had been set up in such a way that the votes of the retired Central Advisory Commission (CAC) members were crucial to Hu’s removal. The retired military officers blamed Hu for cutting their budget, while several elders such as Peng Zhen and Hu Qiaomu were upset about Hu’s launch of the 1986 Anti-Corruption Campaign in which their children had been implicated. Not only did the conservative faction of Deng Liqun, Hu Qiaomu, Wang Zhen and Bo Yibo want to see Hu out of the way, Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili, too, had turned against Hu for his interference with the economic realm. Several Central Documents listing Hu’s crimes were distributed. Central Document No. 3 charged Hu with a number of major crimes: opposition to the Campaigns against Spiritual Pollution and Bourgeois Liberalization; failure to uphold the Four Cardinal Principles; repudiation of the left but not the right; and putting forward the slogan of high consumerism and committing the mistake of adventurism in the economy.45 Central Document No. 8 blamed him for stopping the campaign against the progressive patriot Bai Hua and failure to prevent the election and breeding of liberal elements in the Fourth Congress of the Chinese Writers Association in December 1984.46 43 44 45 46

Schell (1988, 217). Cf. Wu An- chia (E1987, 13); Saich (1995, 44). Wu An-chia (E1987, 15–16). Goldman (1995, 209).

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Hu’s removal made possible the revival of methods associated with Maoism by the ‘old guard’, now located in the Secretariat’s Policy Research Centre and headed by Deng Liqun. Western technologies and capital were still welcome, but ‘Western’ individualism, humanism and political ideas were rejected. To counter the interest of intellectuals in Western ideas, interest in Chinese traditions and patriotism was encouraged. Bo Yibo, Zhao Ziyang, and in particular Wang Zhen, repeatedly reminded intellectuals that China possessed a glorious and superior ancient tradition of science. Rather than become Western nihilists, intellectuals were urged to revive this Chinese tradition. Even ﬁercer were the exhortations against preaching Western political concepts, such as a multi-party system and the separation of powers. Some leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, thought that a multi-party system would weaken China, while others argued that China already had a separation of powers: a legislative power exercised by the National People’s Congress, an executive power residing in the State Council, and a judicial power in the courts.47 On January 12, the CCP’s Central Committee and the State Council jointly decided that Fang Lizhi and Guan Weiyuan were to be dismissed from their respective posts as Vice-President and President of the University of Science and Technology in Hefei. The stated reason for Fang’s dismissal was that he had spread erroneous opinions about Bourgeois Liberalization, and deviated from the Four Cardinal Principles.48 On January 13, the Central Discipline Inspection Commission issued a notice to all Party members on the necessity for CCP members to abide by the Party Constitution. It warned that breach of political discipline or deviation from the Four Cardinal Principles, and advocating Bourgeois Liberalization would lead to disciplinary action.49 Wang, Liu, and Fang were deprived of their Party membership, and newspapers, such as The People’s Daily and the Liberation Daily, launched attacks on them. To Fang this was not a great problem. Although he had encouraged students to become Party members in order to change the Party from within, by 1987, he had openly renounced his belief in the Party, and resolutely rejected the communist philosophy of class struggle in favour of science and democracy (though he did not mind being called a ‘socialist 47 C f. Saich (1995, 45). Though the NPC was given more autonomy under Peng Zhen, its purpose was not to check the leadership, but to limit the reforms. Nevertheless, some reform bills, such as the direct elections to the People’s Congresses were passed in December 1986. 48 Chou Yu-sun (E1987, 7). 49 Ch’en Chang-chin (E1987, 63–65).

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believer’).50 About a month after Fang had been arrested, copies of his speeches and articles circulated around limited Party circles for the purpose of study and criticism.51 Public criticism was expressed by intellectuals, such as the philosophers Ru Xin and Xing Bensi, who had earlier turned against Wang Ruoshui. However, others, such as Wang Meng and Liu Zaifu, refused. Instead, Wang and Liu handed in their resignations as Minister of Culture and editor of the journal Literary Commentary (Wenxue Pinglun ɲʳǂƏ). Other intellectuals linked to Hu Yaobang’s network were criticized: the criticism was not in public, but behind closed doors. Among the criticized, several targets were associated with CASS, such as Yu Guangyuan, Liu Zaifu, Li Honglin, Su Shaozhi, Yan Jiaqi, and Zhang Xianyang, and others indirectly associated with CASS, such as Wang Ruoshui and Yu Haocheng. Yu Guangyuan was criticized by Hu Qiaomu for his emphasis on market economy, which Hu regarded as in opposition to the Party. Yan Jiaqi decided to withdraw from the political reform group, after his and Gao Gao’s (his wife) History of the Ten-Year Cultural Revolution was banned in early 1987.52 Hu Yaobang’s intellectual network and intellectuals associated with the three main targets of the Campaign were attacked by Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu. Those two arranged for a critical compilation of parts of their (Hu Yao and his network) speeches and works, which they distributed over the country. They also paid writing groups to criticize Hu Yaobang’s associates. Hu Yaobang’s proteges Zhu Houze, head of the Propaganda Department, and Ruan Chongwu, minister of public security, were dismissed for failing to deal with the demonstrations, and refusing to conduct self-criticism. They were succeeded by Wang Renzhi and Wang Fang. Wang Renzhi, who in 1991 was to become Secretary General of the CASS Party leadership, was a close associate of Deng Liqun and a former deputy editor of Red Flag. Li Tieying, who was to become the president of CASS in 1998, replaced Premier Zhao as the new Minister of the State Commission for the Restructuring of the Economic System, the most important post in the ﬁeld of economic policy-making. Other reformist associates of Hu Yaobang, such as Wan Li and Hu Qili, conducted self-criticism and kept their position. 50

Mok Ka-ho (E1998, 80–81; 96). Schell (1988, 302–303). 52 Instead of just criticizing the Cultural Revolution for the chaos it has been equated with, Yan and Gao describe the power struggles among senior leaders, and the personality cult of Mao as a typical characteristic of Chinese politics. This pronunciation had clear implications for the present (Mok Ka-ho E1998, 51). 51

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Periods of tightening and loosening of the ideological atmosphere were not only reﬂected in the publications and activities of ordinary academics in general and at CASS in speciﬁc, but also in the ambiguous attitude taken by CASS President Hu Sheng. Hu added confusion among intellectuals by following the political mood of the times in intellectual circles. In the relatively relaxed academic atmosphere of 1986, Hu appeared to follow a reformist line. For example, on the occasion of the Party’s May 1986 celebration of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Hundred Flowers Movement, Hu took a liberal stance in the Red Flag: ‘There are no forbidden zones in academic research’. He argued that the Party should not make decisions on the rights and wrongs of controversial views in the social sciences.53 Hu also delivered a reformist speech in June, in which he pointed out that although after 1956 the major task was no longer revolution (‘destroying the old world’), China had failed in building a new world by means of the social sciences.54 Arguing for the use of materials collected by bourgeois sociology, he ventured to ask: ‘Can we not also learn something from the harmonious movements in certain ﬁelds of the capitalist society?’55 After the Sixth Party Plenum, Hu’s position gradually shifted, combining the Plenum’s resolution against Bourgeois Liberalization and Spiritual Pollution with a pragmatic tolerance for non-Marxist ideas. And in the early months of 1987, he declared that Marxism was to be the supreme guiding authority in academic endeavour. In the Red Flag of February 1, Hu declared that free rein should not be given to all schools of thought; the study of Marxism in the classroom was to continue.56 But in his December 29, 1986, speech delivered at the ‘National Conference on Planning for Philosophy and Social Science’, Hu combined the conservative resolution against Spiritual Pollution of the Sixth Plenum with

53

Edmunds (1994, 99). This speech was based on his conversations with Fei Xiaotong, China’s famous ‘anthropologist’ and then-President of the Chinese Society of Sociology (Hu Sheng E1986, 11–17). 55 Ibid., 13, 14–15. Hu Sheng explained that the purpose of bourgeois sociology was to ﬁnd a method for attaining a benign cycle in society under the capitalist system, and thus enable various social sectors to develop harmoniously. Such knowledge was of no use in a period of revolution. But as China was now studied, he found common ground on the question of how to attain a benign cycle of society between the two sociologies (Ibid., 14–16). 56 Hu Sheng, cited in Li Jinkun & Cao Xiurong, ‘Several Experiences Concerning Marxist Education among University Students’, Hongqi (Red Flag), Feb. 26, E1987. 54

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calls for further openness in the social sciences.57 Hu also linked the struggle against Spiritual Pollution to moral, pedagogic, cultural, and philosophical aspects of research: Social sciences are closely related to the building of spiritual civilization. Many problems need to be studied from this aspect. For example, these problems include the changes in the value concept, the moral concept, and the outlook on life in reforms and of opening up of social sciences, the issue of the socialist lifestyle, the issue of socialist humanism, the issue of how Marxism should deal with traditional and foreign cultures, the issue of the strategy for cultural development, the development of patriotism … of the cultivation of lofty ideals, moral integrity, cultural accomplishments, and discipline and the all-round development of man, and the issue of political and ideological education in the new period. Philosophy and all branches of social sciences are closely related to research on these issues.58

Hu also followed Deng Xiaoping in stressing administrative reforms and economic development and legal regulations, control of the population, social stability, and the containing of minority regions.59 At the same time, he followed up Wan Li’s call in April for developing ‘soft science’, ‘which is helpful in decision- making, and is characterized by mutual exchange between natural and social sciences, as well as joint research in a variety of branches of learning’.60 This required the use of foreign technologies and scientiﬁc theory. An important task, therefore, was the translation, introduction and editing of scientiﬁc imports ‘from all over the world’.61 Though Hu urged academics to follow the Party line, he also cautioned against using Marxism in a dogmatic way, which would not be conducive to mastering the ideological weapon of Marxism (sic!).62 When it came to the ‘Double-Hundred’ policy, however, Hu seemed to contradict himself at the same time by asking intellectuals to ‘seek truth from facts’ and to ‘form a broad unity’ and adhere to the Four Cardinal principles.63 57

Hu Sheng (E1987, 62–71). Hu Sheng (E1987, 65). 59 Hu Sheng (E1987, 64). 60 Hu Sheng (E1987, 66). 61 ‘…it is imperative to thoroughly overcome the hindrance of conservative ideas of all descriptions, to change the self-seclusion of research work in the past, and to boldly import academic ideas from all countries in the world, while distinguishing, selecting, criticizing, absorbing, and digesting them on the basis of ample study’. (Hu Sheng E1987, 69) 62 Ibid., 66–68. 63 Ibid., 68. 58

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Hu’s ambiguous reaction to the changes in the political atmosphere in 1986/7 created uncertainty among intellectuals until, in 1989, he was no longer taken seriously and lost his authority among both reformers and conservatives. The controversial nature of the position of academics, such as that of the Christian Vice-President Zhao Fusan, was only exacerbated by such an uncertain atmosphere. Even though Zhao himself had deﬁnite opinions on religion as serving as an ‘anaesthetic’ against ‘the People’s pain’ and the ruling elite as the ‘befuddler of the People’s minds’, he could not entirely escape the inﬂuence of the political elite over his writings. Zhao had participated in a comparative research project on Chinese and Western culture, a project, which started in November 1986. His views on the project were published only in April 1987 in the CASS Journal of the Graduate School (CASS Yanjiusheng Xuebao), just after the peak of the Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalization and before the Zhuozhuo conference that attempted to revive it. In his article, Zhao argued that to understand Western culture, one has to understand the origins of its thought of which part lies in Christianity. Then he made a rarely seen attempt to explain the distinction between individuality and egocentricity (ziwozhongxinzhuyi ͈ɷ̰ʠ̺˕). The concept of individuality, Zhao explains, recognizes the importance of the individual, but that is not the same as self-aggrandizement (zigao-zida ͈À͈i). He also rejected the view that Western culture only values material things.64 Surprisingly, a few weeks prior to the publication of these views, in two People’s Daily articles (March 23 and 24), he asserted the opposite. He argued that ‘the ideology of individualism only corrodes social ethics and morality … and will eventually and surely develop to the extent that people become selﬁsh’.65 He further argued that ‘the pursuit of individual freedom has brought about the individual’s spiritual loneliness’.66 Zhao’s views had been adjusted to the political atmosphere of the times, though it is not clear by whom.

Compromising political reform In January 1987, Zhao Ziyang had again tried to protect the ﬁelds of economy, and science and technology from the Campaign by giving directives for the draft of Document No. 4, issued on January 28, 1987. 64 65 66

Zhao Fusan (1987, 9–10). Renmin Ribao, March 23, 24, 1987. Goldman (1994, 213).

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Again, articles in The People’s Daily and The Guangming Daily had appeared that rejected Western economic theory, statistics, and other quantitative methods in favour of Marxist economics. Compilations of such articles against Bourgeois Liberalization were distributed over educational and work units.67 It was partly their concern for China’s image in the international community that kept reformers from giving in to conservatives, which would cause China’s reforms to lag behind those of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Not only would it cause China’s economic prosperity to contrast even more starkly with that of Taiwan, its political system would also seem antiquated compared to that of Taiwan, which was just moving toward abandoning martial law. But in April 1987, a conservative backlash in the form of the Zhuozhuo Conference, and supported by the Red Flag, The Guangming Daily, Literature and Art Theory and Comment, and the Propaganda Department, solicited more paid critical articles on reformers such as Hu Yaobang and Liu Zaifu. This time Zhao Ziyang became the main target of criticism for the economic reform policies opposed by the seniors. However, Zhao’s counterattack in his May 13 speech brought the Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalization to a ﬁnal close. The speech was written by the political reform group headed by Zhao’ Secretary and an affiliate of CASS, Bao Tong;68 it became known as Document No. 13. Bao Tong, and other intellectuals associated with Zhao’s report, such as Wu Guoguang and Gao Shan stressed the need to institutionalize political activity and provide effective legal guarantees to writers. This younger group, working with Bao Tong, attacked the anti-reformist views of the group associated with Deng Liqun, who were around twenty years older and had graduated from university before the Cultural Revolution. Later in the year, Zhao succeeded in removing the Deng Liqun group from the Policy Research Office. Presumably to maintain political balance, Zhao gave in to the demand made by the group of Hu and Deng of punishing ﬁve out 67 Some titles (translated) illustrate the messages of this genre of propaganda: ‘The Flag Clearly Opposes Bourgeois Liberalization’ (Renmin Ribao, January 6, 1987), ‘The Reform of the Political System Can Only Proceed Under the Leadership of the Party’ (Renmin Ribao December 25, 1986), ‘Big Character Posters Do Not Receive Legal Protection’ (Beijing Ribao, December 29, 1986), and ‘Resolutely Oust from the Party the Bourgeois Liberalization Supporting Bigwig Fang Lizhi’ (Anhui Ribao, January 20, 1987). (Compiled in Gongqingtuan zhongyang bangongting, 1987). 68 Bao Tong had been Director of Research in the Party’s Organization Department. After Mao’s death he became Deputy Director of the SSTC. He had also helped to draft Deng Xiaoping’s 1977 speech on science and technology (Goldman 1994, 227; Wu Guoguang E1995, 24–38).

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of a list of ten dissidents, some of whom were closely associated with the CASS Marxism-Leninism institute.69 The group of Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu had even contemplated abolishing the Marxism-Leninism Institute in the summer of 1987. Thanks to Zhao Ziyang’s delaying tactics, in May 1988, when the political inﬂuence of Deng and Hu had diminished, Hu Sheng made known that the institute would be kept under CASS.70 In October 1987, when Zhao Ziyang was chosen as the new Party General Secretary at the Thirteenth National Party Conference, Zhao accepted the notion of underdevelopment as the official Party doctrine of the ﬁrst stage of socialism. Ironically, one of the creators of this notion was Su Shaozhi (together with Feng Lanrui and Yu Guangyuan), who was removed from his institute.71 Though Zhao was more open to political reform than was Deng Xiaoping, he had no independent power base, and was unable to deal with the demands for political change reported by newly established university polling agencies. Zhao did not go further than proposing a separation of Party and government activities at county and enterprise levels under CCP leadership. But in the Report to the Congress, China for the ﬁrst time was acknowledged to be a pluralistic society, consisting of different social groups with their own needs and interests.72 In virtually the same words as the purged intellectuals, Zhao deﬁned ‘the People’ in a socialist democracy as masters of their country, genuinely enjoying all citizens’ rights.73 Just as Yan Jiaqi had, Zhao recommended ways to strengthen the National People’s Congress. At the Congress, Deng Xiaoping set an example to the elders (in particular President Li Xiannian, and Party economist Chen Yun and Peng Zhen) by his retirement from the Central Committee and its Politburo Standing Committee. Nevertheless, he remained Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, which had been made possible by an alteration of the Constitution.74 A result of the Congress was the departure of nearly 69 The ﬁve were Zhang Xianyang, Su Shaozhi, Wang Ruoshui, Sun Changjiang and the playwright Wu Zuguang. In August, they were all advised to give up their Party membership, but only Wu responded. Su Shaozhi managed to retain his Party membership, but was removed as head of the CASS Marxism-Leninism Institute. 70 Su Shaozhi (1995, 116–117). 71 Su Shaozhi and Feng Lanrui in 1979 had deﬁned the transition to communism in three stages. The ﬁrst stage, the transition to socialism, consisted of two phases—the transition from the old society and to underdeveloped socialism. The second phase was developed socialism, and the third stage was communism (Brugger & Kelly 1990, 33–34). 72 Volkskrant, October 26, 1987. 73 Beijing Review, November 9–15, 1987, xvii. 74 Volkskrant, October 31, 1987.

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half of the 209 full members of the Central Committee and the election of younger members. As Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu failed to be elected in the Central Committee, Chen Yun proposed their election in the Central Advisory Commission (CAC) along with Wang Renzhi, the Propaganda Chief (who in 1993 was appointed General Secretary of the CASS Party Committee). Here they continued to wield inﬂuence on ideological matters and Party documents. And shortly after Zhao assumed Hu Yaobang’s post as Party General Secretary, Li Peng became Premier. To be brief, Zhao Ziyang introduced proposals for political reform at the Thirteenth Party Congress in September 1987. These proposals sought to redistribute power both horizontally to state organs and vertically to lower level Party and state organs, and created room for limited political pluralism under the leadership of the CCP.75 But their implementation was overtaken by measures imposing economic austerity. Zhao’s ideas of political reform and the 1989 demonstrations, in which a majority of CASS academicians was to play a role, would lead to his dismissal.

Closing the ﬁrst decade: intellectual dispute and co-option in a socialist nation-state In the early 1980s, campaigns directed against intellectuals decreased in severity. The 1983 Campaign against Spiritual Pollution had been limited to many special political targets such as critical theories of humanism, alienation and democracy, and the ‘foreign’ practices of pornography, drugs, promiscuity, corruption, money-worship, and usury. Campaigns no longer targeted the entire oeuvre and career, family and friends of intellectuals, but denounced only speciﬁc works. Furthermore, the duration of the Campaign had been short (October–December 1983). There was general consent among the leadership on the need to prevent a return to Cultural Revolution policies or rather its lack of steadfast policies. Soon, the social sciences became a tool in support of directing political and economic reforms. Unrest, however, led Zhao Ziyang to draw up a wall of protection around reformist intellectuals, while Deng Xiaoping’s academic policies were limited by worries about voices from business circles and international opinion. This need to persuade intellectuals

75

Cf. Saich (1995, 36–37).

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to cooperate in realizing administrative reforms marked the beginning of a period in which the value of the work of scholars was recognized and not wasted by penalizing scholars as persons. It was the beginning of a process of co-option. By 1983, reformers associated with Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang had begun to demand greater relaxation of ideological constraints. They encouraged criticism of Maoist excesses, and also a critical attitude toward Marxist-Leninist dogma and the politico-economic system imported from Moscow in the 1950s. As the relatively young reformers lacked revolutionary credentials, the success of their quest depended heavily on the support of Deng Xiaoping. Though active reformers could be found in particular among intellectuals, intellectuals were on no account undivided on reform issues. The interests of intellectuals, whose jobs involved Party research and education, Party propaganda, and central planning, lay with a Party monopoly from which they could draw authority. The generally younger reformist intellectuals tried to ally themselves with reformist and pro-democracy leaders, ﬁnding an outlet for their ideas and activities in government think-tanks and universities. As a result, reformers increasingly found themselves in the predicament of requiring an increase in academic autonomy while needing leadership support for advancing their careers in the professional hierarchy. Thus, reformers were constrained by factors such as job-security, factionalism, age, and other factors that are only indirectly related to the struggle for political and intellectual ideals. Only a minority of idealists could afford, or were willing, to go as far as risking their career for the sake of their ideals and principles. In the ﬁrst half of the 1980s, unlike later in the mid-1990s and onward, state and Party monopoly over the jobs of intellectuals left them with little chance of ﬁnding alternative employment by which they could further their ambitions. Nevertheless, some idealistic scholars among both Party members and non-Party members regarded it as their duty to be critical of the leadership and its policies, regardless of their personal interests (though it is hard to draw a line between personal and ideological interests). This self-proclaimed dedication to remonstrate with Party leaders was considered a beneﬁt to the People whom such critical intellectuals believe to represent. In the name of the People, the leadership was called upon to reﬂect upon ‘the People’s interest’, thus implying that the leadership has a conscience that can be touched by the intellectual’s plea. It was claimed that the loss of this belief in the leadership’s readiness to initiate political reforms for the good of

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the People aggravated the deteriorating relationship between intellectuals (including Party members) and the leadership during the latter half of the 1980s. Compared to the Mao era, the three targets of the Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalization, Wang Ruowang, Liu Binyan and Fang Lizhi, were treated leniently. They were not sent to a labour camp, but were put under house arrest, had their phones tapped, and were banned from work. International pressure, the statements of students overseas, and scholars may have contributed to the mild treatment of the three dissidents. However, the controlled nature of public attacks, the possibility of the three dissidents of continuing their work, and the early reappearance of the three at public gatherings show that the method of rigid discursive control of the Mao era had changed into more subtle operations of steering discourse in the 1980s. It is not known exactly why Wang, Liu, and Fang were singled out as instigators of the student demonstrations, as many like-minded intellectuals, such as Yan Jiaqi and Wang Ruoshui, engaged in similar activities. It is plausible, however, that their openly recalcitrant behaviour and their refusal to bend to Party criticism in combination with their courage and inﬂuence on their respective audiences were perceived as too great a threat to Party authority. All three had been devoted Party members, but only Liu had followed through in his belief in the Party’s capacity to improve itself. The experience of Liu and Fang of staying in ‘capitalist countries’ had motivated them to free China from censorship and authoritarian rule. All three had also openly criticized the Party for being corrupt and undemocratic. Fang’s concept of democracy, however, was based on participation by the educated elite only; Liu’s, in the short run, was limited to internal Party democracy; while only Wang advocated full-ﬂedged democracy and liberalism. Liu’s insistence on his loyalty to the Party, which he deemed corrupt, brought on him accusations of unpatriotic behaviour; Wang was deemed unpatriotic as he was thought to have sold out China to the West; and Fang Lizhi was regarded as a traitor as he was found guilty of setting up students against the socialist motherland. Ironically, by supporting the anti-Japanese demonstrations of late-1985, Fang could not have taken a more ‘patriotic’ line than the one taken by official Party Policy, and from which Hu Yaobang had departed by inviting Premier Nakasone Yasuhiro to visit Beijing.76 The

76

Cf. Fang Lizhi (E1990, 60, 63).

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late-1986 demonstrations were far more explicit in favour of democratic reforms and the autonomy of science, and were directed against Party interference with science and the slow speed of the reforms. Although a few steps in the direction of academic autonomy were made, such as the election by peers of heads in some CASS institutes, the leadership of CASS in the period from 1985 to 1988 was ambivalent. Both the newly elected head of the Institute of Political Science, Yan Jiaqi, and the head of the Institute of Literature, Liu Zaifu, found themselves in political trouble, as did other leading intellectuals from CASS, such as Su Shaozhi, Yu Guangyuan, Liu Zaifu, Li Honglin, Yan Jiaqi, and Zhang Xianyang. The patronage enjoyed by intellectuals under Hu Yaobang, and after Hu Yaobang’s forced resignation, under Zhao Ziyang, had made possible the protest of intellectuals against the regime. This is why the two patrons had to be purged. If we regard the view of the establishment as opposed to democratic reforms, then it is possible to say that most intellectuals at the time were anti-establishment intellectuals. However, interpreting the battle around democracy as one of the establishment vis-à-vis its opponents is too simplistic. First of all, the concept of democracy during this period was generally interpreted in its narrow sense of democracy for both the political and intellectual elite. Second, political leaders such as Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang to a lesser extent, were also in favour of political reforms that would lead to a political democracy, and these leaders have to be included in a definition of establishment. And third, one could argue that, considering the functions and status assigned to CASS as a think-tank for political leaders and as a prestigious academic institute directly under the State Council, CASS intellectuals would act out of character if they did not conform to the rules set by the political establishment. The idea of a sharp opposition between leadership and intellectuals therefore seems misleading. Furthermore, academic obedience can also be exacted by persuasion, cunning, and through co-option. The political establishment could use ambiguous concepts such as ‘socialist democracy’ as a means to persuade academics of the ‘democratic intent of academic policies’. When effective, it had the additional advantage of producing academic discourse on topics favoured by the political establishment. In this way, the work of intellectuals could be steered loosely, without alienating them from official policies. Moreover, CASS academics were by no means united into a camp against the leadership. In fact, CASS intellectuals could serve

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as speechwriters for both conservatives, such as Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu, and for the technocrat-reformist Zhao Ziyang. This relationship between intellectuals and various political factions would become increasingly uncomfortable and after 1989 the relationship was to be restructured in more formalized channels.

part iii FROM CRITICAL TO GUIDED ACADEMIC DISPUTE (1988–1998)

Part Two shows that academic theory is not just an instrument of state but also that academics give shape to the meaning of state policies through their part in the formulation and conceptualization of political strategies and tasks. Apart from ‘humanizing’ the concept of the state, the conceptualizing activities of competing intellectuals yield a concept of the nation-state that is difficult to interpret. The notion of the state in academic discourse in itself functions as a platform for discussion and disagreements. This platform, as will become clear in Part Three, came to accommodate an increasing variety of notions of the China. These notions were accompanied by an increase in the freedom of speech and a decrease in harsh punishment for transgressions of the ideological limits earlier deﬁned by the political authorities. At the same time, ideological disagreements did not become any less passionate. Part Three describes how conservatives, democrats, reformists, and new authoritarians redeﬁned the ideological boundaries of debate, all of which led to great confusion and dissatisfaction among all parties. Theories of the developmental needs of China express various political orientations. These political orientations are types of political thought whose labels of identiﬁcation and identity, such as Left and Right, conservative, democratic, new authoritarian and liberal, also served as tools for the building and debate of academic theory. The ongoing trend towards intellectual diversiﬁcation in the latter half of the 1980s was compatible with the initial aims of CASS. In fact, in the 1980s diversiﬁcation was encouraged, and debate was regarded as the basis for (albeit limited) competition between schools of thought. Such debate was thought to improve political decision-making by the leadership, enhance its legitimacy, and lead to increased political authority. But this set-up would come under threat if critics were to deploy these academic insights to create political opposition. In other words, the system itself could be under threat if concrete action was allowed to result from academic argument. Given that China has a rich tradition of concepts encouraging or even compelling academics to combine action and reason dialectically,

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it was to be expected that they put into practice what they preached.1 At a time of great promises, reforms, economic growth and optimistic propaganda, it was folly to assume that young generations of intellectuals would not leap at a chance to demonstrate their visions. As expected, they put up a struggle for their own ideas about ‘rescuing the motherland’, along with making attempts at improving their own living conditions and ﬁnancial fate. This part, then, will show how to some extent intellectuals reached their targets but at great expense. The June Fourth clampdown in 1989 was traumatic and led to the application of austerity measures and suppression in the early 1990s. After Deng’s Inspection Tour, however, the policies of Deepening the Reforms and Opening Up guaranteed a further liberation of the economy, which would have consequences for the livelihood of intellectuals too. In CASS, however, as will be shown in Part Four, the reforms would take a special turn. A second theme in Part Three evolves from the relationships among CASS leaders and leads through the dynamics of the institutional structures in which they are entangled or locked. Often, as pointed out in Part Two, debates on power relationships in Chinese academic communities have emphasized dissidence among intellectuals by extrapolating the views of the Communist Party, the academic leadership, and Marxists, and democratic intellectuals. A focus on the interaction among these competing groups throws light on the friction and clashes between them. But by de-emphasizing the factor of continuity in the multiple roles academics play as scholars, politicians, and patriotic ideologues, the vertical interaction between scholars remains underexposed. As a result, the unifying pressure exerted from public performances, such as speeches and ceremonies, is easily ignored. This is extremely important, since ‘soft’ pressure to adjust has become a major tool in smothering and preventing dissidence. By taking into account the relationship of administrative and academic status and by evaluating the divisions of functional tasks of leaders at different levels of the academic and political hierarchy, political and academic pronouncements in public can be viewed in a different light. This is so because dull-sounding formal speeches and dry official reports acquire different meanings when the importance of the occasion at which 1 E.g., the Confucian conﬂation of zhi ̡ (knowledge) and xing ʥ into zhixing ̡ʥ (practice) (Cf. Meng Peiyuan 1984; 1987) Marxian ‘praxis; Mao’s ‘learning from practice’, (everyone knows Mao’s famous motto ‘if you want to know the taste of a pear, take a bite’); Deng Xiaoping’s ‘seeking truth from facts’, and ‘practice is the only criterion of truth’.

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they are expressed and position of the author acquire meaning in a context of academic policy-making. Furthermore, insight into changes in the pecking order of the leadership helps us to understand why academic research, despite the ideological clashes of the 1980s, could continue to thrive. Thus, I show here how certain research subjects become important on the academic research agenda as objects of large-scale research. The creation of the academic research curriculum and its implementation at CASS are shown to be part of a political process that involves the consultation with and communication along the organizational hierarchy of CASS’ administrative and political leaders, the appointment of research committees, and the promotion system of CASS. Chapter 7 shows how the constraints on calls for democracy led to resistance that increasingly exploded into open conﬂicts and eventually culminated in the June Fourth clamp-down of the demonstrations. Although ‘democracy’ was an important concern among intellectuals, the repression of intellectual creativity and guidance of the People seemed to clash with the patriotic ambitions of many CASS intellectuals. Even though the austerity measures and the changes in the CASS Leadership elicited moderately successful resistance among academicians, the organizational basis of CASS laid the grounds for a general organizational overhaul of CASS. Such restructuring of the research curriculum under the leadership of the Party Committee is explicated in Chapter 8. These organizational changes were designed to strengthen the Party leadership in CASS policy-making, which largely was materialized in the form of the so-called responsibility system and the extension of Key Item Research. A new wave of liberalization affected CASS only after Deng Xiaping’s ‘Southern Inspection Tour’ in January 1992. Chapter 9 depicts how a now milder CASS Party Committee implemented the ‘responsibility system’, encouraged the competition among intellectuals, and adopted state policies in the organization, all at the same time. Leadership changes in the mid-1990s were aimed at strengthening CASS’s capacity in handling politically sensitive discussions. (Part Four discusses if the reforms at CASS have reached this aim by structuring debate or failed through organizational overkill). CASS leaders developed various ways of spreading political messages and spent much time and effort at spreading the word at the lower organizational levels. This chapter shows the various ways in which official policies and the work of academics at CASS are linked. Finally, in Chapter 10, I explore the issue of why academics in various levels of the academic hierarchy stay at CASS. The answer to this

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question highlights the way in which institutional circumstances inﬂuence the behaviour and decisions made by academic personnel to conform to Party guidelines, to academic rules, or why they leave CASS. By tracing the changes in the material and academic circumstances under which scholars do their work at CASS, I elaborate on the attractions and motivations CASS has for researchers to continue their research career with this state institute. I close Part Three with a discussion of the ways in which various political and academic groupings came about and the basis on which we categorize them. The naming of these groups and the identiﬁcation of intellectuals with these groups has had great consequences for the construction of academic theory. As will be shown in Chapter 11, most of these groups proceed from a nation-centric point of view in expounding their theories of how to improve China’s situation in a global, but mostly bipolar, context. In short, in Part Three, I trace the structural ties between leaders and the led, and more importantly, the institutional set-up, in which both seem to be locked. I conclude that in so far as freedom of decision-making is at stake, ordinary scholars at the bottom of the hierarchy seem to have more leeway to keep a hidden agenda of politically controversial activities than do those higher up. In other matters, such as project development, choice of research directions, and recruitment, the distinction between thw leaders and the led at certain levels is not even a useful one, as the capacity ascribed to leaders is often overrated.

chapter seven INCREASING OPEN CONFLICT IN THE IDEOLOGICAL SPHERE (1988–1989)

Tension in the intellectual community increased when voices demanding democracy grew louder in the latter half of the 1980s. The group of intellectuals associated with Hu Yaobang’s network had put forward proposals for change. The reform proposals by intellectuals such as Su Shaozhi, Cao Siyuan, and Yan Jiaqi had sought institutional reform to promote democratization by strengthening the ‘rule of law’,1 to improve the representation and independence of the People’s Congresses, and to reduce Party interference in government organizations and society at large. They also sought to make the Party more accountable to the outside (Yan Jiaqi suggested the formation of factions) and to give intellectuals more inﬂuence over the Party’s leading role.2 Yan Jiaqi, who had recommended that officials should serve no longer than two terms, in April 1988 announced that he would not accept another term in office as head of the Institute of Political Science. At the same time, he criticized the absence of the peer election system from many CASS institutes, in which heads were still appointed by Party officials,3 and complained about Party and state interference in academic life, ‘restraining people with institutions’. In his famous People’s Daily article, ‘China is No Longer a Dragon’, he argued that for a nation seeking democracy, the symbol of imperial authority, the dragon, was no longer appropriate. Instead, legal protection was needed to restrain the authorities, even that of benevolent rulers.4 In 1988, following Zhao Ziyang’s call for ‘transparency’ (toumingdu əƢ ) in his report to the Thirteenth National Party Conference, debates on the freedom of the press demanded legal protection for critics of leading officials. Party control over the media weakened, but not as a result of 1 Cao Siyuan was a student of Yu Guangyuan and Su Shaozhi. In 1988, he headed the think-tank of the Stone Group computer company. 2 Cf. Saich (1995, 37). 3 Yan Jiaqi (E1988, 3–7). 4 ‘China Is No Longer a Dragon’, Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), May 23,1988, FBIS, June 8, p. 30.

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legal measures but by economic force. Thousands of private groups and entrepreneurs had started to fund periodicals, including tabloids. Party guidelines and decrees were no longer effective, because they lacked clarity, and because the Party did not have the means to check up on their implementation. The ambiguity of guidelines was illustrated in January 1988 by the half-hearted implementation of Zhao’s directive for drafting a document prohibiting arbitrary interference with the creative arts. Wang Meng (whose resignation as Minister of Culture after the AntiBourgeois Liberalization Campaign had not been accepted) declared that ‘only’ a small number of plays were to be censored, among which were plays involving important historical and diplomatic questions, and issues of nationhood and religion.5

Revaluation of socialism Although Su Shaozhi had been purged during the Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalization, he soon reappeared in debates on the, by now officially accepted, Party doctrine of ‘the ﬁrst stage of socialism’.6 Subsequently, new reform targets were set, and discussions appeared on the need for a ‘socialist commodity economy’, a euphemism for a market economy, worked out in CASS institutes of political science and economics. In official newspapers, such as The People’s Daily and Guangming Daily, voices that repudiated both dogmatic interpretations of Marxism, and science and technology grew louder. In the same vein, the Central Party History Research Institute reevaluated Mao’s place in history, placing the ‘Old’ Mao’s ‘Ultra-Leftist utopian socialism’, long before the Great Leap Forward. Some even traced it back to the Yan’an era of idealized guerrilla struggle, thereby substantially extending the period of the ‘Old Mao’ and his devaluation. The belief in science and technology as a means of rescuing the nation (and a recipe from the May Fourth period) was now diagnosed by some critics as dogmatic and positivist. The Society for Research in the Dialectics of Nature, headed by Yu Guangyuan, and the Institute of the History of Natural Science, under Xu Liangying, argued for the necessity 5

Goldman (1994, 243). The theory of the ﬁrst stage of socialism, which considers China to be in the ﬁrst stage of socialist development, was ﬁrst formulated in 1979 by Su Shaozhi and Feng Lanrui (see Chapter 2). 6

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of change in the areas of culture, economy, and politics for science to ﬂourish. Criticism was also aimed at the practice of selectively adopting Western social-science theories, which emphasized collective aspects of society without taking into account the individual. Additionally, attacking socialist models of moral emulation, such as that of Lei Feng, became a way of repudiating socialist models of nationhood, as Lei Feng represented the selﬂess devotion and unquestioning loyalty to the Party. Radical critics of the regime, such as Wang Ruoshui, talked about ‘state socialism’ versus ‘citizen socialism’, blaming the ‘strong state’ for China’s predicament. But most critical thinkers such as Su Shaozhi, Yu Guangyuan, and Cao Siyuan did not reject the one-party state. In the World Economic Herald, both tradition (for its autocratic rule) and Western imperialism (for forcing China to build a strong state to save the nation) were held responsible for the absence of democratic checks and balances, the low value attached to individuals, and the low accountability of administrative organs.7 Although after Zhao Ziyang’s speech to the Thirteenth National Party Conference discussions on the right of representation of interest groups were no longer officially taboo, political representation was still out of the question. This was so even according to reformist intellectuals such as Su Shaozhi, who rejected a multiparty system as ‘impossible and unnecessary’ for historical reasons and China’s contemporary conditions’.8 Disillusionment among reformists On several occasions, from late 1988 to spring 1989, a tightening of ideological control caused disillusionment and resentment among intellectual proponents of political reforms: they were becoming incapable of continuing their self-assigned role as mediators between the Party and the People. As they could not satisfy the ‘demands of the People’ under corrupt and repressive policies, new ideas were selected from among 7 Among the journals covering Chinese democracy, the main ones were: Minzhu Zhongguo, a journal for pro-democracy intellectuals; World Economic Herald, a relatively independent newspaper, run by a private organization in mainland China, highlighted issues around reforms and democracy; Dushu, which reﬂected current thoughts on democracy in China; Zhishifense, which reﬂected current thoughts on democracy in China; Research on Political Science, published by CASS; The Nineties (HK), discussed the development of Chinese democracy; Zhengming (HK), discussed the development of Chinese democracy (Mok E1998, 8). 8 Su Shaozhi (E1988, 36).

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‘Western’ imports and the Chinese historical legacy. The anniversary of the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978, and the Theory Conference of 1979 were such occasions. Whereas the original, path-breaking Theory Conference had been presided over by Hu Yaobang, its anniversary was orchestrated by the head of Propaganda and spokesman of the elders, Wang Renzhi (the CASS president to be), with the then-President of CASS Hu Sheng as his adviser. Original attendees, such as Yu Guangyuan, Yan Jiaqi, and Wang Ruoshui were specially invited, but they were cautioned against digging up sensitive issues that had caused problems in the past. Others, such as Zhang Xianyang, Yu Haocheng, and Li Honglin, who also had been present at the ﬁrst meeting, were not invited. Ding Weizhi, a newly appointed vice-president of CASS and organizer of the anniversary, had asked Su Shaozhi to make a speech, which to Su’s surprise, however, was altered by Wang Renzhi. Su nevertheless made use of the occasion to air his views on the suffering of intellectuals as a result of the ‘campaigns’ to defend the purity of Marxism. He especially attacked Hu Qiaomu. In turn, Hu Qili and Wang Renzhi forbade the reprint of Su’s speech by the World Economic Herald. To commemorate the anniversary properly, original attendees and their associates, such as former Propaganda Chief Zhu Houze, organized an unofficial meeting that resulted in a compilation of articles entitled Mengxing de Shike (The Moment of Reawakening ƜʦwȔŕ). Dissatisfaction among both conservatives and reformists grew. Economic problems of high inﬂation and administrative problems of corruption and the concentration of economic growth in coastal areas had increasingly caused unrest, in particular among the urban part of the population dependent on state institutions. Consequently, conservative criticism of the economic reforms grew in proportion with the dissatisfaction of reformist intellectuals about the slow pace of political liberalization. The elders forced Zhao Ziyang to undertake a self-criticism for the overheating of the economy, while at the same time his technocratic allies moved away from him. Intellectuals such as Yan Jiaqi and Liu Binyan made demands for an independent judiciary, a stronger National People’s Congress, and freedom of the press, while Yu Haocheng argued for democratic elections, a recognition of universal human rights for all classes, and protection for political minorities. Although the cause of China’s lack of democracy had been sought in China’s feudal and autocratic past, intellectuals such as Hu Jiwei now sought the solutions for these problems in China’s tradition, while leaving aside China’s revolutionary tradition of Marxism-Leninism. Zhang

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Xianyang and Wang Yizhou, associates of Su Shaozhi, even declared the state ownership system and its monopoly on resources as the cause of corruption on the road to a market economy. Zhang rejected concepts of class struggle, dictatorship, and centrally planned economy and began to support neo-Marxist views on an excessive stress on rationality, historical determinism, and mechanicism in classical interpretations of Marxism.9 Proponents of neo-authoritarianism and of democracy It was also in this period that ‘neo-authoritarianism’ (xin quanweizhuyi) became central in debates on political reform between supporters of those who regarded democracy as a condition for China’s modernization and those who believed that democracy could only be introduced effectively after a period of authoritarian rule. The ﬁrst were inspired by the reforms in Eastern Europe, while the latter looked to the four Asian tigers as their model of development. Both, however, explored ways of limiting state power and tried to ﬁnd alternatives for orthodox Marxist views. Neo-authoritarians tended to regard the gradual emergence of a middle class during a period of ‘authoritarian rule’, and the development of a market economy, as a social condition for the introduction of democracy. Without the circumstances for improving the education of the population at large, supporters of neo-authoritarianism foresaw a period of chaos in which a situation similar to the Cultural Revolution could recur. Wu Jiaxiang, a researcher in the General Office of the Central Committee, and members of the Institute for Economic Reform (both under the aegis of Zhao Ziyang) sought to overcome administrative and bureaucratic obstacles that hampered Zhao’s economic reform plans by means of a healthy market. Xiao Gongqin, another well-known proponent of neo-authoritarianism from the history department of Shanghai Normal University, emphasized in terms reminiscent of Confucianism the need for an intellectual elite and an enlightened leader to provide a ‘guiding hand’ in the transition to the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.10 Others referred to Samuel Huntington’s views on the effect of efficient governance and political order in modernization, or to the idealized model of the four little dragons whose success is ascribed to the enlightened and 9 10

Goldman (1994, 271, 273). Xiao Gongqin (E1989, 43).

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strict rule of a benevolent ruler.11 Though the stress on private ownership and the market of the neo-authoritarian approach seems to be led by the liberal ideology of the market, its emphasis on strong leadership is usually associated with neo-Confucianism or traditional modes of ruling. Such a neo-Confucian form of leadership was strongly disdained by the democratic intellectual elite, and by, spring 1989, also rejected by Zhao Ziyang, who feared their radical ‘liberal’ ideas could upset conservative elders. The proponents of ‘democratic reforms’, however, argued that establishing a market economy alone, rather than facilitating a transition to democracy, would lead to an intensiﬁcation of authoritarian rule. Xu Liangying, for example, called it ‘traditional despotism in a new guise’. Similarly, proponents of democracy such as Yan Jiaqi, Hu Jiwei, Rong Jian, and Yu Haocheng believed that only protection against authoritarian rule could create the conditions for a strong democratic leadership. Only such leadership would ensure the political stability necessary for economic growth. Since 1986, reform officials and intellectuals, in particular Yan Jiaqi, Yu Haocheng, and Cao Siyuan had called for a constitution without references to speciﬁc current aims. They had in mind political aims such as building socialism, and political guidelines, such as upholding the Four Cardinal Principles, political ideologies such as Marxism-Leninism, and political leaders, such as Mao or the contemporary communist leadership. In this context, the resurgence of favourable images of Mao Zedong, spread and encouraged through official propaganda channels, enraged reformists. This resurgence encouraged intellectuals such as Yu Guangyuan to argue for stepping up non-official research on Mao’s role in the Cultural Revolution and his part in the viliﬁcation campaigns against his intellectual opponents. By the late-1980s, to both academic advocates of neo-authoritarian and democratic rule, active political engagement seemed the only way to press their demands of rooting out corruption and attaining more support for research so as to accelerate the implementation of further reforms. And to a growing number of democracy advocates, all social classes were meant to be included in this process.

11 Cf. Huntington (1993), and for a critique, cf. Lingle (1997). For Chinese views on the clash, cf. Academic Nationalism, I. 1. CASS (pp. 31–33).

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Increasingly open debate Such non-official views expressed by prominent academics increasingly found an outlet in non-official media such as the journal New Enlightenment (Xin Qimeng) (which was critical of grovelling intellectuals), the café of the Dule Bookstore (Universal Joy Bookstore), and democracy salons (minzhu shalong Ơ̺ǹƅ). The ﬁrst important petition to the Politburo and the National People’s Congress was initiated by Fang Lizhi and organized by the critical writer Bei Dao. The petition asked for the release of political prisoners such as Wei Jingsheng. The second petition was initiated by Xu Liangying and signed by mostly (natural) scientists. It pleaded for political reforms, basic rights for citizens as stipulated in the Constitution, a release of political prisoners and funds for academic research and salaries. The third petition of March was initiated by Guangming Daily journalist, Dai Qing, and the Director of the Institute of the Study of New Subjects of CASS, Su Wei. It was signed by inﬂuential intellectuals such as Yan Jiaqi of the Institute of Political Science and one of the makers of the controversial documentary ‘River Elegy’ (see Chapter 11), Yuan Zhiming. The petitioners wanted to promote political reforms, and did so in the name of patriotism. Though the petitions were censored, their existence became public knowledge. At the same time, students such as Wang Dan and Shen Tong from Beijing University were organizing ‘democracy salons’ and attempted to set off their newly created forum for discussion against the hegemonic ideology of the state apparatus (as they viewed it). One aim was to open a public dispute with the existing political order.12 Though the salons’ audiences only numbered a few hundred at most, they formed a direct exchange between the views of students and prominent academics in the ﬁeld of democratic activism. Around the June Fourth 1989 demonstrations It was the drama of Hu Yaobang’s death on April 15, 1989, that set off the student demonstrations at Tiananmen. That demonstration was a rescheduling of demonstrations planned for May Fourth for the 22nd of April, the day of Hu’s funeral. Funeral rites in China often lend themselves to an opportunity for making political statements. Twelve years

12

Bonnin & Chevrier (1991, 569–593).

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earlier, demonstrations at Tiananmen Square on the occasion of Zhou Enlai’s funeral expressed a political statement against the regime. The 1989 demonstrations started out as public farewell to Hu in combination with criticism of the leadership that had forced his resignation, but it also linked the aims of groups of intellectuals and students and put them into contact with workers, citizens, and soldiers. Their sit-ins and hunger strikes were pleas full of dramatic expression, deeply embarrassing to the leadership.13 The presentation of petitions and negotiations were (serious) acts performed by political actors who seemed to play out all their symbolic cards. Though their politics came across as half-baked attempts at ‘democratic’ organization, they were acted out under great pressure from crowds of expectant demonstrators, the international press, and the authorities. Zhao used the opportunity of Hu’s funeral to push his reform policies, by re-appraising Hu’s theoretical feats, his reform policies, his major role in the ﬁght against the Two Whatevers, in the practice criterion debate, and in his support for intellectuals and science. He also made an attempt to name Hu a ‘great Marxist’ in his eulogy, but failed. The April 26 People’s Daily editorial, referring to Deng’s speech of April 25, depicted the demonstrations as a conspiracy to turn China into another Cultural Revolution and to create chaos by sabotaging the political situation.14 Propaganda images of the Cultural Revolution were used to describe the scenes and atmosphere at Tiananmen Square, and events in Eastern Europe were employed to illustrate a plot against the communist leadership. Initially, the leadership restrained itself from using force. The upcoming meetings of the Asian Development Bank and the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev scheduled for mid-May would bring international publicity to Beijing. It was desirable that nothing would reﬂect badly on the leadership. To maintain supplies for favourable demonstrations, ﬁnancial and material support was provided by branches of the private sector, such as the Flying Tiger motorcycle brigade and the computer company Stone Group, foreign ﬁnancial sources, especially from Hong Kong, and workers organizations, such as the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. The majority of academic proponents of democracy were relatively late in 13

Cf. Esherick & Wasserstrom (1992, 28–66). Editorial in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), April 26, 1989, entitled ‘Resolutely Oppose Turmoil’, April 26, 1989. reads: ‘They circulate every kind of rumour, confusing The People’s attention, to throw the whole nation into disorder, and to destroy the stability and unity of the political situation. This is a planned conspiracy. It is a turmoil designed to negate socialism’ (Mok 1998: 33). 14

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joining the demonstrations. Their main involvement with the demonstrations concerned issuing and signing petitions in support of the demands made during the demonstrations by the students and joining the marches around the square. In the May Fourth petition, justiﬁcations were made for the demonstration by reference to the May Fourth movement’s advocacy of democracy and science, and due consideration for the ‘high quality of the Chinese nation’ was used to argue for implementing democratic elections. In a later stage of the demonstrations, the majority of CASS researchers became involved in the demonstrations, either by means of petitioning or by joining the protests. Among CASS intellectuals, Yan Jiaqi, Su Shaozhi, Bao Zunxin, Xu Liangying, Li Honglin, and Liu Zaifu were especially active, together with their associates Yu Haocheng, Dai Qing from the Guangming Daily, and Su Xiaokang. The official press accused activists of no longer being able to separate their academic work and politics, and they were compared to the Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution. This impeded a constructive discussion between intellectuals and political leadership. Furthermore, some intellectuals underestimated the leadership’s sensitivity. Yan Jiaqi, for example, had said that Stalin and Mao had made mistakes because they were old, and, by repeating their mistakes, had become reactionary. In this way, he made out Deng Xiaoping to be a reactionary too.15 Some CASS scholars, such as the historian Liu Danian, former CASS Vice-President Qian Zhongshu, and the controversial philosopher Li Zehou, whose theoretical work aimed to reconcile the dichotomy between individual subjectivity and social universality, had never even voluntarily engaged in political activities. Now, even CASS President Hu Sheng took a position by signing a ‘Letter of Appeal’ for a dialogue with the students and by refraining from using force. Finally, on May 23, ninety prominent intellectuals set up the Beijing Intellectuals Autonomous Federation. Besides Yan Jiaqi, Bao Zunxin, Li Honglin, Su Shaozhi, and Liu Zaifu from CASS, it included Yu Haocheng and Su Xiaokang. Intellectuals affiliated with Zhao Ziyang’s think-tanks, among whom some were from CASS, participated actively at Tiananmen. In particular, those from the Research Centre for the Reform of the Political Structure (of which Yan Jiaqi had been a member) led by Bao Tong and the Institute of Economics at CASS were full of ideas.16 15 16

My source wants to remain anonymous. Other think-tanks under Zhao Ziyang involved in the demonstrations were the

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Bao Tong’s group, after the reform model of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, emphasized the formation of a new political structure that included workers and intellectuals. In the March issue of Shishi Qiushi, Bao invoked Deng’s August 1980 speech stating that systems were more fundamental than leaders in determining the viability of a political structure.17 Bao Tong also drafted the speech for Zhao Ziyang, delivered before the Asian Development Bank, in which he called the student demonstrations ‘patriotic’. Zhao’s associates and the democratic academic elite now agreed on their demand for a dialogue between the leadership and the students. They also recognized the need for ending the hunger strike and clearing the square without violence in order to continue negotiations on the reforms through newly set up representatives of intellectuals’ organizations, and student and workers unions. And, when on May 19th Li Peng announced the imposition of martial law, attempts were made by Hu Jiwei and Cao Siyuan to persuade the NPC’s Standing Committee of its illegality in the absence of a threat of foreign invasion, domestic armed riots, or natural disaster.18 They failed. The Standing Committee of the NPC could not convene without permission of the Politburo, which the Politburo did not give. Thus the imposition of martial law was not discussed formally. When NPC Chairman Wan Li returned from his visit to the U.S.A. and Canada, he announced his support of the imposition of martial law; other NPC voices were ignored. Constitutional means, therefore, had been unable to prevent the use of force that led to the Tiananmen Tragedy of June Fourth. Some intellectuals believed that to continue the demonstrations and hunger strike on the square ‘until death’, or until the leadership bowed to their wishes, had provoked the political leadership into ‘claiming back’ the square, the now-polluted symbol of Chinese ritual and remonstration. It had provided a rationale for the Party leadership to roll their tanks over it. The ensuing drama was blamed on the negotiating representatives of interest groups, who were claimed to be the instigators of ‘chaos’, and this, in turn, was used to justify their persecution. In the eyes of Party conservatives, such as Chen Yun and Li Peng, intellectuals

Institute for Economic Structural Reform, headed by Chen Yizi, the Rural Development Research Institute, led by Du Runsheng, the China International Trade and Investment Corporation (CITIC), the Beijing Young Economist Association, and proponents of neoauthoritarianism in the Policy-Research Office of the Central Committee. 17 Xinhua, March 14, 1989, FBIS, March 15, 1989, p. 38. 18 Zheng Shiping (E1997, 180–181).

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could no longer be the agents of socialist modernization. Instead, they had turned into a possible threat to long-term Party authority, as they were thought capable of gathering together the various social forces into an effective protest movement. Now, minor requests, such as permission for establishing an independent student union, met with prompt rejection. Most probably, autonomous representation of students, workers, and intellectuals would have given them a more secure organizational basis and a legitimate ‘voice’ for negotiation with the People’s representatives in the Party-state leadership. Such a new conﬁguration of ‘voices’ would have seriously jeopardized both the authority and legitimacy of the Party as the ‘representation of the will of the People.

Leadership changes (1988–1991) The involvement of CASS in the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989 led to a change in the composition of the CASS leadership. This was so because the CASS Party Group had been held responsible for the behaviour of its academics, of whom many took part in the demonstrations. In February 1988, a little over a year since it had renewed CASS’ third Leading Party Group, the CCP Central Committee appointed a fourth. In December 1989, again, the CASS’s fourth Administrative Leading Party Group (dangzu) changed drastically. Hu Sheng was reappointed President, and Yu Wen (December 1989–December 1992), Qu Weizhen, Qian Zhongshu, Jiang Liu, Ding Weizhi (December 1988– August 1990), Liu Guoguang, Li Shenzhi (December 12, 1988–August 1990), Ru Xin, Zhao Fusan (February 1988–January 1990), and Zheng Bijian (July 1988–October 1992) were reappointed as Vice Presidents. During the years to follow, Zhao Fusan (February 1988–January 1990), Li Shenzhi and Ding Weizhi (December 1988–August 1990) were removed from the Presidium for their role in the student demonstrations; they were replaced by Qu Weizhen, Jiang Liu and Zheng Bijian (July 1988–October 1992). In December 1989, the Party Committee was altered, too: Yu Wen was appointed its Secretary General, Qu Weizhen its Deputy Secretary, and Hu Sheng, Liu Guoguang, Jiang Liu, Ru Xin, Zheng Bijian and Liu Qilin its other members. Zhao Fusan, Li Shenzhi and Ding Weizhi disappeared from the Party Leading Group. Upon the declaration of Martial Law on May 20, 1989, then, two out of the six CASS Vice-Presidents, Li Shenzhi and Ding Weizhi, had

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handed in their resignation. Both men had kept their post as CASS Vice-President for just over one and a half years (from December 1988 to August 1990). Ding, a modern historian, had written extensively on the Doctrine of ‘Chinese Learning for Essential Principles (‘body’ or ‘substance’ [ti]) and Western Learning for Practical Use (‘application’ or ‘function’ [yong]) [Zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong], which has been widely used in political and academic debate since the nineteenth-century Westernization Movement. His stance was certainly not that of a radical Westernizer. But in May 1989, he had asked some hundred-and-eighty students to sign a petition to persuade the government to talk to the students and resolve issues through dialogue. His role as ‘organizer’ cost him his position. Neither Ding nor Li wanted to serve under what they felt to be a military regime. They had not been alone. Before June, the CASS building had exhibited banners with reformist slogans from its windows. From June to November, however, CASS’s outer appearance had changed dramatically: the 27th Army used the CASS buildings as a base for controlling the central-city region. The parking lot was ﬁlled with tanks and armoured vehicles, while soldiers occupied the top ﬂoor of the main building. It was a situation greatly deplored by most of CASS’s employees. The removal of Vice-Presidents Li and Ding was not announced publicly until 1990, after the investigative commission had completed its task, although replacements had already been found before the end of 1989: Yu Wen and Jiang Liu. Their job was to discipline CASS personnel, while Zheng Bijian, who had been appointed as vice-president in July 1988, was put in charge of ideology; the two conservative elderly men, Yu Wen and Jiang Liu, were regarded as temporary guards of official ideology, as their age would permit them to stay just until the next leadership change. The two new administrative vice-presidents, Zheng Bijian (July 1988)19 and Jiang Liu (December 1989),20 properly groomed in the Party hierarchy 19 Zheng Bijian [1932–] had served as Secretary to the General Secretary, of the CCP Central Committee from 1981 until 1989. After General Secretary Hu Yaobang was removed from his post in early 1987, Zheng became Deputy Secretary-general of the International Affairs Research Centre under the State Council in 1987, and VicePresident of CASS in 1988. At the same time he was appointed Director of the CASS Research Institute for Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. In 1992, he was to continue his career as Deputy Head of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee and, in 1998 he was made Vice-President of the Central Party School. 20 Before he became Vice-President of CASS in December 1989 [until 1993], Jiang Liu (b. 1922) had been the Chief of the Teaching and Research Section for Scientiﬁc

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and of nondescript academic repute, were not radical in any ideological direction, but had a solid socialist background. On the surface, CASS President Hu Sheng’s career remained unscathed. However, he was criticized behind closed doors for his tacit support of the demonstrations and for protecting some of the activists. And as he had signed the petition demanding a dialogue between students and political leaders, he was accused of indirectly acknowledging the right of the students to demonstrate at the Square. Furthermore, he was thought to have failed to assume responsibility by failing to recall CASS personnel from the Square. It was concluded that CASS had a serious disciplinary problem. Nevertheless, Hu was spared punishment, probably out of respect for his long-standing relations with the Party and his past achievements. Besides, his purge would have caused more problems than it would have solved. Though he was not punished directly, the CASS leadership organization was changed drastically, so that he lost power indirectly: his professional position as CASS President lost authority to the General Secretary of the CASS Party Committee. In December 1989, the Central Committee sent Yu Wen (Dec 1989– Dec 1992) to CASS to replace Hu Sheng as General Secretary of the Party Leadership Committee.21 Yu also took up the post as Vice-President of the administrative presidium. Yu Wen was to organize the inspection commission that would investigate the stance of CASS members during the student demonstrations. Yu had already been retired, but his experience with inspection and management at CAS since the late ﬁfties made him a suitable candidate. His talent in the ﬁeld of keeping order, it was hoped, would facilitate implementation of the new ‘responsibility system’ and restore discipline in CASS. This was desirable because at the time, presidents were thought to be rather too sloppy: the status of the president and his vice-presidents was so high that these eminent functionaries tended not to occupy themselves with daily affairs. The secretaries and vice-secretaries of the leadership groups took care of the daily affairs, Socialism, dean of Studies and the Central Party School of the Central Committee from 1977 to 1988. 21 Yu Wen, in the early years of the PRC, had served with Wang Zhen and Deng Liqun in Xinjiang. He is usually categorized as a conservative. From 1958 until the start of the Cultural Revolution, he served as a Deputy General Secretary of the CAS Secretariat, overseeing the implementation of Party administrative and academic policy. Yu served as CAS’s General Secretary from 1978 until 1983, after which he became executive Deputy Director of the Party Propaganda Department under Deng Liqun.

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a situation that gave the secretaries an important stake in the practical implementation of policies. It was suspected that this arrangement kept the leadership from knowing what was really going on inside their Academy, even when the leaders were taking an interest. This situation was to change in 1991, when the responsibility system was introduced and the leadership structure re-organized: the Party Committee was formally raised to the highest position in the hierarchy of CASS, and its General Secretary became the ﬁrst leader in the Academy. The leadership change and the implementation of austerity measures deprived many academics of the means for expressing their dissatisfaction with the regime. However, there were other, less antagonistic, ways of making life bearable and other means to express aversion. Many intellectuals tried to avoid trouble by working at home. So when the political leaders came down to CASS to prod them on at meetings, many were absent. Scholars stayed at home also to avoid the inspection of their writings. When Qu Weizhen (b. 1929) entered CASS as Vice-President in 1989, he tried to change this situation, but to no avail. From 1983 until 1989 he had been a member of the Standing Committee and Head of the Organization Department of the Hebei Province CCP, where, it was rumoured, he ‘took care of ’ a conservative group of Maoist writers from the literature and art world. Following June Fourth, he would have been ‘awarded’ a job as Vice-President of CASS. Qu had a hard time at CASS, as he was suspected of not being ‘upright’. As a result his policies were resisted by subtle and sometimes childish pranks. When Qu ﬁrst came to CASS in 1989, an inaugural lecture was organized for him in the main lecture hall. A large crowd of hundreds had turned up. President Hu Sheng was the ﬁrst to arrive. Hu lit up a cigarette, and waited. Nothing happened. A little later, Qu came in and lit a match for his cigarette. Immediately someone from the public yelled ‘bu yao chou!’ Depending on its intonation, this phrase means ‘strictly forbidden to smoke -ˉQ’, ‘dirt is unwanted -ˉT’, or ‘no disgrace! -ˉS’22 The audience applauded. Hu Sheng immediately knew something was wrong, not just because there was a ‘no smoking’ sign right behind them. Someone had tried to make Qu feel unwelcome, and had drawn attention to a usually ignored rule against the honourable speaker. But it was Hu Sheng who softly apologized.

22

My source made a point of not revealing the name of the joker.

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Such pestering seems trivial, but in combination with an ongoing power struggle it can thwart the authority of a human target out of touch with his organizational domain. Qu Weizhen had come to CASS, ﬁrst of all, as a Party official and was expected to lead the inspection of ideology. Qu, it was said, had been ‘pushed up’ in the hierarchy, and was sarcastically nicknamed the Emperor on Earth (Tu Huangdi ɛü). As soon as Qu arrived at CASS, things were made difficult for him, as when he claimed an apartment. It was made more problematic than it is usually. Administrators informed him that the housing of CASS was of low quality and ‘therefore unsuitable to a high-level functionary’, and no new apartment blocks were available. However, a three- room apartment was vacant in a dormitory. But as a vice-president, he could only live in a four-room (or bigger) apartment. He took the option of expanding the apartment by adding a room from the apartment next door. An old scholar and his wife were living there. As a result of Qu’s arrival, the couple had to move all the way to Wang Fujing, into a ‘more suitable’ ﬂat. As the story goes, Qu moved into the apartment with thirteen carloads of belongings. Unfortunately for him, the scholar’s wife was old enough not to be afraid of scolding him. She loudly inquired: ‘Who is this Qu Weizhen? You? And you made us move!’ He then knew that he had started off on the wrong foot by having his way with an elderly and respected couple. Qu soon found out that not many of his inferiors felt obliged to attend work meetings, even though their presence was required. It is impossible, academics complained: too many bicycles for too small a parking lot, too many mouths to feed for the refectory, too many people for the elevator to lift (if it worked), and insufficient space for everyone to sit down and drink tea. Qu’s response was to announce changes, and he convened a daily rappel. It was of no avail: the scholars he managed to discover would claim that someone also was somewhere in the building on one of its ﬁfteen ﬂoors. Qu became ill in 1993. Punitive measures At the top of the CASS leadership, the Tiananmen clamp-down had led to a return to the central stage of political power by Party elders such as Deng Liqun, Hu Qiaomu, and Propaganda Chief Wang Renzhi—the future CASS Party Secretary-General—tightening the conservative hold over media and education. At the sixty-ninth Anniversary of the Party Founding celebrations, on the ﬁrst of July, Hu Qiaomu complained about

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the lack of freedom of speech under the rule-of-democracy advocates such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. At the same time, Deng Liqun picked up his former activities in the area of ideology and the media. Yang Baibing became Secretary-General of the Military Affairs Commission, and extended his inﬂuence far beyond his territory by launching another nationwide ‘learn-from-Lei-Feng’ campaign into schools, factories, and intellectual circles. To some intellectuals, such as He Xin,23 Xing Bensi, and Ru Xin the latest turn of events meant that they had bet on the ‘right’ horse in sticking with Party views, despite their various reformist inclinations. Reform policies in the ﬁeld of ideology were reversed in several ﬁelds. This entailed a re-emphasis on ‘class struggle’, the ‘people’s dictatorship’, a ban on views that ‘advocated’ ‘peaceful evolution’, and a subordination of the arts to politics. These trends were reﬂected in the official media, academic journals, and newly set-up academic committees, associations, subdisciplines, and journals, such as Dangdai Sichao (Contemporary Trends of Thought), Zhong Liu (Midstream), and Zhenli de Zhuiqiu (In Pursuit of Truth), and the ban of critical journals such as Studies in Marxism and Marxism in Contemporary China of the CASS Marxism-Leninism Institute. The two authors well-known for their writings on the ‘subjective spirit’, Liu Zaifu, the head of the Institute of Literature, and Wang Meng, the Minister of Culture, were denounced.24 Liu Zaifu was criticized by Zhenli de Zhuiqiu (In Pursuit of Truth) for creating an independent way of ‘speaking for oneself ’, instead of speaking like a mouthpiece of the Party, while Wang Meng’s writing on absurdity, loneliness, and confusion was considered harmful to the People’s spirit. At ﬁrst, it seemed that the arrested leaders of CASS would be released from custody and left alone. But investigations into the behaviour of academics had only just started. As a certain degree of solidarity prevented the institute units from reporting ‘useful’ results, orders were made to report a certain quota of suspects. A number of them were imprisoned, but were released within a few months. It seemed that academics at 23 He Xin, a largely self-taught history graduate of CASS, played an important role opposing the demonstrations. In 1982, he had effortlessly passed the entrance exam of CASS, and became a research-assistant to historian Li Shu [d. 1988]. In the spring of 1989, he made himself unpopular among colleagues and supporters of the demonstrations in the CASS Institute of Philosophy by criticizing the River Elegy group for its cultural nihilism, and by calling Jin Guantao and Liu Qingfeng’s popular systems analysis of China’s history ‘historical metaphysics’. 24 Cf. Lin Min & Galikowski (1999).

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CASS, most of whom had taken part in the demonstrations, were shielding each other. But the work of the newly set-up investigative commissions, led by Qu Weizhen, looked into the past of all suspects.25 His work continued until 1993, when he fell ill and Wu Jiemin took over. The investigation aimed to ﬁnd out who had participated in the demonstrations during June Fourth, their role in the democracy movement, and their attitude towards it. They scrutinized the behaviour of the suspects, their writings, slogans, the people they had seen on the square and their contacts, the meetings they attended, the petitions they signed, and so forth. The group visited each institute. Everyone had to write down his/her view on June Fourth. Each institute’s unit at CASS was also to discuss the actions, whereabouts, and political attitude of other members. The unit leaders reported the outcomes of these meetings to a higher level. Resulting reports were cross-checked with other accounts to catch out lies and to jog leaky memories. According to some academics, an atmosphere of persecution haunted several scholars. The investigation continued for about one year. From CASS, more than two thousand CASS employees are said to have been involved in the demonstrations by taking part in the protest marches, organizing or signing petitions, and participating in the sit-ins at Tiananmen Square. Against approximately 120 of them, disciplinary measures were taken, ranging from imprisonment and dismissal to sessions of compulsory self-criticism and official warnings. In some institutes, prominent academics (especially institute leaders) were put under pressure to condemn dissidents publicly and in writing. In late 1989, a ﬂood of CASS journals carried critical articles on Western nihilism, Bourgeois Liberalization, and other dangers from the West. CASS leaders, such as Hu Sheng and Yu Wen, delivered critical speeches, and political leaders came to visit CASS in order to admonish unpatriotic dissidents, and to talk CASS’s ‘brain-workers’ into following their love of the nation and the Four Cardinal Principles. The leaders who had no choice but to obey the policy of denunciating dissident opinions were tolerated. Controversy ensued, however, from denunciations made by less important academics who were thought to be furthering

25 Wu Jiemin, Vice-Secretary of the Party Committee since 1983, obtained his post through former CASS Vice-President, Deng Liqun, whose protection he enjoyed. After Deng left, he stayed on as one of the two Party Secretaries of the CASS—the other was former Vice-Head of Propaganda Affairs, Yang Ke—that followed Deng Liqun. Both are retired now.

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their ‘own interests’ by jumping into the new ideological vacuum at the expense of those considered to be brave intellectuals. After 1989, leaders of CASS institutes had to continue to be cautious about their academic policies. Those responsible for the Institutes of Philosophy, World History, Modern History, World Religion, Political Sciences and MarxismLeninism needed to be extra alert, as did controversial members of sensitive departments, such as the Documentary Centre’s Vice-Head, Li Huiguo, one of Yu Guangyuan’s associates and research students. Suspension was drawn out, partly as important trials were held longer than one or, sometimes, two years after the event. A number of highly placed academic leaders of universities and highly positioned members of the media were removed from their positions. And, apart from a minority of individual scholars who were punished individually, students were punished as a group. The President of Peking University, the famous mathematician Ding Shisun, for example, was removed along with a score of younger professors and lecturers. Similarly, holders of high positions in the media, such as some at the Guangming Daily, China Youth, Workers Daily and Beijing Daily, were purged. ‘Working groups’ were sent to the following media bodies: the Ministry of Culture, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the Youth League, and the studios of broadcasting units. At The People’s Daily, Director Qian Liren was replaced by Gao Di, a Vice-President of the Central Party School, and most members of its editorial board were replaced by staff from the Liberation Army Daily and regional newspapers of a more conservative hue. Finally, liberal papers, such as the New Observer, World Economic Herald and Economic Weekly were suspended.26 The student participants of the protest largely came from Beijing University and CASS. Most students were from the arts, according to the authorities, because they were the ones most exposed to Western thought. After June Fourth, in these two academic institutes (Beijing and Renmin) control over and pressure on the students increased. CASS was treated relatively leniently. Though the new Graduate students at CASS had to perform labour tasks in Sha’anxi Province for about ten months, students at Beijing University were worse off. First-year students received ‘special treatment’ and were nicknamed ‘Army Trainees’ (Junxunlian ň ʶű) as they had to undergo military training. For this reason students were hesitant about entering Beijing University despite its highly presti-

26

Goldman (1994, 270).

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gious reputation. Furthermore, student enrolment in the social sciences was cut and brought to a halt in the case of MA students in CASS. Before June Fourth, Renmin University’s status was rather low, and its VicePresident, Wu Shuqing (b. 1932), who, though well-versed in socialist economic theory and Marx’s On Capital, used to be ignored. Academics at CASS used to joke about Renmin University and the Central Party School, using a pejorative term by calling them the ‘Chinese Academy of Metaphysicians’ (Zhongguo Xuanxueyuan ̰Ýʱʳ˼) (a word-play on ‘Western metaphysician’ (Xifang Xuanxueyuan ʁʱʳ˼). Now the boot was on the other foot: Wu was promoted to the post of President of Beijing University. His views were weighed more carefully, and the status of Renmin University rose to unprecedented heights. Political attacks were aimed especially at Zhao Ziyang’s think-tanks and advisors, Hu Yaobang’s former network of intellectuals, and advocates of neo-authoritarianism and democracy. The Rural Development Research Institute, the CITIC International Research Centre, and the Institute of Economic Structural Reform were purged, but several leaders, such as Chen Yizi, escaped abroad. Bao Tong, Zhao Ziyang’s former Secretary, was arrested earlier during the demonstrations and his Institute for the Reform of the Political Structure was closed. In 1992, Bao was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for ‘leaking state secrets’. Zhao Ziyang’s case was sensitive, for he was too highly placed to put on trial. Instead, he was put under house arrest. A few members of Hu Yaobang’s former network from CASS took refuge abroad. These people included Su Shaozhi, and Yan Jiaqi and his wife, and some of the makers of ‘River Elegy’, such as Su Xiaokang, Jin Guantao and his wife. Others, such as Li Honglin, Cao Siyuan, and Yu Haocheng, were imprisoned for almost one year. The head of the Literature Institute and associate of Hu Yaobang, Liu Zaifu, at the time was on a visit in Singapore, and the decided to stay abroad. Others from Hu Yaobang’s network, such as Yu Guangyuan and Zhang Xianyang, were removed from their posts. Li Honglin, Bao Zunxin, and Zhang Xianyang from CASS, and Ge Yang were condemned as the drafters of the February 26 petition, which had been submitted by, mainly, natural scientists, such as Xu Liangying. Notably, the natural scientists were left alone.27 The democracy advocates, Bao Zunxin of the CASS Institute of History and student leader Wang Dan, were both arrested, tried in 1991,

27

Miller (1996, 234).

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and sentenced to ﬁve and six years imprisonment, but both were released in early 1993. Wu Jiaxiang, the major proponent of neo-authoritarianism, was tried in 1992 and released. Wang Ruowang, who had been a main target of the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign, was arrested for organizing a ‘freedom-of-expression’ march in Shanghai, together with Bai Hua. He went to America in 1992, where he joined Liu Binyan who was there at the time of the crackdown. Fang Lizhi and his wife Li Shuxian sought refuge in the American embassy, while Fang’s former colleague, Wen Yuankai, lost his job and became unable to publish. Their books were taken out of the libraries and the bookshops.

chapter eight TIGHTENING CONTROL AND THE LIBERALIZATION OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH (1990–1992)

In the mid-1980s, the diversity of political views among intellectuals had progressed. Politically concerned activists organized meetings to stimulate legal reforms, redeﬁne socialism, and explore Chinese and foreign traditions for new modes of governance. Growing dissatisfaction among both reformists and conservatives led to increasingly open conﬂict, which culminated in the demonstrations of 1987 and 1989. For longer than two years after the Tiananmen Tragedy of June Four, the atmosphere at CASS remained oppressive, and attacks were made on bourgeois liberalism, nihilism, and political anarchism, which kept political reformist ideas in the background. At the beginning of the 1990s, the students and teachers at CASS seemed to have lost their political idealism. After the 1989 demonstrations, apart from admonishing intellectuals for making mistakes and encouraging them to follow a patriotic Party line, the political leadership made the administrative leadership of CASS accountable to the newly set-up CASS Party Committee. In December 1989, the CASS leadership group was re-adjusted: Yu Wen (December 1989–December 1992) replaced Hu Sheng as ﬁrst secretary of the Leading Party Committee. The relevance of this switch lay in the structural change planned in CASS’s future leadership and the renewed emphasis on the leading role of Marxism-Leninism in academic policies. In October 1991, the Party Committee (dangwei) was formally raised to the highest level of power and the head of CASS was made to comply with its policies. But it was only after Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour in January 1992 that official interest in the reforms redeveloped. This time, ideas on the reforms were designed in a much more orderly manner. Thus, Party cadres at CASS had to study the speeches of Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour and the reports of top Party meetings—in which delegates from CASS also took part—so that new concepts more effectively took root in the research curricula of the various departments and offices of CASS (as will be shown in Part Four). In other words, a development took place that made possible the transformation of simple bipolar politics and rigid

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factionalism in academic circles to a guided form of freedom. Within these boundaries the competition between a hundred schools of thought was made to ﬂourish.

The primacy of the CASS Party Committee and the ‘responsibility system’ The new regulations of the Party Committee System stipulated the implementation of a new ‘responsibility system’ that made the president of CASS responsible to the leadership of the Party Committee. Thus, the Party Committee Secretary became ﬁrst leader (yi batou ˎɘ) of CASS. This switch ushered in a development in which the Party Committee became more inﬂuential than the Party Group, that is, the administrative leading group. The original Party Group, which had led CASS under the liberalization policies since 1982, withdrew. It was emphasized that the Party Group had been responsible for allowing the demonstrations to occur: it had failed in its duty as ideological and political leader. The reason for its failure, it was argued, was a general slackening of ideological discipline, especially in institutes that had escaped Party control, such as the Institutes of Political Science, Marxism-Leninism, and Literature. Now that the CCP Central Committee had decided to introduce the responsibility system, the weight of power shifted in favour of the Party unit, and reﬂected a reversal to the situation before 1982. At the Academy level, Yu Wen stayed on as General Secretary of the Party Committee, and as Hu Sheng retained his post as President of CASS, he became accountable to Yu Wen. Hu Sheng, Liu Guoguang, Ru Xin, Zheng Bijian, Jiang Liu, Wu Jiemin, Liu Qilin and Wang Wenfeng were appointed as members of the Party Committee. And when Qu Weizhen fell ill, Wu Jiemin took on the responsibility for day-to-day Party affairs. The responsibility system also meant that the leadership at the level of the research institutes became accountable to the Party Secretary of the Institute Party Committee. This, in turn, required the creation of Party Committees in all of CASS’s thirty-two research institutes. The new system of the institutes’ Party Committees and leadership was laid down in the CASS Institute Leadership Work Regulations (Try-Out) of February 12, 1991, and in the CCP CASS Research Institute Party Committee Work Regulations (TryOut) of January 1992.1 They stipulated that heads and deputy heads of

1

YB (1993, 265–266); YB (1993, 267–269).

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institutes are chosen for a period of ﬁve years and for two consecutive periods at most. Following the leadership of the Party Committee, they carried responsibility for academic performance and for the administration. Heads must support the basic guidelines of the Party, and conscientiously implement the directives, policies, laws, and regulations issued by the Party and the state, and every system of regulations introduced by CASS. Deputy-heads of institutes are explicitly deﬁned as aides to the heads of institutes, and are expected to be active especially in managerial tasks for which the head carries ﬁnal responsibility. An electorate of Party members chose the Party Committees of institutes for three-year terms. If necessary, they may be appointed directly by the CASS Party Committee. Candidates must have had their Party membership for at least three years, and were required to be ‘sincerely committed’ to Marxism. The tasks of the Party Committees in the institutes were of a political nature and mainly consisted of implementing Party directives and the responsibility system, strengthening Party ideology, and giving leadership to youth organizations. With respect to decisions made on matters concerning the academic curriculum, and work in external affairs and administration, the Party Committees were expected to study issues related to their political orientation and principles. The task of ideological work referred to teaching ideology in education, comprising patriotism, socialism, collectivism, and morality. Furthermore, the international situation and national circumstances were to be ‘linked up in practice with the struggle against subversion’ (fandianfu µ), with opposing inﬁltration (fanshentou Ȋə), and with peaceful evolution (heping jinhua).2 The implementation of the responsibility system and the ‘twenty-character guideline’ Hu Sheng staying on as academic leader of CASS clearly meant that he would listen more closely to his superiors. Hu made a point of following President Jiang Zemin’s instructions especially. Furthermore, the reorganization of CASS, the restructuring of research work around ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, and ‘Party Construction’ became the main ingredients of his political repertoire in speeches. In order to execute the new policy directives, the political coordination of the highly prestigious research organ of CASS with the political line of the leadership was essential. 2

YB (1993, 267–269).

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In his December 10, 1991, Report to the Work Meeting, Hu remarked that a year before, in late-1990, the Central Committee had pointed out the existence of work problems at CASS. According to the 1991 Work Requirements (1991 nian gongzuo yaodian 1991 ƲÊ͓ˉ), solving these problems would require the implementation of the new responsibility system. Hu Sheng reported its success. For example, since 1990 CASS institutes had set up eighteen new Party Committees and great efforts had been exerted to criticize Bourgeois Liberalization and ‘peaceful evolution’.3 Regarding the task of ‘strengthening the Marxist camp’, a growing number of disciplines now proceeded from the need for ‘building socialism with Chinese characteristics’. For instance, the discipline of economics continued to build theoretical models for the reform of State-Owned Enterprises and the wage system; and, the Institute of Law published a White Book on the human rights situation in China. In the area of foreign exchange, regulations had been implemented in the spirit of documents issued by the ‘National Work Meeting on Foreign Affairs’, such as the Regulations on Issues of Leading Cadres Going Abroad.4 The stated aim of these documents was to improve the planning and management of academic exchange and, for the academics going abroad for more than half a year, an extra one-month course in patriotism and training in foreign affairs had been set up.5 During the Eighth Five-year Period (1992–1997), Hu Sheng announced that CASS was to follow the ‘twenty character guideline’ of ‘ﬁrmly upholding directions, stability and scope, stressing Key Items, raising quality, and improving conditions’.6 In his 1991 speech entitled ‘Sum up Experience and Inspire Enthusiasm to Turn My Academy into a Marxist Stronghold and Struggle’,7 Hu explained the twenty-character phrase: ‘Firmly holding on to direction’ refers to the political direction on which basis Marxism will hold a leadership position in all disciplines; ‘stability and scope’ expresses the stable way in which disciplines are to be reorganized and down-sized; ‘stressing key-points’ is the policy of making the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics the main focus of research 3

YB (1993, 4). Lingdao ganbu chuguo wenti de guiding ƀrº0VÝɵɋwÙ. 5 YB (1993, 5). 6 Jianchi fangxiang, wending guimo, tuchu zhongdian, tigao shuiping, gaishan tiaojian ĘNʖ ɴÙƦɚV̴ɊÀȯǁ¸ǻɐĢ. 7 Zongjie jingyan, zhenfen jingshen, wei ba wo yuan jiancheng makesizhuyi jianqiang chendi er fendou. Hu Sheng’s speech to the 1991 CASS Working Conference. 4

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at CASS, while maintaining the already existing, superior, disciplines; ‘raising quality’ refers to adopting measures in order to raise the political quality of research and its performance in relation to practice; ‘improving conditions’ refers to improving the selection and training of young and middle-aged researchers so as to make CASS a truly reliable advisory body to the CCP Central Committee and the State Council.8

Since everyone passing as a dedicated Party member and academic is supposed to have memorized the 20-character line, they can be referred to and appealed to when assigning responsibility associated with these ﬁve directives. By following the correct guidelines, Hu Sheng asserts, CASS will truly become a powerful aid to the Party Central Committee and the State Council.9 During the Eighth Five-year Period, Hu maintains, it is necessary to pay attention to a number of issues, such as the laws of the development of socialism in China, the construction of a socialist economy, the construction of socialist civilization with Chinese characteristics, strengthening research on socialist democracy and the legal system, the historical lesson to be learnt from the evolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the economic and social developments of capitalist countries after the Second World War, and the main contradictions in new and old patterns of development in the international system.10 ‘In general’, Hu adds, ‘the results of China’s social-science research must strengthen the coherence of the entire nation, and strengthen the belief in, and will of, the entire nation to ﬁrmly hold on to the socialist path, independently and assertively’.11 Hu Sheng ﬁnally advises scholars to take part in free debate, criticism, and self-criticism, while upholding the Four Cardinal Principles and following the Double-Hundred policy. He also advises scholars to stress particularly the boldness of Marxist theory and its superior tradition of criticism and struggle, which allows both the commitment and correction of mistakes, inner-Party solidarity but also solidarity with ‘all patriotic non-Marxist scholar-workers’. Finally, Hu ambiguously recommends the implementation of the Double-Hundred policy, while taking care to emphasize adherence to political discipline and propaganda.12

8 9 10 11 12

YB (1993, 23–24). YB (1993, 5). YB (1993, 6–7). YB (1993, 7). YB (1993, 7).

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In the still-tense situation of 1991, the ambiguity of these statements may have been intentional: officials sometimes would rather reiterate vague jargon than stand out by taking a controversial stance. Even when Hu included ‘non-Marxist scholar-workers’ in his list of groups of people that should be shown solidarity, as long as they are patriotic, he is merely following Jiang Zemin’s May 3, 1990, speech on ‘Patriotism and the Mission of China’s [my country’s] Intellectuals’. In it, Jiang defended the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ policy on Hong Kong and Taiwan, which necessitated the inclusion of non-Marxist patriots into the concept of Chinese people as deﬁned in Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Also regarding the matter of reorganizing CASS, Hu seems mainly to follow official views, invoking President Jiang Zemin’s recommendations. Hu insisted on strengthening the CASS leadership, strengthening the ideological and organizational construction of the Party, and extending the implementation of the new responsibility system to research institutes more thoroughly. Hu also strongly criticized the sixteen institutes that still had not set up Party Committees or elected a Party Secretary, thereby preventing the full implementation of the responsibility system. The tasks and duties of the Party Committee were deﬁned as follows: – giving political leadership to the institute, and grasping the main Party guidelines, directions, and policies; – determining the political direction and main issues and principles in scientiﬁc disciplines; – managing external affairs and administrative work; – taking responsibility for the education, inspection, employment and management of cadres; – strengthening the construction of the Party itself; and, – taking charge of ideological work. Additionally, Hu recommended that work on scientiﬁc disciplines and administration must be carried out under the direct supervision of the head of institute.13 This summary of Party Committee tasks leaves the audience with the impression that the heads of institutes were marginalized. In fact, this is 13 Hu warned that as a result of the implementation of the responsibility system new situations and new problems may occur. The regulations of the new system are laid down in Working Regulations for the Party Committees of Research Centres (Yanjiusuo Dangwei gongzuo tiaoli), and Working Regulations for the Heads of Research Institutes (Yanjiusuo suozhang gongzuo tiaoli) (YB 1993, 8).

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not so, for heads could continue their work as usual. Nevertheless, they had to count on stricter supervision and adjustments, as Party Secretaries and Committees were ultimately responsible for their political orientation. Party members in official positions therefore now had to take their tasks seriously, or, at least give a convincing impression of their ideological sincerity. President Hu Sheng’s warning against the dangers of the ‘wave of Bourgeois Liberalization’ served to channel various political guidelines into the deﬁnition of research directives. Hu and Yu Wen warned against an unbridled spread of corrupt world-views, values, and bourgeois thought that could destroy national stability, and against other erroneous theoretical positions. On the academic front, Hu advised the establishment of a basis for stable research. CASS had to grasp ﬁrmly the following Six Key Research Themes: – The discussion of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (under the aegis of Vice-President Liu Guoguang); – The historical lesson of the evolution of the Soviet Union (VicePresident Jiang Liu); – The contemporary development of capitalism and its internal contradictions (Vice-President Zheng Bijian); – Wage reforms (Vice-President Liu Guoguang); – Patterns in world (political) strategies and the new international order (Vice- President Zheng Bijian); and, – Democracy, freedom, and human rights (Vice-President Ru Xin). The availability of ﬁnancial support and human resources for these projects was guaranteed. All in all, by 1991 Hu Sheng’s tone had mellowed. The satisfaction he expressed with the progress made by CASS institutes in setting up Party Committees, the struggle against Bourgeois Liberalization, and appliedresearch support—all these should be seen in the light of his attempt to steer academic research into a new direction. By introducing his 20character lines for the Eighth Five-year Plan, Hu laid down the general guidelines for the reorganization of academic research. He utilized streamlining and topical management according to the political targets of socialism, national unity, and strength, organized in a key-point research agenda. This policy was intended to reinvigorate CASS as political advisor of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council for the purpose of building ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. This meant CASS

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would gain in political signiﬁcance compared to state bodies, enhancing the chances for support in its resolve to improve CASS working conditions, its reputation, and the research prospects of its employees. Yu Wen and the ‘Work Regulations for Academic Planning’ Yu Wen’s vision when he came to CASS was quite different. This was due to the fact that he had come with a task: to mend the errors Hu Sheng was said to have made as a leader, especially in the areas of ideology and discipline. Since Yu Wen was to stay only for a short period, he could afford to put his message in harsh and compelling terms. Thus, in his December 16, 1991, Report to the Work Meeting of CASS, Yu showed himself extremely grateful to Wang Renzhi, a Central Committee member and head of the Central Committee of the Propaganda Department, and to Politburo Central Committee members Li Tieying and Song Ping. He thanked them for their help and advice in bringing back CASS into a healthy, unadulterated Marxist track of development. After reiterating a list of standard critiques of political trends and developments—imperialism, Bourgeois Liberalization, Party subversion, and national betrayal—Yu also stressed the often-mentioned need for political struggle in the social sciences against ‘peaceful evolution’ and ideological defeatism.14 Yu pointed out the importance of ‘China’s practice’ in social science and philosophy, asserting that the choice of research items reﬂects the ability of ‘linking up research with practice’, and ‘the quality of research’.15 To ensure the correct application of linking practice with research in ﬁve-year and yearly research plans, the ‘Work Regulations for the Academic Planning by CASS Research Institutes (Try-Out Regulations, 6 June 1992)’ carefully outlined the requirements for planning research, for shaping the relationship between research planning and practice, and for the implementation of work regulations. It tightly tied research projects with the process of official planning and the design of political ideology by building in regulatory checkpoints at all Party and institutional levels: Article Three of Chapter One stipulated that the principles on which the planning of disciplines are based must be led by Marxism, as well

14 15

YB (1993, 11). YB (1993, 12; 290).

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as the basic directives and tasks set out for CASS: the principles should reﬂect the material and spiritual civilization in China’s socialist construction; – Article Four required academic work conducted in research institutes to stick to the implementation of the plans for which they are ﬁnanced; – Article Five stressed that planning should be led by the Party Committee under the implementation of the leadership responsibility system;16 – Article Eleven (Chapter Three) instructed the heads of research institutes and the academic committees to base their yearly planning on the demands of the ﬁve-year plans. Furthermore, although the planning of the research offices was to be based on the yearly plan of the research institute itself, drafts of yearplans were to be examined by the institute’s Party Committee and organized by the heads of the institutes. Individual researchers had to choose research subjects from the plan congruent with their specialization but were allowed to submit proposals for new research topics or for withdrawal of old ones.17 The ‘(Try-Out) Regulations for the Management of CASS Research Topics’ outlined the various management systems and regulations for CASS Key Item Research Subjects, CASS Institute Key Item Research Subjects, and general subjects listed in the institutes’ research plans. All research subjects under the research planning of CASS were to turn into State Key Item Research subjects, China Social Science Fund subjects, the Youth Social Science Fund subjects, and the State Science Fund subjects. The research subjects were also to take into account the regulations of the relevant organizations.18 Additionally, Yu recommended intensifying multidisciplinary research, and the improvement of both the research atmosphere and research practice. Some researchers, lamented Yu, are guilty of plagiarism and patching together articles to express crude and extremist views. Other researchers received research money from the State Programme (guojia xiangmu Ýĕʕƫ), the Social Science Fund Programme (sheke jijin xiangmu ȁŒĂįʕƫ) and the CASS Key Item Programme (yuan zhongdian xiangmu ˾̴ʕƫ), and channelled it into their own private busi16 17 18

YB (1993, 280). YB (1993, 280–282). YB (1993, 283–285).

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nesses without completing the tasks they were paid for. Yu rated as especially harmful the situation in which researchers conducted little research and engaged in commercial activities instead. Little did Yu know that the objectionable practice of engaging in commercial activities was to be encouraged by Deng Xiaoping himself early in the following year. Even though engagement in commercial activities by universities had been encouraged officially since the latter half of the 1980s, in an attempt to make educational institutions ﬁnancially autonomous, CASS had been relatively sheltered from the marketplace. At the time, CASS did initiate some money-making activities, such as renting out its office space on the top ﬂoors (including to the World Economic Herald), selling books, and occasionally engaging in paid advisory services. But CASS’s institutional set-up as an academic institute to the State Council with advisory tasks not only did not facilitate commercialization, it had not really been meant to become entirely self-sufficient either. CASS’s capacity for earning money seemed limited, due partly to its comparatively tiny campus, which was not ideal for trading or setting up businesses.19 Furthermore, personnel employed by disciplines with limited practical applications, especially in the humanities and the arts, were practically excluded from accumulating extra funds. But there were also ideological motives for discouraging business activities among academics. When Yu Wen expressed disdain for commercial practices, he made a mental link between crime and business. This may have been due to a fear of the blurring of the distinction between the official promotion of bona ﬁde trade to promote ﬁnancial autonomy, and the unofficial illicit exchange of goods and resources. Trading of scarce resources and positions, and the use of office space, teaching, and reproduction facilities for illicit purposes became a source of great worry (and jealousy) to academic administrators and leaders. Another overriding concern to Yu was the ‘unbridled expansion’ of disciplines in CASS. The only way to correct this trend, Yu argued militantly, was the ‘deﬂation of the swelling’ (xiaozhong ʘ̳ [detumescence]). He maintained that each work unit had to carefully assess the size it required for its ‘battalions’, i.e., the number of ‘soldiers and generals’; the quality of troops (‘crack troops’ or ‘stray soldiers after defeat’); the political character and academic level of ‘generals’. In some units, argued 19 The grounds of the Graduate School, the location where students of CASS roam, cover only 3.14 ha (47 mu).

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Yu, reducing the work force to a third of its size would go unnoticed, or improve its functioning. This was because some units, according to Yu, harbour people who have not worked for years but nevertheless occupy apartments and use other scarce resources. The only way to deal with this situation, Yu concluded, was to apply the principle of the ‘survival of the ﬁttest’. By means of strict leadership management, it should be possible to ﬁnd ways to reorganize personnel and lay off the ‘inferior elements’. In order to rectify the inferior political atmosphere and to establish a team spirit, it is important, Yu argued, citing Party Politburo member Li Tieying (and later CASS President), that the ten-plus units without Party Committees mend this situation and also implement the responsibility system. Yu also drew a parallel between the work of the Party Secretary and Committee and that of an Army Commander. The Party had a very good tradition, Yu claimed proudly: it was characterized by respect and mutual support, division of labour, and co-operation. In CASS, Yu concluded, with its over 3,000 Party members and over 260 Party branches, Party Committees and Secretaries only needed to correctly grasp the work of Party construction to fully inﬂuence its functioning.20 In sum, in his December 16, 1991, Report to the Work Meeting, Yu Wen waved the ﬂag of discipline, did his utmost to show the goodwill of the political leadership toward intellectuals, and made clear the need for regulation to steer social-science research away from ‘peaceful evolution’ and ‘ideological defeatism’. Yu lamented the commercialization of academic research and the misdirection of academic funds, and recommended a thorough disciplinary clean-up. He advocated ‘deﬂating the swelling’ that had resulted from the ‘unbridled growth of disciplines’, reorganizing disciplines on the basis of ‘survival of the ﬁttest’, implementing the responsibility system, and holding on to tight rules of disciplinary order.

Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour For more than two years after the Tiananmen Tragedy, the atmosphere at CASS remained oppressive: attacks on Bourgeois Liberalization, the emergence of neo-Maoism, Party building, and ideological discipline

20

YB (1993, 13).

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kept political reformers in the background. After June Fourth, Deng Xiaoping to a certain extent lost power to the left. The Radical Left had organized itself around Deng Liqun, and formed its own opposition policies within the Party openly. It was said that by letting go of his ‘protection belt’ (Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang), Deng had ‘cut off his right arm’. Furthermore, international developments in communism put the Dengists under pressure: from March until November 1990, the Chinese leadership looked on with great suspicion as communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed, one after the other. Some ‘Leftists’ concluded that it was up to China now to take the burden of leading the World Revolution. During his speeches in 1990 and 1991, Deng on several occasions had shown his concern about the slackening of the economy at home, rather than concern about the international situation. He also shocked ‘Leftists’ by claiming that markets were not peculiar to capitalist countries, nor was planning peculiar to socialist countries. One article in the Liberation Daily, by Huang Buping, predicted disaster, if China did not deepen the reforms, set up a commodity economy, and emancipate its thinking. In the same vein, another article claimed that the market and planning were just means for distributing resources, and not for making a distinction between capitalism and socialism.21 In his April article, Huang Buping even dared to demand democracy for arranging the election of cadres with ability and integrity.22 He opposed the ‘corrupt attitude’ of ‘If it’s OK, then it’s OK, if it’s not OK, it’s OK too; if it’s not OK, it’s not OK, if it’s OK, it’s not OK too’, and publicly argued for placing true reformers in power. Even though it was well-known that Huang expressed the thoughts of Deng Xiaoping, a group of critics agreed to jointly attack the article for ‘propagating capitalism’. The attacks were published in Contemporary Trends of Thought and other journals such as Pursuit of Truth (Zhenli de Zhuiqiu), Midstream (Zhongliu) and Seeking Truth (Qiushi). In the latter half of 1991, a renewed attack on ‘peaceful evolution’ and a call for class struggle spread in Peking journals. The articles emphasized the correct nature of the reforms, the Four Cardinal Principles, and the necessity of only introducing reforms from abroad if they are necessary to the development of production forces in Chinese circumstances. They argued that extra attention was to be paid to ‘the mobilization of the 21 Huang Buping (Gaige kaifang xuyao dapi decai-jianbei de ganbu), Jiefang Ribao 22 April 1992, quoted in Ma Licheng & Ling Zhijun (1998, 172–173). 22 Ibid.

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People’, their ‘enthusiasm for socialist construction’, and to guard against ‘mosquitoes and ﬂies slipping in when the windows are open’.23 In the midst of these attacks, Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Inspection Tour Talks that took place from January 19 to 23, 1992, put an end to doubts about the direction of the economic reforms, and reaffirmed the policy of ‘Deepening the Reforms’ and ‘Opening Up’.24 The talks he made in Shenzhen became known as his Southern Talks (nanfang tanhua ƯɃö) and were later spread as Document No. 2.25 In them, Deng expressed the view that a GNP growth of four or ﬁve percent was too slow for a developing country, and called for a further liberalization of thought and development of production forces. Another important move was Deng’s claim that Leftist thinking had hampered the reforms. One form of expression of this Leftist thinking was that it always inquired whether ‘someone’s name was ‘socialist’ or ‘capitalist’.26 Such ‘inquiry’ could refer to, for example, the question of whether certain reforms were capitalist or socialist, or, the view that abolishing collectivism and planning are the same as asking for capitalism. Having the wrong view of reform could earn you a label that could work against you. By deﬁning the history of the PRC in terms of opposing ‘peaceful evolution’, i.e., slow and gradual change of the sort that occurs in capitalist societies, and Bourgeois Liberalization, only ‘class struggle’ had become politically correct according to critics in Leftist’ circles. Other articles asked about the new meaning of socialism, thus questioning the clarity of Deng Xiaoping’s establishing ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. This query led to a situation in which anyone who insisted on further reforms ran the risk of being accused of Bourgeois Liberalization among so-called Leftists’. On the other hand, what here are called ‘Leftists’ is also a label applied by those in favour of further liberalization of State-Owned-Enterprises (SOEs) and a free market. Of course, among these were ‘unscrupulous, corrupt and greedy cadres and capitalists’. The discussion seemed to get stuck at a stage of mutual labelling. A major problem was that it was not clear who was going to beneﬁt from market liberalization: the state and the bureaucracy or the people with low incomes. This vagueness, in turn, was a result of a taboo on discus-

23

Ma Licheng & Ling Zhijun (1998, 168–179). Deng Xiaoping de nanxun jianghua zʙǁwƯʵĥö. 25 See, CCP Central Committee, issued on February 28, 1992. 26 Inquired whether someone’s (a thing’s) name (label) was ‘socialist’ or ‘capitalist’ (wen yi wen xing ‘she’ xing ‘zi ɵˎɵʨ‘ȁ’ʨ‘ͅ’). 24

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sions that make an effective distinction between the interests of the two groups, which, if actually made, would have undoubtedly led to a discussion on the necessity of democratic reforms. Now the discussion was limited to that between mainly ‘Leftists’ and ‘Rightists’ and other radical groupings from which the Party-state distanced itself and which it tried hard to ignore. While Deng was ‘refuting’ his ‘Leftists critics, he tactfully explained that the People had to watch out for both left and right. The Right was capable of burying socialism, Deng said, but despite its glorious history, the ‘Left’ was capable of doing the same. Deng further argued that ‘China must guard against the Right, but most importantly must forestall the Left.27 Deng deﬁned as ‘Leftist’ the view that the reforms and Opening Up attract the development of capitalism, and the view that the main danger of peaceful evolution derives from the economic ﬁeld. He especially argued against the ‘mistaken idea’ that more foreign investment means more capitalism, and that ‘the growth of foreign, private, and joint ventures (sanzi Ƕͅ) means the growth of capitalism’. Instead, he asserted that the accompanying increase in taxes, wages, information, and technology were to beneﬁt socialism.28 Before his Southern Talks, the stock market of Shanghai, set up in 1990, was very quiet, as the public did not trust it (some did not even want to have free shares as it could cause people to draw the wrong conclusions). During the months after the Southern Talks, however, propaganda favouring the stock exchange, notably Document No. 4, was followed by a booming stock market in late May.29 It encouraged spreading the policies of opening up from the coast to other areas, investment into the ‘backward’ hinterlands, and the exploitation of opportunities for estate agencies and overseas’ investors. President Jiang Zemin’s visit to the Central Party School on June 9th conﬁrmed Deng’s Southern Talks as the new policy for reconstructing the economic system, and called it a ‘socialist market economy’.30 At the same time, the resolution for establishing a socialist market economy ended a long-standing debate and was added to Deng’s theory of establishing ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. The phrase ‘Socialism 27

Zhongguo yao jingju you, dan zhuyao shi fangzhi ‘zuo’ ̰ÝˉĻń‘˫’o̺ˉ ̩‘͑’. Ma Licheng & Ling Zhijun (1998, 195). 29 Document No. 4, Guanyu jiakuai gaige, guangda kaifang, lizheng jingji geng hao geng kuai de shang yi ge xin taijie de yijian (Views speeding up the reforms, opening up further and working hard for the economy even better and faster onto a new stage) (Ma Licheng & Ling Zhijun [1998, 201]). 30 Socialist market economy (system) (shehuizhuyi shichang jingji tizhi ȁĀ̺˕Ƞ?ĹďɌ̬). 28

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with Chinese Characteristics’ originates from a political slogan used in the late 1980s and functioned much like a shibboleth, i.e., its interpretation revealed someone’s true political colour, and the ‘correct’ colour could open closed academic doors. After 1992, the phrase served as an instrument for exacting conformity, rather then as a tool for elucidating political contents.31 Ironically, ﬁve years later, the phrase was declared to be part of ‘Deng Xiaoping Theory’. In contrast with his 1978 speech, which argued for abolishing the Two Whatevers from the point of view of philosophy, Deng’s 1992 speech emphasized economic reforms. This change made a great difference to the kind of restrictions placed on, and support given to, intellectuals during the remainder of the 1990s. The policies associated with Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour were repeated by Jiang Zemin and considered to be ‘the establishment of a socialist market economy’ in his speech to the Fourteenth National Party Conference in October of the same year. They emphasized the unique development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, the need for economic reform (especially the strengthening of production forces), the need for Chinese autonomy and international peace. They emphasized these needs while importing and using foreign investments and knowledge, national unity, and the system of ‘one country, two systems’.32 All cadres were made to study Deng’s Southern Talks. Deng’s view that ‘Leftists’ were more dangerous than right-wingers brought ideological relief to a majority of CASS researchers but also promised large changes in the jobs and social- security situation of the entire academic system. At ﬁrst, the Talks were kept within the Party (neidang ưq), but some CASS staff members had participated in Central Committee Party meetings and leaked the news that Deng had said that subjects such as ‘moral education for young people’ and ‘guarding against peaceful evolution’ were no longer of great importance. Jiang Zemin had to follow suit. Prior to Deng Xiaoping’s speech, Jiang had been at the Central Communist Party School to lecture on the collapse of the Soviet Union and peaceful evolution. This talk had been published twice by Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily). After Deng’s Southern Talks, when Deng’s and Jiang’s views revealed discrepancies, Jiang had no choice but to elaborate on the ideas of Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour as much Party power had returned into Deng’s hands. As Deng’s 31 32

Cf. Cherrington (1997, 180). Ma Licheng & Li Zhijun (1998, 211–213).

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health had started to deteriorate, Deng’s Southern Talks became much like his last political testament. This was disadvantageous to the Left, and the Radical Left faction of Deng Liqun had started to lose clout. At this point, the majority of the Party was organized around Deng Xiaoping, and followed Jiang. Even though this faction, too, was politically conservative in its rejection of political reform, the Jiangists were quite adamant in their resolve to continue the policy of Reform and Opening Up to the outside.

chapter nine DEEPENING THE REFORMS (1993–1998)

With the greater freedom of discussion in academic circles in China since Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour, the role of intellectuals in China has become increasingly diversiﬁed. The idealist intellectuals of the 1980s, such as Liu Binyan and Wang Ruowang, have been accused of not taking off their socialist glasses. Thinkers such as Wang Ruoshui had stuck to Enlightenment thinking and rationalism. However, the quests pursued by reformers of the 1980s made it possible for the sixth generation of intellectuals to step outside the establishment and become extremely critical of officially sanctioned ideas, of one another, and also of their idealist predecessors. These intellectuals were more advantaged and better educated than earlier ones. Chinese traditional thought, critics argued, was based on optimism, on reason as a universal cognitive and moral expedient for political judgement, and it regarded history as a globally teleological process based on ‘reason’. Radicals such as Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, and liberals like Hu Shi had criticized the Confucian legacy through Western Marxism and scientism. But now, the premises of Western Enlightenment thought, i.e., scientiﬁc reason, historical necessity, modernization toward an ideal society, seemed to overlap with traditional ways of thinking. By not radically opposing the autocratic elements in the political system, intellectuals were criticized for selling out their ideals of democracy and liberalism. Nevertheless, during the late 1980s, awareness grew that too much conﬁdence had been placed in the intellectual’s role in reforming society, and that there was too little awareness among intellectuals about the lopsided interdependence between state and intellectuals. Some intellectuals, such as Wang Meng and Gan Yang, started to stress self-doubt and cynicism about the ability of humans to alter society. Critical scepticism and reﬂection on the role of the subject in intellectual inquiry challenged the principles of Enlightenment modernity. The privatization of belief also was essential to the formation of a reﬂexive ‘self-awareness’, which was no longer deﬁned by the state or the Party. Though many intellectuals still attempted to construct an ideal realm in order to reconcile dichotomous oppositions, others rejected the utopian legacy associ-

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ated with historical materialism, and rejected the wholesale approach of social revolution in favour of gradual evolution. Traditional antagonistic opposites have tended to make place for synthesis, not as mutually exclusive but as inclusive, complementary, and supportive. These syntheses included private versus public, market versus state (planning), Western versus Chinese, revolution versus evolution, and socialism versus capitalism. As a result, academic approaches to society no longer contrasted radically in their interpretation of the world, but rather are distinct in highlighting different aspects of it. This trend, as will become clear in the next chapters, was much easier to accommodate than the former radical intellectual approaches to the reforms. This chapter shows how under the newly implemented ‘responsibility system’, described in Chapter 8, an increasingly mild Party Committee leadership adopted state policies in the organization of research. The policies of ‘Deepening the Reforms’, ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, and ‘Party Construction’ are examples of such state policies that CASS scholars worked on under the supervision of Party Committees but under their own initiative in the areas of economics, law, political stability and ideology.

Shaping the ‘Deepening of the Reforms’ and ‘Earning Money’ at CASS The change of political winds brought a change of academic policies at CASS. After a signiﬁcant drop of new student recruits at the Graduate School, the school was expected to ﬁrmly apply itself to recruitment work in 1993.1 Even though, especially in the latter half of the 1980s, the link between graduate research and the reforms had been stressed, in practice, research students were found to stray from the political spirit of assigned topics. According to a decision made by the Central Committee on the reform of the educational system, in 1987, the State Education Committee (guojia jiaowei Ýĕħɪ) published ‘Temporary Regulations Concerning the Evaluation and Selection of Key Item Academic Disciplines’.2 A selection of 416 Key Item subjects had been provided for 1 Doc No. 2 of the State Education Commission (May 13, 1992) agreed to the resumption of recruitment. About sixty research students would be allowed to start studying in 1993 (YB 1993, 327). 2 ‘Temporary Regulation Concerning the Evaluation and Selection of Key Item Academic Disciplines’ (Guanyu pingxuan gaodeng zhongdian xueke de zhanxing guiding Ò˭ǂ ʲÀy̴ʳŒw̅ʥÙ) (Wu Benxia 1993, 31).

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PhD students. It was decided to establish a national laboratory for ‘focus item research’, and 120 of the 416 focus-point plans were adopted and partly ﬁnanced by the World Bank.3 In this way, it was thought, students could partly earn their own research expenses. However, when students turned out to obstruct rather than facilitate state-led research, new plans were made to augment Party authority over the spiritual education of the students by both modernizing facilities and improving the selection of a smaller number of talented students. During every second half of the year, a recruitment plan was to be completed for MA and PhD students for the next year. Tutors were to advance student recruitment plans consistent with the courses actually taught and in conformity with the agreed teaching plan.4 Furthermore, teaching was to be reorganized, streamlined, and disciplined. The meeting of the CASS Party Committee and CASS Academic Affairs Committee on May 23, 1992, convened by Yu Wen, formally accepted the proposal of grouping the thirty-three disciplines at CASS into six modules: philosophy, economics, international relations, law, literature, and history.5 The students of various modules jointly follow the same courses, and the Graduate School established a curriculum with chairs for Marxist basic theory, foreign languages, and computer science. It was decided that the method of managing students had to improve, in particular, that of second and third year students. They were to join research projects, and positively join in academic and social activities. Organized planning had to ensure that students would engage in work-study activities by dispatching them to teaching or editing jobs within or outside the academy,6 assigning them tasks, or engaging them in consultancy services. They were to be given a ‘suitable’ compensation in order to strengthen their sense of social help and instil them with an independent spirit, while at the same time easing their and their families’ ﬁnancial burden.7 After Deng Xiaoping’s conﬁrmation of the reforms and opening-up policies, Yu Wen was forced to revise his former dismissive views of scholarly engagement in paid activities. In fact, Yu joined the wave of enthusiasm for Jiang Zemin’s speech at the Central Party School, the affirma3

The loan received exceeded a hundred million US dollars (Wu Benxia 1993, 32). Students had complained that instead of announced courses teachers preferred courses that had become part of the unofficial curriculum. 5 Outline of the meeting of the CASS Party Committee and CASS Academic Affairs Committee, May 23, 1992, convened by Yu Wen (YB 1993, 25). 6 Work-study activities (qingong-jianxue ǓÊĝʳ). 7 YB (1993, 25). 4

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tive spirit at the Politburo, and an all-Party, all-Nation wave of enthusiasm for Deepening the Reforms and Opening Up. Yu wanted all institutes to write essays about the new policies from the point of view of their respective disciplines. Though Yu now supported the establishment of a socialist economy, he did put forward some qualiﬁcations. Because CASS is an academic unit, he argued, ‘deepening of the reforms’ must not be interpreted narrowly as setting up companies or engaging in trade. CASS’s core tasks continue to be the enrichment of science, and advising the Central Committee and the State Council.8 One way CASS could engage in economic activities, he argued, was by becoming more efficient: reforming and improving CASS’s appointment system, improving its research teams, ‘smashing the system of ‘small but complete’ (xiao er quan ʙǠ)’,9 and adjusting the logistic organs of the academy and its institutes. In order to maintain its core activities, however, CASS had ‘to face society and engage in paid consultancy services’, and justify a ‘regular engagement in activities resulting in earned income’ (chuangshou huodong [ȣā). The March 30, 1992, report to the Central Propaganda Department by the CASS Party Committee provided an estimation of CASS’s possibilities for money-earning activities.10 The Management Bureau of CASS was to execute a separation between management and consultancy activities so that newly set-up companies as part of CASS could be compensated for consultancy internally but work for pay externally. Setting up economic entities was another possibility. For instance, the creation of ‘humanities companies’ (renwen gongsi ǦɲÌȴ), publishing companies, and social-science hotels, could be used to earn income for CASS. Furthermore, consultancy companies could provide information services concerning ‘unfolding social developments’, which could be useful to commercial enterprises. These lines of thought were found consistent with the ideas of the Central Committee about the development of the tertiary industry and the practical reality of CASS as a pre-eminent 8 Comrade Yu Wen’s speech on the Great Superior Party Member Award Meeting at the occasion of the First of July Anniversary of the CCP, on July 1, 1992. (YB 1993, 16–18) 9 ‘Small but complete’ refers to the practice by small units (or departments) of gathering complete equipment and facilities for themselves. It is one form of departmentalism (benweizhuyi). 10 ‘Report on the situation at CASS around the transmission, study and thorough implementation of the important talk of Deng Xiaoping’ Ò˭ɷ˾XgʳʄÖFzʙ ǁɕ̴̪ˉɃöǗŜwÁ.

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provider of intelligence. Several documents were issued by CASS that stipulated and enforced regulations concerning money-earning activities at CASS, and an Earning Income Small Group (chuangshou xiaozu [ȣʙ͐), under the leadership of First Party Secretary Long Yongshu, was to guide the planning of earning activities as a whole.11 When Yu Wen expressed his desire for all Party Committees to adopt a positive attitude, and sincerely study Document No. 5, issued by the Central Committee, the matter of ‘earning-income activities’ was as good as decided.12 Contrary to appearances, ‘earning-income activities’ did not refer to the odd amount of money earned by poorly paid researchers. The activities were fully regulated, and meant to beneﬁt both the collective Work Unit and the individual researcher.13 The May 26 Document, ‘On Some Work Regulations of the Research Institutes for Accepting, Entrusting and Developing Consultancy Service’, spelled out a list of conditions under which academics were permitted to engage in consultancy work. The document allowed small numbers of people to engage in consultancy work, as long as it did not interfere with the academic work of the institute. If associate-researchers engaged in consultancy work for over half a year, and full researchers for more than three months, a report had to be handed over to the personnel affairs bureau; and, no one was to be separated from their post for over one year. Leaders and deputy leaders were not allowed to engage in consultancy service.14 The task of collecting consultancy fees and management costs was entrusted to the Work Unit. It was used to encourage research workers to shoulder responsibility and to replenish the collective welfare costs of the institute. The proportion of money received by the consultant and the institute was allocated on the principle of dealing with the individual and the collective, the more you work, the more you get,15 and was negotiated by the two parties.

11

YB (1993, 18; 27). YB (1993, 18). 13 Work Units at CASS are institutions linked up with the research institutes, and have important ﬁnancial functions. The Unit’s ﬁnancial department manages ﬁnancial resources received from the State, market activities and other ‘Earned Income’ activities, including compensatory consultancy work (YB 1993, 287, under ‘Temporary Methods for the Management of Social Science Enterprise Unit Financial Affairs’). 14 YB (1993, 279). 15 Geren yu jiti jiangu, duo lao duo de ÅǦŇĊɌĚÑŢv. 12

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In October 1991, CASS had set up a new CASS Party Committee, which was closely involved in education and ﬁnancial work. In 1993, the fact that most power of formal decision-making in CASS was concentrated in the Party Committee (dangwei) began to be felt, and CASS leaders started to earn a reputation as Party bureaucrats. This change in decision-making was expressed in the change of leadership in 1993, but it may also have been due to the fact that leaders increasingly stepped in from state organs, such as the Propaganda Department.16 In the Party Committee change of 1993, Jiang Liu, Qu Weizhen, and Liu Guoguang were replaced by Wang Renzhi, Teng Teng, Wang Luolin, Liu Ji and Long Yongshu (February 1993). Ru Xin was the only one who stayed on. Wang Renzhi (b. 1933) was appointed General Secretary of the Party Committee, and Teng Teng and Long Yongshu were appointed Vice-Secretaries. The post of head of the Party Group was still ﬁlled by Hu Sheng, and Wang Renzhi became responsible for dayto-day affairs. The most important positions in CASS (the posts of First and Vice-Secretaries of the CASS Party Committee) were now ﬁlled by Wang Renzhi, Teng Teng, and Long Yongshu, who were all new to the leadership.17 It has often been claimed that, during the ﬁrst ﬁve years after the June Fourth demonstrations, the leaders sent to CASS have been particularly leftist or conservative. However, a leader such as Wang Renzhi does not even resemble a radical Leftist.18 The leadership probably had wanted to prevent rebellious subversion by either the left or the right. The position of ﬁrst vice-president was taken by Ru Xin (b. 1931). Liu Guoguang, a famous economist, who had been CASS vice-president from 1982 onwards, was removed in 1993. A long-time conservative, 16 The 1990s generation of academic leaders, it is claimed, has little academic background. Qian Zhongshu (b. 1910), a leader of the second generation, is commonly considered to be a ﬁrst-class researcher and erudite scholar, being schooled in both the natural and social sciences, and English. The new leaders who received their education in the 1950s and 60s are thought to have had inferior schooling. 17 See YB (1998, 378–379) for details on their work division. 18 Wang Renzhi, a graduate of Renmin University, served as director and research fellow of the Policy Research Office of the State Planning Commission from 1978 to 1982. From 1978 to 1982 he was deputy editor-in-chief of The Red Flag, and from 1982 to 1987, he served as permanent Secretary of the Economic Research Centre under the State Council. In 1987, he became Head of the Propaganda Department of the CCP CC, and a Secretary of the CASS Party Committee.

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Teng Teng (b. 1930) was made CASS Vice-President by the State Education Commission (guojia jiaowu Ýĕħɿ) in 1993.19 Another Vice-President, the economist Wang Luolin (b. 1938), used to be Deputy Head of Xiamen University, and Vice-President and Secretary of its municipal CCP.20 Vice-President Liu Ji (b. 1935), who had served as deputy-head of the Shanghai CCP Propaganda Department, was on close terms with President Jiang Zemin,21 and was known as a political heavyweight of a liberal hue.22 He was counterbalanced by Vice-President Long Yongshu, who was known as an ‘Ultra-Rightist’, and also new to the Presidium of CASS in 1993. CASS leaders and state policy-making The role of CASS leaders and experts in state policy-making at home is concentrated in the areas of economics, law, political stability and ideology. Social science has an important role in setting up a market system, outlining the legal reforms, and supporting the policies of the Central Committee of the CCP. For example, the CASS leadership supported the research Report ‘On the Great Way of Thinking, the Great Principles, and the Great Framework of the Socialist Economy’, which attracted the attention of the CCP Central Committee. Leaders try to make CASS 19 Teng Teng graduated from the Chemical Engineering Department, Qinghua University. From 1980 to 1984, he served as Vice-President of Qinghua University, after which he served as Vice-Minister of the SSTC (1986–1987). In 1986, he became Deputy Head of the Propaganda Department and, in 1987 he became Vice-President to CAS and President of the Chinese University of Science and Technology. In 1988, Teng ﬁlled the post of Vice-Minister of the State Education Commission, and in 1993, he became Vice-President of CASS. 20 Wang Luolin, a graduate of the Economics Department of Beijing University, taught in the Economics Department and Department for International Trade at Xiamen University, where he also served as Vice-President until 1993, when he became VicePresident of CASS. In 1987, at the Thirteenth National Party Conference, he was chosen alternate member of the Central Committee, and at the Fifteenth National Party Conference he was made a full member. 21 Cf. Gao Xin (1997, 198–233). 22 Liu Ji, a graduate from the Power Machinery Department of Qinghua University, where he studied from 1979 to 1983, served as deputy director of the Shanghai Research Institute of Sciences, after which he served as vice-chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Association of Science and Technology until 1988. From 1988 to 1991, he was deputy head of the Propaganda Department, CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee. Afterwards he was director of the Shanghai Municipal Office for Restructuring the Economy from 1991 until 1992. Liu is said to have been hand-picked by President Jiang Zemin to serve as his ally in CASS.

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Research Item Projects harmonize with official policies. Thus, scholars involved in research surveys and analyses concerning the Chinese economy, society, and the international situation and trends are keen to draw the attention of the leadership.23 Zhongnanhai, the heart of policymaking, regularly calls CASS leaders to meet and discuss current policies. For instance, the heads of the Institute of World Economy and Politics, Yu Yuanyang and Wang Luolin, participated in a meeting convened by (current) Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to discuss the Ninth Five-year Plan and the Long-term Plan for 2010 in Zhongnanhai on March 11, 1995, and on May 2, 1995. Wang Luolin met with Wen Jiabao again to discuss the development of a collective property system as part of the system of ‘multiform economic identities’.24 Wang Luolin’s position gave him the opportunity to hand over a report to the Central Committee on March 28, 1996, warning that the economy during the next ﬁve to ten years may be in danger.25 The Institute of Law played an important role in designing a new legal system, and Wang Jiafu became especially inﬂuential. In October 1994, Li Tieying reported back to a meeting of the Financial-Economic Office, the Science Research Office, and the State Council Research Office of the Central Committee, on which occasion he introduced Wang’s study on ‘a legal system for the socialist market economy’.26 On January 20, 1995, Wang Jiafu was invited to Zhongnanhai to talk with Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, and Liu Huaqing of the CCP Central Committee to discuss issues on the establishment of a legal system. In 1996, Jiang Zemin officially acknowledged the merit of Wang Jiafu’s work concerning the issue of ruling the country by law.27 CASS also played a main role in making possible the reuniﬁcation of Hong Kong with Mainland China. On January 23, 1997, the Institute of Law completed the draft of the basic law of Hong Kong in agreement with the theory of ‘One Country, Two Systems’. President Jiang and the CC of the CCP had assigned this research task to the CASS Institute.28 With regards to border-region issues, policy-makers consult a range of CASS institutes. Research into border regions plays an important 23 1994 CASS Work Meeting Documents. Hu Sheng’s work report to the CASS workmeeting, dated February 21,1994: Looking back onto 1993 [YB (1995, 6–7)]. 24 YB (1996, 387, 399). 25 YB (1997, 411). 26 YB (1994, 383). 27 February 8, 1996. (YB, 97, 410) 28 January 23 1997. (YB, 98, 406)

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role in providing theoretical and historical background to policy-making. For example, in 1993, the Academy’s General Office (bangongting) and the Research Centre of the History of Border Region Areas organized the Conference on ‘Research into a Stable Xinjiang and Developmental Issues’.29 Several official organizations were present. They included General Research Offices of the CC (the Propaganda Research Office and the Military Research Office and others), the Chinese International Friendship Association, the International Strategy Research Fund, and the Military Academy of Science. On this occasion, CASS Vice-President Liu Ji gave his opinion on the relationship between academic research and leadership decision-making. Such multi-organizational meetings occur frequently, and also touch upon strategic and developmental issues. For example, on January 31, 1997, the Border Region History Centre and CASS jointly organized a symposium on ‘strategic issues on development strategies of stability in contemporary Chinese border region’. More than thirty representatives attended, including representatives from high level policy-making organizations such as the CCP Central Committee, State Council committees, and the Military Affairs Department.30 CASS plays a supportive role in the area of creating socialist theory. CASS has held many conferences on Deng Xiaoping Thought and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. CASS has also published important works on socialism, such as that of ‘Research on the Foreign Socialist Track’, ‘Thought and Political Choices on China’s Economic Development 1991–2010’ and ‘Thought and Proposals on the Establishment of China’s Cultural Market System’. Furthermore, CASS President Hu Sheng in 1994 published works on ‘Mao’s two most important feats’ and the meaning of socialism. In the ﬁeld of propagating patriotic research, CASS has made important contributions. For instance, on February 8, 1995, Teng Teng took the initiative in organizing a conference with reference to studying Party Secretary Jiang Zemin’s ‘Continue Struggling to Stimulate the Completion of the Uniﬁcation of the Motherland’,31 and Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Peaceful Uniﬁcation, One Country, Two Systems’ (heping tongyi, yiguo liang zhi æǁɗˎˎÝŵ̬).32

29 30 31

October 29, 1993. (YB, 94, 384) YB (1998, 407). Wei cujin zuguo tongyi daye de wancheng er jixu fendou ɨeĳ͏ÝɗˎiˍwɞJĒʯ

¥. 32

YB (1996, 387).

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By holding international conferences and organizing joint-institutional discussions on international politics and economics, CASS exerted inﬂuence on official policies, though it is hard to estimate precisely its inﬂuence. For some academic works and scholars, their efforts have inﬂuenced their political decision-making. Some works were officially recommended by Jiang Zemin. As for some important academic leaders, they were invited to important political meetings, consulted, or asked to accompany decision-makers on trips abroad. On September 18, 1993, for example, Wang Renzhi and Liu Guoguang accompanied President Jiang Zemin on an international research meeting concerning ‘the market economy and China’;33 and, Wang Luolin attended the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ high-level platform meeting on the Hong Kong economy, just before hand-over on May 25, 1997.34 Furthermore, conferences on speciﬁc themes channelled useful ideas to the leadership and brought them to the attention of politicians, often sparking new discussions on ideology. For instance, CASS Vice-President Teng Teng on April 19, 1994, convened a large meeting on Russian issues. It discussed ‘seeking truth’ (zhenli de zhuiqiu ̕ťẃǙ) with regards to ‘the nature of the Soviet Union’s economic reforms’. It was decided, that ‘the lessons learnt from the changes in the former Soviet Union’ were important enough to the theory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics to set up a new Russia Research Centre at CASS. CASS scholars also functioned as a link between the authorities and the public, as their alleged impartial representation of the national situation would enable them to do. They could conduct research into topics that politicians could not easily handle, such as corruption.35 Conferences, such as that on May 5, 1994, one on ‘Sino-Japanese criminal corruption by public functionaries’, were favourable to the image of the Party, as it gave the impression of a sincere effort to combat corruption. Thus, the conference opened with a speech by Ru Xin on the ﬁght against corruption. Furthermore, scholars have a role as informed guides to possible investors from Overseas. For example, on July 14, 1994, Teng Teng attended a meeting on the economy of China’s Western region convened by the China Poverty Relief Fund Association (zhongguo fupin jijinhui ̰Ý° ƾĂįĀ).36 Researchers from Hong Kong were made familiar with con33 34 35 36

YB (1993, 382). May 25, 1997. YB (1998, 415). YB (1995, 407). YB (1995, 410).

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ditions in the poor West. Three days later, Guo Yongcai went to Sha’anxi to ‘investigate the economy’ and attend meetings. Again, on August 2, 1994, a meeting of the ‘CASS Small Group on Poverty Relief ’ was held, at which Long Yongshu and Guo Yongcai explained the situation of the West to an audience. Among those attending were specially invited representatives from Hong Kong and Taiwan.37

State policy-making and research: spreading the message CASS leaders not only lead, they are also led; and, more often than not, they function as the representatives of policy makers, and spend much of their time conveying and explaining messages from the top to the lower levels of the academic hierarchy. Some leaders get invitations to attend CCP Central Committee meetings, or are elected to attend important conferences, such as the National Party Conference. There they are expected to listen attentively, to make notes, and to take back to CASS distributed documents. Back at CASS, they convene their own leadership meetings at which they invite higher-level Party cadres and scholars. Some of the meetings are meant for attendance by heads of institutes only, while others are aimed at cadres and academics above a certain level of the hierarchy. The attending leaders, in turn, take back the new message in the form of instructions, regulations, documents, and so on, back to their research offices. There, the messages are studied and discussed at meetings organized for that purpose. Many attendees of such meetings have felt forced to feign interest when they get bored. But in order to enhance one’s chances of continuing a successful career, showing some enthusiasm for one of the more interesting issues can serve as a future asset. Some policies are expected to have an effect outside CASS. In such cases, CASS is expected to invite external organizations to participate in discussions and campaigns. In order to improve the system of submitting information for propaganda, the deputy head of the Propaganda Department, Di Taifeng, convened a meeting on how to respond to the requirements of Li Ruihuan and the CCP Central Committee Office (zhongban ̰) (August 14, 1992). The meeting concerned alterations in the Requirement List of Information and Materials in the System of Propaganda.38 Tai Qiming, the deputy 37 38

YB (1995, 411). Xuanchuanhua xitong xinxi ziliao xuyaomu ʰXɲõʅɗʡʂͅźʫǙˉƫ.

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head of the CASS General Office (bangongting Ìɒ), participated and conveyed the message to other CASS leaders. Afterwards, Wu Jiemin convened a meeting with the CASS General Office, Scientiﬁc Research Bureau (keyanju ŒʺŃ), and the Personnel and Education Bureau (renshi jiaoyuju Ǧțħ˸Ń) to convey the information from the Propaganda Department down the academic hierarchy.39 Of wide reach and deep inﬂuence were the frequently held studymeetings on Deng’s Southern Tour and Jiang Zemin’s talk at the Party School. They illustrate the various ways in which the lessons to be learnt from attending study-meetings are passed on to researchers: – By means of training courses, study meetings and debate; – Through meetings for CASS Party Committees, (higher level) Party officials, Party members, those responsible for CASS Units, and at meetings that discuss CASS affairs by extracting wisdom from the Southern Talks of Deng Xiaoping; and, – By means of indirect references, such as through quotations from Deng Xiaoping’s speech; through meetings on theories attributed to Deng Xiaoping, such as the ‘the theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics’; discussions on other topics claimed to be inspired by Deng Xiaoping, such as establishing a socialist market economy; and, meetings organized around publications of studies about Deng’s works. Another example of encouraging the link between official policies and the engagement of researchers is the propaganda distributed as a result of the Fourteenth National Party Conference of 1992. As usual, messages followed a top-down course from CASS representatives at the Conference, cadre meetings at CASS, the distribution of Documents on the 14th National Party Conference, and the organization of study-meetings. These meetings were attended by the Party-secretaries of the research institutes, and the heads of institutes so as to ensure that Key Research Topics can be designed on the bases of the spirit in which the newly distributed documents are written. For another example, Yu Wen, Liu Guoguang, Zheng Chengsi and Guo Yongcai were chosen as representatives of the Fourteenth National Party Conference on June 18, 1992. A few months after the Fourteenth National Party Conference, on October 24, CASS held a cadre meeting of approximately one thousand participants in the spirit of that confer39

YB (1993, 333).

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ence. The meeting was used to convey the policy lines of the Fourteenth National Party Conference, and to delegate tasks to study-groups. On October 27th, a group of the experts at CASS were reported to have applied themselves to studying the documents of the Fourteenth National Party Conference. Ru Xin pointed out that putting the information in the documents into practice was even more important than studying the information. On that occasion, the heads of research institutes and Party Committees also made speeches at the Fourteenth National Party Conference. Some of the documents delivered at the Fourteenth National Party Conference were prepared or drafted by research groups of CASS, such as proposals for the creation of a socialist market economy, or proposals for streamlining the organization of the bureaucracy and ﬁghting corruption. Some of the guidelines designed by CASS got back to CASS itself for implementation, though not always in the form originally intended. Thus, the guidelines for Deepening the Reforms not only served as a point of departure for further research, but were also meant for application within the research system of the CASS institutes themselves. For example, plans were made to reorganize the administration, ﬁnancial regime, research programmes, and personnel affairs; research institutes were, at least partly, to become ﬁnancially autonomous by marketing their ‘intellectual products’. This was to help departments, other than those concerned with economy and language studies, to ‘liberate a number of unproductive elements’ from their jobs. The case of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics After attending the Second Plenum of the Fourteenth National Party Conference, CASS Vice-President Ru Xin, on March 11, 1993, organized a meeting dedicated to work for CASS cadres of ministerial (fubu) rank and above. The purpose of the meeting was to convey the Plenum’s spirit and its message on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.40 On September 17, 1993, Wang Renzhi made arrangements for setting up a research group to establish a research-centre for the theory of, again, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’.41 On January 31, 1994, Wang Renzhi opened the above-mentioned Research Centre for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and announced that the centre would be com40 41

March 11, 1993. (YB 1994, 375). YB (1994, 387).

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posed of twenty-one members.42 On March 18, Wang officially opened the Centre’s ﬁrst meeting, which was attended by Vice-Presidents Ru Xin and Liu Ji. Central to its discussions were topics in the ﬁelds of the economy, politics, culture, ethnicity, and international theory. In March 1994, Ru Xin attended a meeting convened by the CCP Central Propaganda Department on the establishment of spiritual civilization, its planning, stages and purpose and practical measures.43 It was no coincidence, therefore, that in May 1994 Wang Renzhi convened the ﬁrst Study Conference of the CASS Party Committee on ‘What is socialism and how to establish socialism’.44 Vice-President Guo Yongcai attended a CASS meeting on spiritual civilization in June 1994 to spread the spirit of a Central Committee meeting he attended on the same subject. He expressed his intention to establish a unit on work concerned with spiritual civilization.45 During the next month (July), Vice-President Teng Teng promptly opened a meeting of the Small Group for research into issues of the Socialist Track (shehuizhuyi genzong ȁĀ̺˕Ç͊).46 In October, again, Ru Xin communicated Jiang Zemin’s speech at the Fourteenth National Party Conference (Fourth Session) and, on October 23, more than ﬁfty scholars attended a national conference on Deng Xiaoping’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. At this conference, discussions were held on the reform of State Owned Enterprises (SOE), private companies, and the distribution of national income.47 From the CCP Central Committee and its Propaganda Department, a great number of meetings seem to have been intended for conveying messages on establishing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics to the different institutes under CASS. Sometimes only a few institutes were sought out for instructions. For instance, on August 29, 1995, Ru Xin convened a ‘responsibility’ meeting for leaders of the Institutes of Philosophy, Marxism-Leninism, History, Literature, Foreign Literature and World Religion to convey the spirit of the meeting he attended at the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee on the same subject.48 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

YB (1995, 402). YB (1995, 405). YB (1995, 409). YB (1995, 409). July 27, 1994. (YB 1995, 411). October 17, 1994. (YB 1995: 416); October 23, 1994. (Ibid.) August 29, 1995. (YB 1996, 391).

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When, on February 19, 1997, Deng Xiaoping passed away, the occasion was used not only to organize movements for mourning Deng Xiaoping, it also served to draft documents on his theoretical thought. CASS leaders participated in a large Party Committee meeting on the subject, after which CASS Vice-President Long Yongshu transmitted to every Institute Party Committee Secretary the spirit of the documents drafted for the Central Committees of state and Party organs.49 On the occasion of Deng’s mourning ritual, attended by twenty experts, workers, and representatives of CASS, Ru Xin expressed his gratitude: the workers of CASS had been able to develop social science thanks to Deng’s leadership. If there had been no ‘Practice is the only criterion of truth’, socialscience research work would not be ﬂourishing, and there would be no reforms and opening up today.50 This ritual added emotional strength to the message conveyed by Deng Xiaoping canons. The general Secretary of the CASS Party Committee, Wang Renzhi, called on CASS members to study the works of Deng.51 Subsequently, on March 18th, the Research Centre for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, led by CASS Vice-President Liu Ji, convened a meeting on Deng’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.52 At the Fifteenth National Party Conference, the cycle of messages started once more, and the four CASS leaders who had been elected to attend the Conference (Ru Xin, Wang Luolin, Zheng Chengsi, and Zhou Hong) resumed their courier services. To be more precise, the message was spread even before it had been created! Assured of the success of the Congress, on July 22, 1997, CASS invited a share of its experts to study Jiang’s talk at the Party School in 1991. The meeting was presided over by Long Yongshu, who welcomed the victory of the Fifteenth National Party Congress in August.53 On September 19, 1997, again, scholars were invited to discuss the implementation of the spirit of the Fifteenth (Wang Renzhi, Ru Xin, Long Yongshu, He Bingmeng) and the historical status and inﬂuence of Deng Xiaoping theory, the ﬁrst stage of socialism, the various forms of collective ownership, the stock market system, reform of the political system, and the culture of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.54 And on September 22 the meeting 49 50 51 52 53 54

February 19, 1997. (YB 1998, 407). February 22, 1997. (YB 1998, 408). February 22, 1997. March 18, 1997. (YB 1998, 410). July 22, 1997. (YB 1998, 420). September 19, 1997. (YB 1998, 424).

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of the CASS Party Committee discussed the Fifteenth National Party Congress, and how to ‘communicate the message of sincerely studying, propagating, and putting into practice the spirit of the Great Fifteenth (shiwu da Ȓɽi).55 Discussions on corruption and social order followed a top-down procedure. Party deputy-secretary Sun Jingchao took charge of the discussion on strengthening macro-regulation and control at a report meeting of the CASS Party Committee, and conveyed the spirit of a document drafted by the CCP Central Committee. The document is especially concerned with the situation outside the Party. Therefore the leaders of political associations and democratic schools were asked to attend. Participants talked about strengthening and improving national macroregulation and control, and economic issues.56 During the year of anticorruption struggles, instruction meetings followed each session: at the cadre meeting of the all-CASS Party of August 5, 1993, the Central Committee’s Politburo supplied documents that carried instructions on the general principles of social order. Over 700 CASS-Party members above the level of associate-professor (and non-academics, above the level of vice-head of office (fuchu)) participated.57

Academic work under the aegis of Party Committees After the change of the leadership system and the introduction of the responsibility system in 1991, work on political ideology by the Party Committees became closely linked with academic leadership. On the level of research institutes, administrative deputy-heads now were constitutionally obliged to answer to heads of institutes. And heads of institutes were obliged to answer to the Party Committees, rather than to the highest CASS administrative leadership. On the highest level of the CASS hierarchy, the CASS administrative leadership was to answer to the CASS Party Committee. As a result, the president and the heads of institutes, up to a certain level, were all to comply with Party Committee policies. Now that the power reach of the Party Committee was raised above that of the president, the president was made responsible to the Party Committee and its general secretary for the behaviour of their sec55 56 57

September 22, 1997. (YB 1998, 424). YB (1994, 380–382). August 5, 1993. (YB 1994, 380).

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retaries and vice-presidents, and was forced to take a keener interest in daily affairs. Nevertheless, in practice, this arrangement may fail when Party authority is not recognized. For instance, although President Hu Sheng was compelled to answer to the CASS Party Committee and its Secretariat, he never really acknowledged Yu’s authority as its general secretary. Hu Sheng, however, did make a point of following Jiang Zemin’s instructions. The reorganization of CASS, the restructuring of research work around ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, and ‘Party Construction’ became the main ingredients of his political repertoire in speeches. The use of phrases, adages, and propaganda against Bourgeois Liberalization and corrupt views supported these, but the implementation of the responsibility system compelled the leaders of institutes to observe Party guidelines. The Policy of Deepening the Reforms in 1992 led to a further elaboration of the economic reforms and a reorganization of CASS personnel and organizational structures. In the 1990s, it became increasingly clear that CASS leaders did not only lead, but also were led. More often than not, they functioned as the representatives of policy makers, and spent much of their time conveying and explaining messages from the top to the lower levels of the academic hierarchy. The role of CASS leaders and experts as state advisors was redeﬁned and became especially pronounced in the areas of economics, law, political stability, and ideology. The CASS Research Item Projects made it possible for researchers to become a signiﬁcant inﬂuence in official policy-making, albeit a small, supportive one. Compared to the 1980s, their advice became more systematically structured and less directly involved in political struggles at the top.

chapter ten WHO WORKS AT CASS AND WHY?

This chapter discusses how the state has maintained the image of an academically prestigious institution, and kept its political inﬂuence over the research agenda without losing all of its academic researchers. In other words, how do academic leaders, political guidelines, the research interests of academic leaders, and the academic initiatives from the lower echelons of the academic hierarchy combine with the material conditions and mental stimuli available at CASS? The chapter especially concerns the material and intellectual circumstances enjoyed by members of CASS in the period of the reforms to the turn of the millennium. Though the pressure of ideological education has diminished, the work of academics at CASS is increasingly subject to regulation and academic guidance. Academics have also begun to enjoy much less income compared to academics in some prestigious universities and compared to other professionals in general. So why did scholars keep on working for CASS? This chapter traces the changes in the circumstances under which scholars do their work, and how and why these circumstances have changed. I also maintain that the methods of selection of personnel, promotion, and organization of research have changed over time, having led to a more stable working environment and a prevention of the difficulties that formerly occurred with recalcitrant scholars and leaders. Additionally, I show that the state as an employer can provide advantages that other work providers cannot. I open this chapter with a short discussion of student recruitment at CASS. After an initially high demand for post-graduate students, CASS started experiencing recruitment problems in the late 1980s, which would develop into a recruitment crisis in the 1990s. This contributed to a crisis in the recruitment of research scholars, as the number of elderly scholars was also rapidly dwindling and as talented young intellectuals increasingly sought a career elsewhere. On the basis of an analysis of living conditions, the system of promotions, and the ﬁnancial problems of CASS, I attempt to explain various considerations academics have to take into account when making decisions to remain at CASS or to leave.

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In 1980 the prestigious State Council Academic Degree Committee (guowuyuan xuewei weiyuanhui Ýɿ˾ʳɮɪ˼Ā) was established to design and control the regulations on graduation in China.1 In the period of 1981 to 1985, it was decided that to improve the quality of research students. Before their entrance examination, the students had to deliver a report on their work experience.2 The State Education Commission (Guojia jiaowei Ýĕħɪ) and the State Council Academic Degree Committee insisted upon the moral training of research students. For the training of an upright character, students were to rely on their tutor, as the most inﬂuential person, and on the Party. Students were minimally required to follow classes, to discuss the subject matter studied, to apply self-examination and to take exams. As a general requirement, the research of graduate students was to be related to the state’s scientiﬁc research items, though at the same time ‘independence of research’ and ‘creativity’ was to be stressed.3 In 1979 some scholars still believed that it was unnecessary to adopt a grade system, but as its absence tended to form an obstruction to the smooth regulation of foreign exchange programmes, the three-grade system (bachelor, master, doctor) was adopted in the 1980s. A debate ensued as to whether the grading system should be linked to politics. Those in favour argued that in Western countries graduation was attached, implicitly, to politics, for in some countries, people with a serious criminal record could not obtain a degree. As a socialist country, however, China clearly had to stipulate the political conditions for graduation. In this way, ‘we can encourage them to be both red and expert, protect socialism, the Party and the Four Cardinal Principles’.4 The relationship between politics and academic research was problematic from the start. Rather than leaving this link undeﬁned, the State Council insisted on making morality and political attitude part of the graduation system. Formal grading was important, but did not imply great differences in income. This situation would continue to be relevant to CASS as a state-organization controlled by the State Council, though not by other institutions of higher education and research. 1 2 3 4

Wu Benxia (1993, 8). Baokao ő: to give a lecture and take an exam. Wu Benxia (1993 22–23). Wu Benxia (1993, 5–6).

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After 1989, however, reforms and reorganization would make regulatory means, rather than political education and propaganda, crucial in academic political steering. Recruitment problems In the ﬁrst half of the 1980s, CASS had no problem ﬁnding good researchers. At the time, tertiary education was regarded as a means of enhancing one’s career opportunities, as university graduates were assigned jobs with favourable career prospects by the state. Once assigned, job security was virtually guaranteed until retirement. By the mid-1980s, however, the link between higher education and state jobs started to erode.5 On the one hand, the emerging market economy and the ‘smashing of the iron bowl’ threatened the normality of providing students with job security with the state. On the other hand, the lack of choice in job assignment, and the emergence of better-paid jobs and challenges in the ‘free’ sector of the economy suppressed the number of students willing to take state jobs. In the 1990s, the Graduate School of CASS had problems recruiting new MA students. From 1990 until 1992, it took on no more MA students and only two in 1989, compared to a yearly average of 175 recruits during the preceding decade. However, during the two years mentioned, permission for the recruitment of students was not even given to CASS.6 Nevertheless, even when political problems are not taken into account, the problem of recruiting willing and talented students did exist: in the period from 1993 to 1998, an average of ﬁfty MA students was taken on yearly. By contrast, the number of new PhD students grew steadily from a total of twelve in 1983 to 140 in 1998.7 The reason for this increase in PhD students was that many of them were introduced to CASS indirectly, through other educational and government institutes, whose personnel was expected to acquire certiﬁcation matching the status of their post. Not surprisingly, therefore, the average age of PhD students was over thirty-ﬁve. Generally, one of the reasons for CASS’s difficulty in attracting students in the 1990s, in particular good ones, was that academic life was not offering attractive prospects for work. Salaries at CASS were low. The monthly basic income of staff members in 1998 amounted to about 5 6 7

Cf. Cherrington (1997, 61–62); Mok (1998). YB (1993, 327). Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Yanjiushengyuan Yuanqing Bangongshi (1998, 151).

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1,000 RMB, though salary varied with ranking. Indeed, it was exactly because to most students earning money was of paramount importance that graduate students gave the following employment priorities: ﬁrst, going abroad; second, working for a foreign company or a joint venture; third, working for the Party or in political organs; and fourth, staying on at CASS. Obtaining a position at CASS had become easier for academics in the sense that most informal rules for applying disappeared and requirements were lowered. More so than before, it was emphasized that candidates were accepted on the basis of their qualiﬁcations, argumentation skills, and acumen in interviews. However, the leadership also considered the applicant’s political attitude. Those who participated in the June Fourth movement, for example, or engaged in activities that ran counter to academic research policies were not taken on. Regulations stipulated that ‘incorrect appointments’ contested by the masses can be reversed after consultation with a vice-president and, if a decision violates regulations related to the state or the academy, a motion of appeal can be submitted with the Appeal Commission of Academic Affairs.8 In short, recruitment problems at CASS partly resulted from the limited prospects for a good career, low income, inadequate working conditions, and new academic and political requirements.

Working conditions at CASS (1989–1998) Conditions of living and teaching, and career opportunities in CASS did not improve as fast as they have in universities such as Beijing or Qinghua University. Because of problems regarding housing, quality of staff, salaries, and uncertainties about its future role, CASS had become comparatively unattractive to ambitious career-makers. CASS, and therefore the state too, was burdened with state-managed enterprises, state medical provision (guofei yiliao Ý£ˏŸ), and housing.9 As rent was 8 See chapter 6 ‘Supervision and Inspection’ (jiandu jiancha ėě;) of the CASS Work Regulations of the Evaluation Committee of Expert and Technical Professions, Article 2 and 3 (YB, 1993, 278). 9 Capital investment into housing in 1996 was 38,420,000 RMB, against 3,080,000 RMB into scientiﬁc research. From 1987 until 1996, capital investment into scientiﬁc research was roughly one eighth of that for housing (Long Yongshu, ed., Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Nian Nian (TwentyYears of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan, 1998, 97).

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very low, it did not substantially increase CASS’ revenue. Health-care expenses exceeded the budget, and the number of pensions paid out was growing fast. The majority of research fellows were in their ﬁfties, some in their forties, and only a few in their thirties. In 1993, for example, the number of staff employed by CASS was 4,683, but it had to look after 1,654 retired academicians as well. The total number of wage- and pension drawers, therefore, came to 6,337 (excluding the entitlements of families of the pensioners). In 1995, the total number of staff over the age of sixty was one hundred eighty-nine, while over ﬁve hundred staff members turned sixty in 2000. Vice-President Long Yongshu feared, therefore, that CASS would have a total of seven thousand personnel by the year 2000, as the yearly number of pensioners kept on increasing with one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty persons a year, while on average only about twenty members passed away.10 In addition, replacements had to be appointed for retired staff. Fig. 2. Numbers of personnel and professional staff (1977–1998)11 Year

1977

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

Total number of personnel

2,277 4,865 4,820 4,683 4,384 4,119 3,919 3,811 3,767

Professional staff

1,700 3,907 3,822 3,674 3,471 3,210 3,083 3,022 2,975

Fig. 3. Increase in medical costs (1991–1993)12 Expenses in RMB: Medical expenses

1991 2,252.000

1992 3,176.000

1993 4,500.000

Medical expenses also grew at great speed. The medical expenses of the Institute of Philosophy, for instance, totalled approximately 70,000 RMB per year, but some individuals, especially elderly scholars, needed four times that amount. Moreover, the unit looked after the families of around 150 of its elderly personnel. Additionally, a number of staff members were driven around in expensive cars, lived in big houses, went to expensive hospitals, and received high-level medical treatment. Thus 10 Comrade Long Yongshu’s Speech at the Work Conference of CASS, February 22, 1994 (YB 1995, 30–35). 11 YB (1992, 99). 12 Comrade Guo Yongcai’s Speech at the Work Conference of CASS, February 22, 1994 (YB 1995, 36).

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the state institute’s budget was being ﬁnancially drained by the increasing costs of facilities such as education, health-care, and housing. In comparison, the campus of Beijing University opened up to competition as early as in the latter half of the 1980s. Enterprises thrived, factories mushroomed, and lucrative shops were crowded for space. Beijing University (Beida) has a proud claim on having produced many eminent leaders for a century. Some Chinese scholars liked to compare ‘Beida’ to ‘Oxbridge’. In the 1990s, however, most of the distinguished leaders of the CCP were from Qinghua University and from Shanghai Communications University (Shanghai jiaotong daxue). Beijing University in the 1980s acquired a reputation of being rather liberal and being strongly represented in the social sciences. Not many leading cadres (gaogan) graduated from Beijing University, although some, such as Hu Qili, reached the Party top.13 It became increasingly expensive to enter Beijing University as a student. In 1998, students had to pay at least 2,500 RMB for following one main course and 4,000 RMB for multi-course studies. At the same time, the salaries of professors at Beida increased rapidly. By contrast, working conditions at CASS were comparatively poor in the 1990s. The number of CASS personnel shrank by nearly thirty percent. CASS had only a tiny campus so it was not capable of renting out much space.14 Nevertheless, some of its top-ﬂoor offices engaged in commercial activities. The giant advertisement for SAMSUNG on top of the main CASS building, instead of the logo of ‘CASS’, seemed to symbolize the lack of ﬁnancial resources for China’s most prestigious social-science research institute. Furthermore, research institutes had to acquire official permission and exert many efforts to forge special deals about the conditions under which ‘foreign friends’ were allowed to acquire knowledge at CASS. Efforts to make CASS more attractive to newcomers (students, Chinese and foreigner scholars) only gradually took effect. Promotion, beneﬁts and facilities at CASS The longer scholars stayed at CASS, the harder it was for them to leave, for they built up advantages accumulatively. In the decisions whether to accept another job outside CASS, they had to weigh the conditions of the new position against the increasing beneﬁts offered by CASS at 13 Hu Qili (b. 1929) was designated Hu Yaobang’s successor, but he fell together with Zhao Ziyang after the June Fourth. 14 The grounds of the Graduate School only cover 3.14 ha (47 mu).

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old age. At the same time, however, the decisions to stay on at CASS might mean continued exposure to the evaluation system, which over the years had become increasingly strict. The system of evaluation upon which promotion was based had consequences for the nature of academic work and also placed demands on the quality and quantity of its delivery. At the end of the year, an examination (kaohe őå) committee and professional-title-and-promotion (zhicheng jinsheng ̤IĴȌ) committee convened to assess the work of the scholars.15 In CASS the appointment committee (pinweihui ǀɪĀ) constituted twenty-ﬁve members of whom the majority were ﬁrst-grade research fellows. To secure an adequate position, one out of ﬁve of the committee members had to belong to a different work unit; for example, members of work units had to belong to Beijing or Renmin University. Because high posts at CASS were in demand, the state determined that in universities and educational organs the higher positions (professors and associate professors) must not exceed twenty-ﬁve percent. This meant that a large and prestigious institute, such as the Institute of Philosophy, had only ﬁfty high posts out of a total of two hundred positions, while a small institute of lower reputation had the same percentage of positions. Many CASS scholars found this unfair, as CASS was believed to harbour a high number of outstanding researchers, who could all easily snatch away the high positions from less reputable institutes in the country. There were many relatively low-grade researchers with a long publication list at CASS. In the second half of the 1990s, in the Institute of Philosophy, there were thirty applicants for the post of full-professor every year. But only three to ﬁve were appointed each year. Sometimes only one out of ten, or, in extreme cases, one out of eighteen, succeeded. The applicants must have possessed the status of associate professor for at least ﬁve years, that is, unless their achievements were outstanding, in which case they could apply after only three years. This practice was termed ‘exceptional promotion’ (poge’r tisheng ǃÄɊȌ) and had become quite rare. Every year there were people who retired at the regular age of sixty, or withdrew, changed units, or were laid off, so new vacancies did appear.16 But since the total number of desired vacancies was decreasing, 15

YB (1999, 3). Though the normal age of retirement is sixty, lately, it has become possible to stay on for two more years if in cases of professors that tutor PhD students. Some stretch this extension to the age of sixty-ﬁve. 16

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and because assistant professors were becoming more ambitious, lower posts were becoming increasingly difficult to ﬁll. Promotion entailed receiving extra comforts. Academic grading corresponded to a small increase in salary and an increase in the size of one’s apartment. The system of hierarchic privileges applied to, for instance, salary, house size, the grade of the car one was driven in, and the hardness of one’s seat or bed in train or plane. The size of the house of an assistant professor, for example, was at most 53m2, and that of a professor 76m2. Rent was nominal. CASS still had many three- and four-room houses, but most other academics only had two-room ﬂats. They were in great demand. At the end of each year, some scholars took part in an evaluation of the housing situation and decided on the distribution of houses among thirty institutes and many bureaucratic units. It was regarded as a frightful task, because the competition between the institutes for housing was ﬁerce. Each scholar frantically calculated the points received for their institute’s merits, status, and achievements and claimed their rightful share. A percentage of housing was given to each institute, and then points were given to those who deserved most to be given housing within the institute. Some say that nepotism and favouritism reigned. It was said, for example, that when, in one institute, twelve staff members applied for two four-room apartments, the two best-connected scholars were most likely to get them. Receiving promotion had considerable consequences for one’s livelihood, that is, unless one was promoted only virtually. This was so because promotion was possible until the age of sixty. Some scholars became anxious when they did not reach professorship by the age of sixty, the normal ending of an academic career. In such cases, one could make an appeal to the ‘comfort grade system’ (anwei jidu ɯć). When scholars felt they had not been promoted according to their achievements, they could apply for the title of professor, which, however, was shorn of its material beneﬁts. After retirement, the title could be used, for example, to decorate publications and public lectures. Some such scholars may have worked hard all their lives, and dreaded losing face in front of relatives and fellow students. In this way, s/he may use the honorary title of professor without actually being a real one, a kind of virtual professorship. Not everyone could obtain this virtual title. According to the rules, only half of the applications may be honoured.17

17

Interview 1998.

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Rewards and beneﬁts Within CASS, salary differences were so small, compared to salary differences in society at large, that they seemed to be symbolic. There are seven grades. Starters in 1997 began at scale seven and had a salary of about 700 Renminbi (RMB). Satisfactory work was awarded promotion once every two years, and status rose together with one’s salary and privileges. Salaries rose progressively, but only in small steps. If the costs of housing and medical facilities were added to the lowest salary of seven hundred RMB, wages in 1998 amounted to about a thousand RMB (approximately US $140). If a graduate student decided to work for a Chinese company, s/he would receive a considerably higher salary, at least 1,500 RMB. Those who worked for a foreign company often received starter-salaries of ten thousand RMB a month. The attitude of these students was quite different from that of students in the beginning of the 1980s, who were (jokingly) said to have the team spirit of ‘First Class Whampoa’ (huangpu yiji).18 The majority of students in the late 1990s wanted to earn money most of all. Graduate students voiced the following employment priorities: ﬁrst, going abroad; second, working for a foreign company or a joint venture; third, working for the Party or in political organs; and fourth, staying on at CASS. Most students did not even want to stay on at CASS after graduation. Often, even the bad students that entered the state bureaucracy obtained higher ranks than scholars employed at CASS. Its growing economic clout, its practice of receiving bribes, and the housing, medical and transport facilities attached to the ranks of cadres made the bureaucracy increasingly attractive to degree holders. Additionally, cadres and bureaucrats could employ their connection (guanxi) networks for ﬁnding good jobs for their friends and family. In the state-led CASS, in the late 1990s the iron rice bowl had not yet been smashed completely. In principle, all of its employers were provided for until death. Medical care and housing were almost free. In 1998, the price of a three-room apartment in Beijing was approximately 300– 400,000 RMB; a four-room house, 500–600,000 RMB; and a ﬂat of

18 First Class Whampoa (Huangpu Yiji ûǄˎČ) refers to loyalty and a team spirit, invoking the image of prominent communist graduates, such as Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao, in the barracks of the military academy near Canton in the 1920s. In the eighties, it was the power base of Deng Xiaoping that was at stake, and the phrase Huangpu Yiji was used as an omen for a strong and loyal future leadership.

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thirty square-meters around two hundred thousand RMB. Changing jobs therefore required buying an expensive house or renting a room, and staying at CASS saved many housing problems. Gradually cracks began to show in the state-supported system of medical facilities, housing, and salary. The number of medicines that could be obtained for free was limited. Foreign medicine could no longer be reimbursed, even when they were more effective. The system of rent showed signs of breaking down, too. In the Central Unit (zhongyang danwei ̰ˁ nɮ) no rent was paid, but in other regional units rent was around a hundred RMB a month. Some money was deducted from salaries and after twenty years, one had to pay in advance around twenty thousand RMB.19 Both individuals and institutes were asked to exert themselves in the quest for CASS to become ﬁnancially sound. For example, CASS vicepresident Guo Yongcai recommended that the allocation of scarce resources, such as apartments, should take place on the basis of talent.20 If a scholar in one year was disqualiﬁed for promotion, then promotion was put off until the next year. If there was still no progress, promotion was to be halted and status removed.21 In the spirit of the State Personnel Department Document No. Four (1990), appraisals were made in terms of ‘merit’, ‘suspension’, ‘lower grading,’ and ‘dismissal’ (huanpin, dipin, jiepin ùǀ{ǀīǀ). Incompetent academics (buchenzhi I̤) were to ﬁnd other work. To this end, a Personnel Exchange Centre was set up. Euphemistically, the Centre was presented not for the intention of getting rid of superﬂuous personnel, but as an opportunity for the unemployed to gain work experience. According to the ‘Regulations Concerning the Labour Exchange Centre’ of March 11, 1994, the Centre had been established by all units belonging to CASS to encourage the rationalized movement of labour in CASS.22 Guo Yongcai’s ideas were to be carried out under the leadership of the new CASS President Li Tieying (1998–2003).

19 In 1997/8, the central government started to stimulate the economy by loosening up money stuck in banks. One of its policies was to sell collective housing to private persons; a temporary reduction was added to make buying attractive. CASS has also started contracting personnel on a regular basis since 1998. 20 YB (1995, 38). 21 YB (1995, 33). 22 Regulations Concerning the Labour Exchange Centre: (11 March 1994) (YB 1995, 354–355).

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Financial Burdens of CASS Although throughout the 1990s, emphasis had been placed on the need to economize, in 1994 extra attention was paid to ﬁnding ways of cutting expenses. Several areas were proposed for early reform, such as the bulky structure of the organization of disciplines, and facilities for CASS and the Graduate School, such as housing, the library, and medical facilities. Ru Xin, in his ‘Speech to the Work Conference of CASS’ on February 22, 1994, elaborated on the problem of ‘small but complete’. CASS had thirty-one research institutes, in which more than 300 secondary and tertiary branch disciplines were accommodated. A majority of them had come about after 1977.23 Furthermore, the increased differentiation of disciplines and cooperation between them led to overlapping ﬁelds of research. Scientiﬁc methods were only added, not discarded, while some disciplines used obsolete methods. As a result, research capacity has dissipated.24 In 1994, academic disciplines were reorganized and readjusted. The large number of 300 secondary and tertiary branches was thinned out until 260 remained. Disciplines essential to opening up and modernization were retained, and minor disciplines reduced or merged.25 Ru Xin sharply criticized the situation in which CASS relied on the credit of the State, resembling a Work Unit ‘eating royal rice’ (chi huangliang MüŲ). Therefore, it was necessary for CASS to set up key disciplines anew and make rational adjustments. Before July, therefore, all institutes had to hand in proposals for alterations to be planned through multiinstitutional consultancy.26 This line of policy originated with the CASS Party Committee, which had advised strengthening Key Item research and abolishing a number of minor disciplines. A capable, high-quality and ﬂexible academic team was to be trained, and the downsizing of CASS’s 5,000 personnel was to improve the competence of its logistics and production. It was thought that this strategy would succeed, as some non-producing elements were deemed not suitable for academic work; overstaffing and a top-heavy 23

YB (1995, 14–19); Ru Xin. YB (1995, 20). 25 Comrade Wang Renzhi’ Report to the Work Conference of CASS, February 15, 1995 (YB, 1996, 6–15). 26 YB (1995, 20) Proposals, as usual, apart from taking into account the actual situation (the research basis, capacity and quality, and material and tools) must consider political guidelines, i.e., the needs of socialist modernization (socialism with Chinese Characteristics, reform and opening up, the Two Civilizations, and theory and practice). 24

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organizational structure hampered efficient production of knowledge; the rising costs of personnel maintenance, especially those of medicine and wages, were better spent elsewhere. In short, the new policy was based on the assumption that there would be no increase in personnel, organization structures could be simpliﬁed, competition introduced, merit rewarded, and election mechanisms installed. Another subject of criticism was the common practice of measuring research in quantitative terms. For example, it was estimated that academic writing in 1993 in CASS totalled 15 million characters. According to Ru Xin, such ‘obsolete methods of recording’ had to be overcome. Similarly, ostentatious display of the number of projects worked on by the institutes of CASS had to be stopped. Thus, the fact that CASS took on forty-one State Eighth Five-year Key items, 227 Zhonghua Social Science Funds items, and 309 CASS Key items, did not say much about research quality. Ru Xin in particular criticized the ‘beard-growing projects’ (huzi gongcheng ñ͇ÊK), which never seemed to end. Financial problems were especially serious with regard to the library and information networking. The 1993 costs estimation of 5,120,000 RMB could not cover the needs by far. Purchase capacity therefore dropped steeply. In 1986, CASS subscribed to 5,700 external journals, compared to 2,640 in 1994; the Information Centre in 1986 subscribed to 1,600 journals, in 1994 to 400.27 Fig. 4. Dwindling numbers of journals purchased (1986–1994) Number of

1986

Total CASS journals Information centre Foreign literature journals Chinese literature books Foreign literature books Philosophy books

5,700 1,600 5,000 6,000 1,435 3,381 (84,000 RMB)

1994 2,640 400 200 – 600 1,300 (290,000 RMB)

A problem existed, too, in the area of supervision and management. The efficiency in the use of books and journals was very low. CASS had a book collection of approximately 5,120,000 books, but not many people knew of its existence. Some institutes in 1993 only lent out 150 books. Other institutes paid to subscribe to foreign journals, even though their use-rate was only one percent, as the language some used was only understood by 27

YB (1995, 23).

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one or two people. Ru Xin pointed out that a private university, such as Harvard University, shared libraries with other institutes, while CASS, a research organ in a socialist country owned by the People, seemed incapable of doing the same. Nevertheless, Ru was aware of the ﬁnancial limitations of the solution for attracting more highly qualiﬁed library personnel: ‘We are not like the football team of AC Milan, so we cannot pay too much money’.28 The increase in research and library expenses could not all be blamed on bad management. The increase in book prices of approximately ﬁftyﬁve percent, and an added ten percent for inﬂation in Europe, North America, and Asia, explains much of the tight budget. Compared to 1979, prices have increased ﬁfteen times. For example, hotel prices rose by a factor of twenty, and transport prices by six. Hiring helping hands in, for example, archaeological excavation illustrated the enormous (relative) increase in wage expenses: in 1985, the price of hiring a digger for one day was 1.72 RMB, in 1993, 10 RMB (an increase of 581 percent). In 1985, the costs of excavating a square meter came to 0.20 RMB, in 1993, to 4 RMB (an increase of 2,000 percent).29 Fig. 5. The increase in costs spent on literature (1991–1993)30 Expenses in RMB books/periodicals

1991

1992

1993

5,280,000

5,520,000

6,000,000

The funds allocated to CASS by the Financial Department in the 1990s increased by around 8–9 million RMB a year. But because of the increase in inﬂation and expenses from 1991 onward, expenses exceeded revenues. Especially problematic were the amounts spent on wages, subsidies, welfare allowances, and medicine. As a proportion of expenses, the amount spent on human capital rose from 25.7 percent in 1990 to 34.5 percent in 1993. Because of the wage reforms, the total was expected to increase even further. If one added the costs of heating, electricity, repairs, administration, transport and communication, the proportion spent on human capital added up to 70 percent. Even though the absolute costs of books, journals, and research materials had risen, its proportion of the total budget diminished from 32.9 percent in 1990 to 20.2 percent in 1993. The 28

YB (1995, 24–25.) YB (1995,36). Comrade Guo Yongcai’s Speech at the Work Conference of CASS, February 22, 1994. 30 Ibid., YB (1995, 36). 29

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greatest increase in costs concerned medical expenses, which in 1993 amounted to 4,530,000 RMB. Total medical expenses more than doubled over the last two years. Another large loss was that of the publication of periodicals. The loss for 1993 was 3,150,000 RMB, and if subsidies (1,900,000 RMB) were added, the loss amounted to 5 million RMB.31 The housing situation was even more severe. There were problems of both a lack of housing and bad housing. There was a need for 17,000m2, valued at an estimate of 66,580,000 RMB. On top of this, one had to add to the waiting list of people in need of housing a hundred people yearly (the equivalent of 2,500m2), who would require an investment of approximately 10 million RMB (see table 9).32 In the six years from 1988 to 1994, the total investment in housing was 149,650,000 RMB, a yearly average of 24,290,000 RMB, or 23,000 RMB per person. Apartments totalling 82,784 square meters in area, i.e., 1,147 apartments (per year ca. 200 apartments) have been added. In 1994, 540 people were still waiting for housing, a considerable decrease from the 1,700 people on the waiting list of 1988, but still too many. In order to speed up the process, CASS decided to exploit building estates jointly with foreign companies. Though it was regarded as a risky investment, it was hoped to improve the situation with respect to both housing and ﬁnances.33 Fig. 6. Housing Shortage (1993/4)34 General need for housing at present Added need for housing (each year c. 100 newcomers) Need for bigger housing (as a result of promotion) Total need for housing investment

m2

RMB

17,000 2,500 4,500 24,000

66,580,000 10,000.000 18,000,000 94,580,000

The solution to problems of ﬁnancial shortages, waste, corruption, departmentalism, low research quality, and management was sought in economizing through competition. The three ﬁxed-policies (san ding zhengce Ƕ̝7) plays a major role in making competition work, as it calls for ‘suitable downscaling, structural adjustment through Key Items, and

31 32 33 34

YB (1995,31). Ibid. Guo Yongcai (YB [1995,38–39]). YB (1995, 31).

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the improvement of (the capability of) management’.35 Another explanation of san ding mentions ‘control scale, shrink organization, rational distribution, develop the excellent, ensure Key Items’.36 Downscaling required selection, which in turn presupposed comparing scholars according to certain standards. In this case the scholars were selected who could work compatibly with the planned Key Item projects. Resources were distributed accordingly. Also, a major effort was put into improving the scholar/worker ratio. Thus, the thirty-one research institutes in 1993 counted 2,060 researchers. This number went up to 2,300, which meant that the total number of staff at CASS rose from 60 percent to 70 percent, while the proportion of managers, editors, and reference material workers decreased (by 7, 2, and 3 percent respectively). Another goal was to keep the total wage budget at the same level, but to increase the number of high quality researchers. To this end, from 1995 onward, thirty percent of the total wages was to be used for the encouragement of research on the basis of merit. Exams and grants were to provide competition and encouragement, though great awareness existed of the difficulty of appraising the work of scholars.37 In short, ﬁnancial problems covered library expenses, housing, research, medical costs and salary. It became gradually impossible to maintain the same number of journals and a solution was sought in pooling library resources. The increase in the number of people supported by CASS and the increase in cost of housing and medical facilities meant an enormous increase in expenses. Compared to other higher education and research institutes, such as Beijing University, academicians at CASS had to put up with considerably less research funding and lower salaries. At the same time, new forms of regulations were introduced that streamlined the organization of personnel, housing division, and ‘moneymaking activities’ by the separate institutes. The new policy was based on the assumption that an increase in personnel was to be prevented, organization simpliﬁed, competition introduced, merit rewarded, and election mechanisms installed. 35 Suitable downscaling, structural adjustment through Key Items, and the improvement of (the capability of) management (shedang jingjian guimou, zhongdian tiaozheng jiegou, youhua liliang peizhi ȞpĸĜÙƦ̴̛ĪÎ˧õŭŶƺ̫). 36 YB (1995,30–35); Control scale, shrink organization, rational distribution, develop the excellent, ensure Key Items: (kongzhi guomo, yasuo bianzhi, heli buju, fahui youshi, quebao zhongdian ŗ̬Ù ƦʸȽ"̬èť.Ńý˧Ȝǡ̴). Comrade Long Yongshu’s Speech at the Work Conference of CASS, February 22, 1994. 37 YB (1995, 32).

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Many intellectuals left their academic jobs for the commercial world, or ‘jumped into the sea’ (xia hai).38 A new class of rich people emerged, and as a consequence, the political signiﬁcance of this class with respect to intellectuals increased, making the dissident voices of academics hard to hear. Moreover, compared to their predecessors, the ‘scholar-officials’, or even compared with the former generation of ‘brain-workers’, only a fraction of contemporary intellectuals served in the state apparatus, which weakened their political inﬂuence and bargaining power. Following Deng’s Southern Talks in 1992, when he announced the deepening of the reforms, a sudden increase in the number of commercialized intellectuals occurred. The CCP officially endorsed the ‘Socialist Market Economy’ during its Fourteenth National Party Conference in 1992. When an official publisher of the CCP, the Hongqi Chubanshe (Red Flag Publishing Company) published ‘A Practical Guide to ‘Jumping into the Sea’,’ political obstructions no longer could stop intellectuals from jumping.39 Many students and intellectuals were already engaged in legal, but unregistered (and untaxed) commercial activities. Changing networks of power in urban China allocated increasing power to government cadres and intellectuals in the business world as increasing numbers of them ‘jumped into the sea’. Taking into account the ﬂourishing ‘alliance’ between cadres and private businessmen, this was not surprising. Intellectuals sought additional income either by taking part-time jobs or by establishing enterprises in their line of work. Predictably, the economic disciplines were especially successful. Intellectuals not only found opportunities to earn more income, but also to develop their potential in various areas. For instance, one economist at CASS was fed up with academic politics and started his own factories based on a perceived consumer need for disposable cotton handkerchiefs and towels. Others tried to combine the work of internal logistics (paid for by CASS) and commercial logistics work so that the same work results could be presented to both sides. 38 Mok conducted a survey with 500 intellectuals from seven institutions of higher education in Guangzhou. Over 60 percent believed that xia hai improved intellectuals’ income. It enabled them to become more autonomous, and improved opportunities for self-actualization and better utilization of professional knowledge. Most said that the low incomes in the State sector pushed them forward (Mok E1998, 212–214). 39 Xiahai jingsheng zhiwu zhinan, Guo Chuan, et al. (eds.) 1993, quoted in Mok E1998, 206.

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Some intellectuals, however, were proud of not having to ‘prostitute’ their writing skills for commercial or delegated writing, and boasted that the quality of their work was so high that they sold well without having to diverge from their personal writing plans. Moreover, compared to scholars at most universities, CASS academics had to teach only a very little or not at all. This afforded them considerable time, comparatively, to spend on their research. Other intellectuals who perceived the ﬂourishing market for magazines and trash literature started focusing on more popular consumer demands instead of on serious academic work so as to ﬁnd some extra income.40 As a result, academic standards fell, or rather, the proportion of academic books among the total of publications is falling rapidly. Nevertheless, some academic authors, such as Wang Su, succeeded in both popularizing their work without turning it into trash. Some intellectuals did not mind this trend of popularization, as they believed that the propagandist academic writings of the past were not only of low quality, but also boring. In contrast, the standards of some recently produced academic work in some ﬁelds increased. Again, others feared that, without additional supervision, consumers would not know what work to take seriously and what to consider frivolous. Therefore, independent quality committees decided about labelling. To acquire additional funding, CASS and other educational institutes opened up businesses, such as computer companies, or publishing companies. Beijing University was very successful. For example, its biggest computer company earned eight billion RMB a year. The highly prestigious Qinghua University was involved in running factories and businesses for years, and many members of staff were involved in management and consultancy.41 Additionally, ‘commissioned training’, including the short-term training of students from other schools and foreigners, became quite common. As a result of the emergence of private education and commercial publishing, textbooks and educational materials became more numerous and diversiﬁed. Some groups of students at CASS were particularly active in earning extra income. The problem for students was that the pressure to achieve and the intensity of competition was very high, so that spare-jobs could not take up too much of their time. It therefore became common for students to engage in work that could be combined with their studies, such as registered consultancy work, trans-

40 41

Cf. Cai Junsheng 1998. Mok (1998, 209).

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lating, conducting commercial surveys, and editing. Those in great need of money, however, were tempted to jump into illegal waters, engaging in, for instance, prostitution and the illegal sale of books and CDs.

Conducting research at CASS Before the reforms, the livelihood and careers of intellectuals mainly depended on their work unit, since decisions with regard to production, employment, income, consumption and investment were made centrally.42 The Ministry of Education played a dominant role in both decision-making and the implementation of education policies. It determined the design of the curriculum, job assignment, budgets, scales of income, and personnel issues. On this account, intellectuals enjoyed job security, housing, and welfare protection. Their career was determined largely by their danwei (work unit), their relationship with their seniors, and the ties they maintained with the others in their unit. Their fate depended on a limited number of connections, as they economically, politically, and socially depended on their danwei.43 Although guanxi (connections) still played a major role in one’s career, work output and merits became basic (formal) criteria for the evaluation of job performance. In this context, knowledge became the capital that intellectuals used in exchange for a better social position or political importance. Since the mid-1980s, a more dynamic labour market came about, and in the 1990s intellectuals had more job choice, choice of life-style, choice of location, and some rights to exchange products. Of the intellectuals that remained in academic life, some retreated to their studies to pursue scholarly concerns, some insisted on playing a role as the social conscience of society by pressing for social reforms and moral critique, and others became involved directly in policy formulation and implementation. Again others, however, found occupations outside the academic 42 A danwei is an organizational unit that functioned as employer, often providing housing and social services to its members. The Unit constituted the lowest level of the administrative structure of the Party-State. The Unit system went back to the supply system of the revolutionary base areas and to the efforts of the early 1950s to take over urban society by means of ‘mobilization from below’. Functionally, the Unit system embodied the integration of economic activities into the encompassing framework of Party-state administration (Lu Feng 1993). 43 See Yang, Mayfair Meihui (1994), for an anthropological discussion of guanxi in Chinese society and bureaucracy.

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world, for instance, as artists, and as experts in the media or the cultural consumer industry. Unlike academics, these intellectuals gained increasing economic independence, though many maintained links with state institutions in order to secure access to state facilities and connections (guanxi). Nevertheless, educational institutions also gained autonomy in their day-to-day administration and in personnel matters, though the development and use of organizational and management techniques made possible an increasingly sophisticated system of surveillance and control. So who will still do work at CASS? In short, ﬁnancial necessity, a need for high quality researchers, and economic reforms led to a wide range of radical reorganization at CASS. A strict selection of a handful of highly talented researchers and cadres, a bidding system for research projects, and the endorsement of earning income activities introduced several elements of competition. Because money hunters had no desire to stay on at CASS, and lowly qualiﬁed fanatics no longer stood a chance at entering CASS, the selection pool for possible candidates for research jobs and future leaders shrunk. The ceiling of standards for entering CASS was lowered, but the bottom requirements were raised. From this pool, it was the ideologically motivated and versatile talents that were earmarked for leading the interdisciplinary projects that have become increasingly important for political decision-making. And why did scholars stay on at CASS in view of much better paid jobs at some other universities and in the commercial sector? Highly talented scholars might opt for staying at CASS because teaching demands there were low compared to universities. One important factor explaining why the average scholar stuck with CASS was the comparative advantage the promotion system offered ageing academicians. The current promotion system provided a relatively efficient and inconspicuous means of exacting allegiance from scholars, especially when promotion entailed cumulative awards, such as a progressive increase in status, the use of better facilities, and ﬁnancial advancement. Those items could no longer be obtained elsewhere. For many scholars of an advanced age, career advancement was best served by sticking to CASS rules of promotion. This was so, in general, because their position and work conditions improved with the advancement of age, and, for the average scholar, it became increasingly hard to match work outside the state sector. Best off were small families with one parent in the state sector and one in the private sector. They enjoyed the advantages of both worlds: a high income earned commercially, and cheap housing and other facilities,

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such as schooling and medical facilities for their child, allocated to them by their units. Those who entered the commercial sector and gave up the state sector entirely may have experienced difficulties related to ﬁnding adequate ﬁnancial support, the right kind of technical knowledge and networks in the market, and a fear of failure and the unknown. For many scholars it was hard to start a new life: elderly scholars and those brought up conservatively never learnt how to make decisions for themselves. Rather than taking their lives into their own hands by banking on the market, they preferred to continue to rely on their work units (danwei n ɮ). In any case, in the sheltered life of the academy the connections (guanxi) required for starting a business were scarce. Taking one’s skills onto the market, therefore, was a matter that needed careful planning. Starting one’s own business did not usually yield easy money, but required of parents (and sometimes children) much investment of time, savings, and borrowed favours. In terms of working hours and home-life, ‘jumping into the sea’ to some meant being frequently away from home for long periods. All in all, CASS provided a relatively safe haven and undisturbed research environment to average, politically well-behaved scholars, and offered them much sought-after ﬁnancial and social security.

Part three: from critical to guided academic dispute (1988–1998) There was no absolute authority of ‘leaders’ over ‘the led’; in many circumstances, a majority of academic leaders took on the role of the led. Part Three observed the institutional set-up in which leaders and the led interacted and, partly, in which they were locked. In so far as the freedom of decision-making was at stake, scholars in the lower regions of the hierarchy seemed to have more freedom than did the ones higher up. In other respects, the distinction between leadership and the led was not even a useful one, as the capacity of leadership ascribed to leaders was not always realized, due to their subordinate position vis-à-vis political leaders in the State Council, Politburo, and Propaganda Department. Leaders and the led: patterns of institutional development As leaders were also part of the establishment, they were subject to inﬂuences beyond their control. It is incorrect, however, to assume that academic leaders were compelled to follow a certain political or bureau-

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cratic unitary regime, as these also consisted of factions whose conﬂicting interests made it possible for leaders to negotiate their allegiances with one leader rather than one with another. But besides patron-client relationships, we must take into account the inability of leaders to fully direct their followers, as the behaviour of followers was largely unpredictable due to the circumstances in which the individual worked, such as in housing, and welfare facilities, and in circumstances characterized by external factors, such as alternative employment opportunities. Furthermore, leaders and the led sometimes shared political interests and at other times they did not. Sometimes it was attractive to leaders and dissidents to ‘switch sides’ at crucial moments. Ru Xin’s sudden political turn-around in favour of Hu Qiaomu’s concept of humanism during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign rescued his job and made possible the continuation of, to him, reformist policies, while he let down his reformist friends. The dividing line between the interests of the two sides at such occasions was blurred. Moreover, the personal preferences and convictions of individuals were often unpredictable and could have enormous force, especially in situations that could multiply effects once triggered. For example, on the occasion of Hu Yaobang’s funeral and the state visits of Nakasone in 1985 and Gorbachev in 1989, the smudging of highly cherished symbols triggered chain-reactions of political moves that had far-reaching consequences, which nevertheless were hard to delineate. This does not mean, however, that estimations could not be made of the effects of certain methods of resistance, and movements for the renewal or overthrow of an organization. For example, in the 1990s the application of systems of ﬁnancial, material, and social rewards regulated competition and the distribution of material and ﬁnancial resources. In combination with generally accepted forms of electing leaders, such systems could contribute to institutional stability and order. In an academic research institute, however, clashes might occur over the nature of the work academics were expected to do. Political requirements of academic work might cause friction if they went against the convictions and/or interests of the researcher. A process of the weighing of material, social, and personal rewards against set aims, ideals, and personal costs went on continually. When, as was the case in the 1980s, alternative employment opportunities were scarce, such processes of decision-making had become top-heavy, and ran a high risk of spilling over into the realm of a politically explosive dispute. In the 1990s, those who wanted to get rich did not start a career at CASS. Furthermore, those who were aca-

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demically unsuitable did not easily get accepted into CASS. As a result, academic and political pursuits became the main concern to academics, even though their living conditions were relatively poor. The latter factor made it essential to keep on ascending the academic hierarchy as rewards increased on every step upward. Chances of ascending improved when academics proved productive, participated in academic activities, cultivated their relations, and became members of the CCP. It is this link between material needs, academic interests, and political necessity that locked academics into an upward spiral, from which it was unattractive to slide down. The organization of the leadership was sluggish but effective because of its double structure of Party and academic leadership. The latter was accountable to the former, but the administrative/intellectual leadership was chosen democratically, while the Party leadership was not. This authority structure was rigid, and hard to topple. It managed academic activities by satisfying a minimum of material needs for the completion of research projects and for relying on the commitment of researchers to the Party and the Motherland, to which research was dedicated. Moreover, leaders on higher levels of the hierarchy were appointed by the Party leadership. These appointed leaders introduced nominees for lower-level leaders, who were ‘elected’ by their constituency. Disagreement on lower-level electees, again, was resolved by the Party leadership, who could appoint a new leader. Patron dependency From 1982 to 1985, the CASS leadership seemed to develop in several directions at once. On the one hand, it took measures to ensure more democratic methods of choosing the leadership at the institutional level, to be implemented in 1985. A trend toward a diversiﬁcation of social science approaches was encouraged, and a greater role was given to intellectuals in explaining the reforms in their writings. Nevertheless, both academic researchers and leaders were tied to political trends at the top. Academic workers demanded autonomy, but it could only effectively do so by relying on their ‘patrons’. Academic leaders could encourage research into further reforms but, in turn, were tied to Party policies. It was in this context that the New China News Agency blamed the CASS leadership for inadequate measures to prevent a small number of its scholars from spreading Spiritual Pollution. On the other hand, scholars were also involved in research formulation and speech drafting in support of conservative trends. For example, a consortium of leading

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scholars from various institutions wrote Hu Qiaomu’s January 3, 1984, speech to the National Conference of Cultural Departments. The behaviour of intellectuals in the 1980s was constrained by factors such as job security, factionalism, age, and other factors that were only indirectly related to the struggle for political and intellectual ideals. Intellectuals in the decade found themselves in a situation in which they had to lobby for support from reformer politicians in order to liberate themselves from political intervention with academic research in the future. By 1983, academics associated with the reformist ‘patrons’, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, had begun to demand greater relaxation of ideological constraints. They stimulated criticism of Maoist excesses, but also had a critical attitude toward Marxist-Leninist dogma and the politico-economic system imported from Moscow in the 1950s. As the relatively young reformers lacked revolutionary credentials, the success of their quest depended heavily on support by Deng Xiaoping. Though active reformers could be found among intellectuals, intellectuals were on no account undivided on reform issues. The interests of intellectuals, whose jobs involved Party research and education, Party Propaganda, and central planning, lay with a Party monopoly from which they could draw authority. Reformist intellectuals tried to ally themselves with reformist and pro-democracy leaders, ﬁnding employ for their ideas and activities in government think-tanks and universities. They found themselves in the predicament of requiring an increase in academic autonomy while needing leadership support for advancing their careers in the professional hierarchy. Only a minority of idealists could afford to go as far as risking their career for the sake of their ideals and principles. At the time, unlike during the 1990s, State and Party monopoly over the jobs of intellectuals left them with little chance of ﬁnding alternative employment in which they could further their ambitions. Nevertheless, there were idealist scholars among both Party members and non-Party members who regarded it as their duty to be critical of the leadership and its policies, regardless of their personal interests (though it is hard to draw a ﬁne line between personal and ideological interests). This self-proclaimed vocation to remonstrate with Party leaders was considered to be to the beneﬁt of the People whom intellectuals believed to represent. In the name of the People the leadership was called upon to reﬂect upon ‘the People’s interest’, implying that the leadership had a conscience that could be touched by the intellectual’s plea. The loss of this belief in the leadership’s preparedness to initiate political reforms ‘for the good of the

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People’ aggravated the deteriorating relationship between intellectuals (including Party members) and the leadership in the latter half of the 1980s. Leadership adjustments The majority of CASS intellectuals had been involved in the events around June Fourth 1989, at least indirectly, including members of CASS’s top leadership. Two out of six CASS Vice Presidents, Li Shenzhi and Ding Weizhi, handed in their resignation when Martial Law was declared on May 20th, gestures honoured only after the crackdown. Their replacements, Yu Wen and Jiang Liu, came to CASS to discipline its personnel, and Zheng Bijian was put in charge of rectifying ideological abuse. Yu and Jiang, were only temporary guardsmen of official ideology, but were trusted to be fast and ﬁerce. Several Heads of Institutes were dismissed, the formation of the CASS leadership was altered, and the leadership structure changed. President Hu Sheng was spared, but doubt was cast on his and CASS’s political and ideological reliability as advisors to the political leadership. Yu Wen was sent to CASS as Party Secretary to restore discipline, and plans for reorganizing the administration, departmental set-up, and leadership were prepared, and carried out in 1991. When, as a part of this reorganization, the responsibility system was implemented, the Party Committee drew power to itself as administrative leaders became accountable to Party Committee Secretaries. All research institutes were stimulated to establish Party Committees, enabling the CASS leadership to more effectively control its personnel, direct research projects, take austerity measures, and implement new academic policies. With regard to the issue of whether a ‘democratic coup’ would have been feasible, according to some intellectuals at CASS, the People could not have ‘willed’ democracy into existence: no group had authority enough to take the leadership, and no wide insight existed into the nature of democracy. Furthermore, it should have been clear all along that Deng Xiaoping had not planned radical liberalization, since it had been clear all along that he advocated a ‘no-change-theory’. The reforms pertained to the economic, not the political realm, which was, according to some, the main gist of the contents of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Though the leadership continued in an alternative way, Deng’s reform policies had reduced direct State intervention in the areas of the economy, society, and science. China had opened up to the outside world,

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revived its regional economies, and created a thriving middle class of traders and manufacturers. Moreover, a lot more could be said in public after the 1978 reforms than it could be said before. A price was paid for implementing economic reforms in the social sciences, since the streamlining of academic disciplines was accompanied by efforts to strengthen ideological discipline. When Party Secretary Yu Wen entered CASS in 1991, he aimed to reinstate Party discipline; thus, he announced the regulation of social-science research away from ‘peaceful evolution’ and ‘ideological defeatism’. Though Yu rejected the ‘commercialization’ of academic research, he was in favour of a thorough clean-up; this entailed ‘deﬂating the swelling’ that had resulted from the ‘unbridled growth of disciplines’; it also meant the implementation of the responsibility system, and tight rules of a disciplinary order on a hierarchical basis. While the voices of political reformers withdrew into an apolitical background of academic scholarship, attacks on Bourgeois Liberalization continued, the force of neo-Maoism grew, and efforts at Party-building increased. The link between political work by Party Committees with academic leadership at all levels of the academic organizational hierarchy became closer, so that the President and the Heads of Institutes were forced to listen to Party Committee policies and were expected to obey. Under the nominal leadership of Hu Sheng, under the tasks of the reorganization of CASS, under the restructuring of research work around Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and under Party Construction—all these became main ingredients of the CASS programme of reform. Its execution followed the political line of patriotic socialism targeted at national unity and strength, organized in a key-point research agenda. As CASS was now to serve as a political advisor of the CCP Central Committee and the State Council, an improvement of working conditions, higher status and rosier future prospects for researchers served as perks to increasingly weary researchers. Regulatory functions of the academic hierarchy The academic hierarchy provided a means of exacting allegiance from scholars, as time of service increased rewards accumulatively, so that status and facilities such as housing and health care improved in the course of the scholar’s career. The inﬂuence of the leadership extended both to material and ﬁnancial distribution of resources, and also to the delegation of honour, recognition, and status, which may be just as impor-

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tant to the ability of researchers to extend their network of connections (guanxi). They were thus enabled to exchange favours. Another function served the transmission of political information from leaders at the top of the hierarchy down to low cadres and scholars at the bottom. Political information concerned documents, summaries of speeches, and meetings with the political leadership, i.e., the Central Committee of the CCP at Zhongnanhai, the Propaganda Department. The topics of Deng’s Southern Tour, and Jiang Zemin’s talk at the Party School ﬁgured frequently in the documents conveyed. These were studied at training courses for Party members, cadres, and professional workers, meetings for CASS Party Committees, (higher level) Party officials, Party members, representative of CASS Units, and thematic conferences. Some meetings were devised for the creation of new documents to be used as speeches for politicians or for study materials for other researchers. Sometimes, it was impossible to know who created research guidelines for CASS: the political leadership, the leadership of CASS, or researchers themselves. In order to deal with political and academic requirements, scholars became sensitive to cues, hints, and authorized lines of thought. To keep their career going politically, personal relations (guanxi) with ‘patrons’ were cultivated, politically acceptable publications written, while an active participation in academic activities, including ideological ones, was important in network building. Opportunities for extending academic contacts horizontally multiplied after the implementation of the reforms. It was then that it became possible for scholars to increase and intensify their contacts at conferences, symposia, research associations, and academic institutes abroad. Academic exchanges with foreign research institutes, jointly organized conferences, and contacts through modern means of communication led to an unexpectedly wide range of opportunities for the exchange of views and have widened the scope of vision of scholars. Additionally, forums, professional associations, journals, and informal meetings kept scholars informed of work by colleagues. Increases in academic exchanges and communication, however, did not extend in all directions. Internally, the hierarchic nature of institutional structures and the regard for status encouraged contacts between those of equal ranking. While cooperation in terms of the exchange of views, data, research materials, documents and experience was of essential importance for scholars to do their job, competition for scarce resources and

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positions also created tensions. It sometimes spilled over into discussions on ‘equality’, ‘corruption’, ‘fair competition’, and ‘bootlicking’. Additionally, so-called departmentalism directed the distribution of academic resources inwardly. Squabbles and conﬂicts on the use of computers, offices, experts, and other resources obstructed an optimal use and horizontal exchange of academic facilities.

part iv REFORMS AT CASS: SYMBOLIC KNOWLEDGE, PARTY GUIDANCE, AND ACADEMIC STREAMLINING

In Part Four I ask how it was possible for the leadership of CASS to devise academic programmes, deﬁne research tasks, and keep a measure of coherence in the great diversity of academic perspectives and approaches that also serve as sources of state policy-making. I argue that political views in academic research are expressed through characterizations and images of the nation. Chapter 11 shows how political views in academic research in China were expressed by way of various symbolic conceptualizations of the nation, which serve as a framework for research. Conﬂicting schools of thought use this framework, which deﬁnes the nation in both a cognitive and symbolical manner, for deﬁning their own academic research agendas. Without such a shared symbolic framework, the discussion would be too diffuse, since a minimal number of concepts are necessary for a meaningful argument between different schools to continue. Politically, such a framework cannot be directed centrally, but its dissenting fringes can be monitored. I illustrate the application of symbols in academic work with examples that show how symbols, official ceremony, politics, and administrative organization are intertwined with the planning and practice of academic research. By taking into account both the symbolic and cognitive functions of ceremonies, speeches, political and organizational meetings and celebrations, it becomes clear that ‘freedom of academic debate’ is not self-evident. And the nationalism espoused by many Chinese intellectuals can hardly be regarded as a sign of unity. Finally, I elaborate on the functions of national symbols in the production of academic knowledge. In this context, I discuss the speeches President Jiang Zemin delivered in 1990 and at his visit to CASS in 1991. In both, he emphasized the role of intellectuals as patriotic educators and their mission of national self-strengthening. He encouraged intellectuals to integrate ‘Marxist universal truths’ with ‘Chinese reality’. Paradoxically, the symbolism in the speeches shows how ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ would conﬁne debate on the basis of theoretical pluralism. Chapter 12 elaborates on the question of how during the reform period

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the Party in the PRC and in CASS could survive in circumstance of apparent ideological bankruptcy. How has the Party been able to retain its inﬂuence in academic life, and why did the state hang on to its socialist ideology? Was it just a matter of there being no viable ideological alternative available under the circumstances? Was it the ﬁnal outcome of the power struggle that came to a head in the late 1980s? Or, did socialist ideology survive as a reasonable legacy of the past that only needs to be adjusted to a ‘new historical era?’ I make a case for and against all three arguments as their plausibility depends on the political perspective one proceeds from. In this way, I attempt to reconstruct how structural changes could take place in CASS without any upheaval. Chapter 13 aims to show that the state has emerged stronger by reforming its relation to the Party. It further shows that the Party has maintained its inﬂuence by means of internal organizational and ideological reforms. On the basis of references to speeches, circulars, and documents pertaining to academic policies at CASS, I argue that these reforms are partly a result of the efforts of intellectuals that supported the democracy movement. Their idealism was based on concepts of rationality and progress from the Enlightenment, intermingled with scientiﬁc and holistic ideologies. Scrambling out of arbitrary rule meant controlling the system and coordinating it in a more informed and democratic way. I show how some of these elements were retained and re-applied in the academic curriculum, and served the overhauling of the organizational structure of CASS in the 1990s.

chapter eleven NATIONAL, RATIONAL, AND SYMBOLIC UNDERSTANDING IN ACADEMIC CHINA AND CASS

Reconceptualizing the nation Although it is a common practice for academics in China to regard the nation-state as a framework for research, the meaning of the nationstate is a topic of disagreement. It seems clear that conceptualizations of the nation-state change through time and partly depend on the institutional and personal loyalties of the researchers and policy-makers who use them. But why do national characteristics play a predominant role in social-scientiﬁc explanation in some periods and universal principles of human behaviour in others? And why are speciﬁc approaches adopted only by some groups of academics and not by others? To deal with these questions, I examine how various groups of people conceptualize the Chinese nation and the Chinese Communist Party to mould and give vent to the political views in an academic discussion. I also discuss ways in which production of knowledge is intermingled with symbolic interpretations of the nation in Chinese academic circles in general and, more speciﬁcally, at CASS. In short, in this Chapter I relate current academic politics of research to various conceptualizations and symbols of the nation. Here I deﬁne symbols as objects of belief. They are endowed with supernatural powers, for as triggers of effects, the powers ascribed to them go beyond the reach of empirical veriﬁcation. Thus, the belief in the power of national symbols as triggers of effects that shape and constitute society and people’s identities is a symbolic belief unsubstantiated by scientiﬁc evidence, but referred to frequently in the construction and interpretation of academic knowledge and politics. In the beginning of the reform period, from the late 1970s to the ﬁrst half of the 1980s, academics and politicians tended to express their ideologies in terms of socialism and conceptualizations of the Chinese nation; during the latter half of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, this was done in terms of culture and tradition. In the course of the 1990s, a mixture of these was used, and found its official expres-

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sion in the adage of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. These shifts generated an array of alternative perspectives used for observing society and the functions ascribed to it. But the ways in which the nation was redeﬁned also found their expression in the symbolism, politics, administration, and planning of academic life. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, one of the ﬁrst signs of a major shift in the socialist paradigm towards cultural particularism was expressed in the debate on ‘feudalism’, a concept used by critics of the regime to characterize the perceived backwardness of China. Another debate on ‘River Elegy’ (or Death-song [Heshang éͥ]) similarly portrayed China as a sad and backward nation, with a bleak future. It advised conservative rulers to improve China’s apparently hopeless fate. Contrary to what has been thought and claimed in intellectual debate and government propaganda, I argue here that a shift took place over the entire line of discourse. Not only did the radicals and democrats start to focus their attention on the cultural aspects and particularity of Chinese society, but the Party did so too. Radicals may have used the backward image of China to promote their argument in favour of radical change, but they were not the only ones, and certainly not the ﬁrst ones. Their socalled ‘cultural fever’, however, did contribute to a general turn of the discussion, which also occurred among the conservatives, toward debating Chinese tradition and the elements in it usable for creating a stronger China.

Feudalism and the backward nation In this section I show how in the 1980s the concept of the nation was used as a platform of debate among liberals, radicals, democrats, and the CCP. A general paradigm shift took place from an emphasis on class to culture, not just in the circles of radicals and liberals, but also among Party members. A rapidly growing interest in the 1980s renewed the interest in Sinitic culture, generating a great diversity in interpretations of the Chinese historical heritage. In the late 1970s, the discovery that China in comparative global terms was economically backward was a heavy blow to national pride. When the reforms were not progressing fast enough, intellectuals increasingly tended to locate its causes in cultural backwardness. This resulted in the Culture Fever (wenhua-re ɲõǥ) debates of the mid-

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1980s.1 Criticizing Chinese traditional culture (fanchuantong zhuyi Xɗ̺ ˕) also enabled academics to be critical of contemporary policies without attacking the leadership directly. To some extent, this tactic succeeded in keeping up critical discussion while avoiding immediate repercussions. Saying that Chinese traditional culture was backward was one way of criticizing political institutions. Views of China as being feudal were applied to and combined with modern ideas of science, socialism, and modern society to form a plethora of perspectives on how to turn China into a strong and prosperous state.2 The aim of building a strong China is an old one. But the avalanche of ideas seeking to rebuild China in so many different ways was a combined result of the conditions created by reform due to the liberating effect of sudden exposure to fresh ideas from other parts of the world. The role of the political leadership itself in moulding the new academic setting should not be underestimated. After all, the social sciences were officially rehabilitated,3 recreated, and supported along guidelines that encouraged the absorption of foreign and the generation of new ideas. The problem was, however, that its agents, the intellectuals, were meant to come up with theoretical tools applicable in political practice. In the politicized atmosphere surrounding key social-scientiﬁc debates, it was unavoidable that newly expressed academic views were replete with controversial political implications.4 Social science of the 1980s established a new discourse (though often couched in Marxist-Leninist jargon), which transcended and even subverted the main Party line. In the spring of 1988, the television series ‘River Elegy’ (Heshang) caused commotion among Party elders, and backﬁred. ‘River elegy’ blamed the drying up of the Yellow River Civilization (the failure of China to modernize) on China’s conservatism and on its emphasis on stability and isolation. The unpredictability of the Yellow River (the cradle of Chinese civilization) symbolized a mentality and culture unsuited to the demands of modernity.5 Some Party elders, such as Vice-President Wang Zhen and Bo Yibo, called the series a betrayal of the nation, after which the government launched a propa-

1 2 3 4 5

Zhao Shuisheng (E1997). Madsen (1995). Deng Xiaoping (E1978). Brugger & Kelly (1990); Miller (1996). Cf. Chen Wen (1990).

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ganda campaign against ‘Death Song’, deﬁning it as a dangerous example of ‘Spiritual Pollution’. Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, the series’ main scriptwriters, had borrowed heavily from official symbolic capital and made it their own. The ﬁlm used images of the West and the U.S. as symbols of the ‘new industrial civilization’,6 and it portrayed the yellow water and yellow soil as dangerous. Zhao Ziyang, who was praised in the series for his policies of opening-up during his term as premier (1980–1987), defended the ﬁlm against attacks in the summer of 1988.7 Though the official press quoted Heshang as an example of cultural nihilism, the series also exempliﬁed how a cultural critique and nationalism could be reconciled in anti-traditionalist discourse. Symbolizing China’s development as a crumbling Great Wall, the ﬁlm suggested that Chinese tradition could have been responsible for not only its present state, but also for the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and the disastrous Great Leap Forward. The official criticism of River Elegy caused some important misunderstandings regarding the interpretation of China’s cultural capital by different factions of the Communist Party in the latter half of the 1980s. Though liberals and proponents of political and economic reforms may have used the issue of Chinese tradition and backwardness (feudalism) to criticize the present in a simplistic way, reformist Party members such as Liu Binyan did so too.8 Moreover, the Party was generally aware of the ‘negative inﬂuence’ of some ‘traditional’ and ‘feudal’ elements in the Chinese present. The difference was, however, that Marxist conservatives tended to treat the effects of ‘feudal elements’ on society as unrelated to socialism. These elements were not to taint the universal (albeit redeﬁned) value of the socialist corpus with moral meanings and principles. The September 1981 Central Committee of the CCP Resolution was very clear about it: Feudal ideology is deep-rooted in our country. The concept of patriarchal clannishness, autocratic ways, the tendency to seek privileges and to form factions for selﬁsh purposes, the view that men are superior to women— all these things that die hard in our social relations today are in essence 6

Madsen (1995, 1978). Goldman (1994). 8 Liu Binyan (1990). Liu Binyan (b. 1925), a well-known journalist employed by People’s Daily, sought to be an upright communist, despite his long history of persecution. In 1976 Liu was rehabilitated and re-entered the Party, and in 1978 he was given a position in the CASS Institute of Philosophy. His Higher Kind of Loyalty (1990) frequently refers to contemporary issues of Chinese feudalism. 7

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manifestations of the evil inﬂuence of feudalism. Corrupt bourgeois ideology and the slavish mentality stemming from the historical conditions of a semi-colonial society are also strongly present in China and often merge with feudal ideology. It is therefore a formidable, long-term task to eradicate all these pernicious inﬂuences.9

The solution provided by the Resolution lay in science, though it was not clear how voluntary its implementation was intended: We should actively change those undesirable customs, which still prevail in cities and in the countryside, to advocate cultured, healthful ways of living that are in keeping with scientiﬁc principles and that eliminate ignorance and backwardness. Bad wedding and funeral customs have to be changed, and superstitious, feudal beliefs and practices must be eradicated. On condition that sound folkways are respected, these changes should be carried out voluntarily by the masses themselves. Members of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth League should lead in this endeavour.10

It is not true, therefore, that the CCP was uncritical of Chinese tradition. It was exactly this criticism that had made it possible for the Resolution to compare the present favourably with the feudal past. Rather, it would be desirable for the monopoly to be maintained as symbolic capital deﬁning present-day China in space and socialism in time.

Party-state and dissidence: diverging concepts of national strength and authority The symbols discussed here are based on classiﬁcations. These classiﬁcations, used in political ceremony, are governed through lists of parallel binary opposites and are based on the two principles of dualism and asymmetry.11 Such classiﬁcations constitute linkages between diverse phenomena,12 adding their own rationale to the meaning of categories. Examples are linkages between historical (modern/backward), social (open/closed), moral (bad/good), political, (capitalism/socialism) and biological (female/male), physiological (moist/dry), medical (clean/ polluted; healthy/sick) and geographical (East/West) categories. These classiﬁcations introduce a certain order into the experience of reality and shape academic debate according to the rationale of the partici9 10 11 12

Resolution (1981, 11–12). Resolution (1981, 11). cf. Levi- Strauss; Needham (1979, 53). Levi- Strauss (1966).

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pants concerned. Using the concepts of Geertz (1973), they are ‘models of ’ and ‘models for’ social and societal behaviour in academic ceremony and debate. Identifying such paradigmatic contrasts and the principles they are based on may show us the limitations and liberties of academic thought. Understanding the meaning of such contrasts requires tracing the changes of such paradigmatic symbolism over time. Here I observe some examples of symbolic meaning in academic discourse throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Inspired by science, foreign ideas, Chinese tradition, and future aspirations for China, by the late 1980s a variety of concepts of the nation, the state, and the Party ﬂourished. Thus, Yan Jiaqi and Liu Binyan advocated a state ‘for the people’ based on a democratic legal system;13 Wang Ruoshui advocated a concept of citizen socialism instead of (strong) state socialism; and others, such as Su Shaozhi, Cao Siyuan, and Yu Guangyuan did not reject the one Party-state, but wanted democratic checks, individual values, and an accountable administration.14 The reception of the work of CASS philosopher and critic, Li Zehou, illustrates how the late 1980s were not ready yet for a compromise between symbolic opposites. Both the leadership and radicals criticized Li’s ideas vehemently. The criticism of the former seems odd, as Li viewed the depreciation of Chinese culture as a fad among young intellectuals ﬂirting with the West.15 Li tried to introduce nuances into their views through the concept of ‘human subjectivity’, and the adages of ‘Western Substance and Chinese Application’ (Xiti-Zhongyong ʁɌ̰˦) and the concept that ‘national salvation suppresses enlightenment’. He used these concepts for the reconciliation of dichotomies between individual and collective, and instrumental rationality and intuitive understanding. His work was criticized by the reputed iconoclast Liu Xiaobo for lacking scepticism, for boldness, and for an exaggerated belief in the ‘golden mean’ (Zhongyong ̰ˣ), ‘cheap idealism’, ‘false optimism’ ‘conservative idealism’,16 and by Gan Yang for his holistic answers and idealism. Finally, he was criticized for an ultimate suppression of the individual.17 The countless ambiguities in Li’s holistic quest for a rec-

13 14 15 16 17

Yan Jiaqi (E1988); Liu Binyan (E1990). Goldman (1994); Mok (1998). Cui Zhiyuan (E1989, 1–6). Lin Min (E1992, 994); Chong (E1999, 278–279). Lin Min (E1992, 994–995).

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onciliation of dichotomies made his work into a controversial model in which Chinese society was redeﬁned through binaries, such as WestEast, subjective-objective, spiritual-material, substance-use, and rationalintuitive.18 Proponents of neo-authoritarianism, such as Hu Angang and Xiao Gongqin, availed themselves of similar dichotomous contrasts between ‘East’ and ‘West’ in seeking the solution to China’s problems by deﬁning China as a unique nation with its own particular way of thinking, organizing and developing.19 Economic reform and a healthy market were to help China achieve a higher status in the world by means of the strong hand of a benevolent but ﬁrm leader. Samuel Huntington’s views on the effect of efficient governance in modernization,20 and the idealized model of the Asian dragons guided by the strictness of a benevolent ruler provided a model for many neo-Confucian and other intellectuals.21 The ideological distance between socialist, liberal, and neo-authoritarian views would shrink in the 1990s, when the ideology of the ‘socialist market economy’ became dominant. This watered-down version of socialism combined with nationalism became increasingly popular, and interest in the democracy movement rapidly fell. Some intellectuals would develop further the nationalist dimension of official politics. For example, after the Tiananmen tragedy, the controversial CASS philosophy student, He Xin, employed an extremist view of what was to be called ‘neo-nationalism’. The concept comprised a combination of Marxism as a national religion and an ‘Eastern’ modernization model in terms of dualities of a groupist East and an individualist West, appealing to the Chinese people to support the authorities.22 Although in the late 1980s discussions of nationhood were censured sporadically and critical discussions of Chinese culture interpreted as ‘fever’ or ‘cultural nihilism’, as the 1990s progressed, the concept of patriotism in official writings increasingly not only allowed for multiple readings, but also for increasingly diverse interpretations of Chinese tradition.23 As the interpretation and symbolism of the nation was diversifying, the meaning of socialism was too. Both concepts explicitly included views on traditional customs and ideas, and revolutionary cultural tradi18 19 20 21 22 23

Ibid. Zheng Yongnian (1999, Chapters 3–4). Huntington (1993). Zheng Yongnian (1999, 77); Sleeboom (2003). He Xin (1990, 340). Cf. Goldman (1998); Mok (1998, 197); Zhao Shuisheng (1998).

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tion. Formerly banned works on national tradition were reappraised, and renewed attention was paid to previously disgraced but erudite authors, who wrote on tradition. For example, the formerly censured works of scholars such as the journalist-intellectual Deng Tuo, economist Gu Zhun, and the work of Li Zehou on the history of Chinese thought were sold again.24 This new turn in developments in the 1990s made possible a spectrum of academic approaches to society that ranged from a critical introduction of post-modernism to the encouragement of a strand of Chinese Mainland socialist neo-Confucianism.25 At the same time, the official delineation of the concept of the Chinese nation and patriotism set ideological limits by a tactic of systematic and regular reference to the enemies of the regime in symbolic terms: all those who supported peaceful evolution and Westernization. The broadening of the concept of the nation by means of positive inclusion, and the narrowing of it by means of negative exclusion, reﬂects a change in the discursive steering methods of the regime. The change left more positive space for the creation of theories built around various deﬁnitions of the nation, while keeping the discussion within the outer limits of socialist ideology as mapped out by the regime.

Symbolic and cognitive aspects of knowledge production Ceremonies and rituals performed during celebrations, anniversaries, official visits, and award ceremonies have both symbolic and political meaning. They express the importance placed on the connections (guanxi) of some ceremonies over others. Occasions for performing ceremonies range from funerals, anniversaries of speeches, conferences, the presentation of ideas, the founding of the nation, institutes and journals, various anniversaries of birthdays, death, war, the end of war, official diplomatic connections, heroic deeds, and the passing of exams and tests. Such celebrations do not so much unite ‘the people’, as often claimed (in both anthropological literature and in leadership circles), as they form an occasion for political and academic bonding. Apart from emphasizing the location of power, the ceremonial symbolism dictates the terms and issues central to academic discourse, and gives these issues currency 24 25

Lin & Galikowski (1999, 198); Wang (2001). Fang Keli & Wang Qishui (1995).

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in the academic world at large through the appropriate elaboration of the symbolism. The choice of a particular occasion to perform ceremonies tells us about the importance attached to a certain historical event. On a personal level, the symbolic value attached to a ceremony, such as that of the celebration of the Communist Revolution, the anniversary of the ﬁrst CASS President Hu Qiaomu, and the celebration of the end of the resistance war against Japan, may stir sympathies in members of the academic audience. On a social level, these values may produce traditions by binding shared memories into symbols that are linked with new research. The nearly daily celebratory occasions and ceremonies keep CASS leadership on its feet. I have categorized them in the following way: anniversaries of birth, of death, of war and the end of war; speeches, conferences, and debates; award-giving meetings; establishing official political relations; establishing institutes; the establishment of journals; the end of an ideology; the return of territory; and, heroic deeds (cf. Appendix V). Shared symbols used in the ceremonial history of CASS constitute a lively graveyard of heroes, friends, and enemies to be picked to suit a particular policy or to suit a trend that requires the attention of a targeted audience. Commemoration seems to be unrelated to the celebrated event. It is striking that birth and death, and the beginning and the ending of a war are equally used as the cause for celebration. Thus, former CASS President Hu Qiaomu’s birthday was memorialised in the same manner as his death; the beginning of the Resistance War against Japan is commemorated with the same symbolic message as its ending (cf. Appendix V). The example of the centenary of Guo Moruo’s birth shows how celebrations can exploit the past oeuvres of a well-known personage. Guo Moruo is celebrated for his love of history, his Marxist historiography, his main role in building up the various disciplines of history in the Xuebu, and the efforts he put into trying to save ancient history from radicalLeftist attacks by appealing to cultural nationalism.26 His ‘cultural nationalism’ began to resurge during the latter half of the 1980s in the form of his thought of ‘The People as the main unit’ (renmin benwei ǦƠɮ) in contrast with the ruling-class approach that saw the emperor as ‘central

26

Edmunds (1987, 65–68).

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unit’ (benwei ɮ). The renmin benwei has its own ‘standard of good and evil’ and ended the view that ‘the Emperor is principal and the People non-essential, the Emperor is saint, and the People ignorant’.27 This view made it possible to advertise a balance of cultural nationalism and socialism as seen ﬁt by the leadership. Nevertheless, advocates of the so-called National Study Fever (guoxue-re Ýʳǥ) quote Guo Moruo’s work to their advantage. Quoting Guo’s work, this conservative group of scholars argued that sweepingly discarding national learning was equally corrupt to sweepingly propagating it.28 Other prominent academics, such as Ding Weizhi, favourably quoted Guo’s attempts to combine Western with traditional factions, as if Guo had never supported Marxism.29 In this way, the celebration of well-known personalities and occasions are remembered, redeﬁned and became examples of approaches that yielded government support and, important to those working at CASS, funding. Not only celebrations and commemorations serve as objects of projecting national symbolism or occasion for expressing political statements, academic topics can serve the same function. For example, ‘globalization’, ‘the twenty-ﬁrst century’, and ‘Asian tradition’ are concepts easily borrowed by academic leaders in need of quick and easy attention from a large academic and public audience. Depending on the context, a topic can be pulled into the emotionally laden sphere of patriotic socialism, and invested with nostalgia for socialist and cultural tradition. In principle, however, any occasion can be ritualized, and invested with symbolic meaning. Other occasions, such as the passing of exams, great ideas of brilliant leaders, meetings, and official visits, acquire extra meaning by virtue of the references made to patriotic aims, to political status and, to the importance of CASS (cf. Appendix VI). The main roles in ceremonial performance have been cast with charismatic persons and heroes, such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, politically correct personalities, such as Deng Tuo, Guo Moruo, and Hu Qiaomu, and friends of the nation, such as Ikeda Daisaku (cf. Appendix V). Celebrations create hierarchic layers of concentric boundaries

27

Huang Xuanmin (1992, 65). ‘Standard for good and evil’ (Hao-e de biaozhun ãw

&͂). 28 29

Cf. Huang Xuanmin (1992, 68). Ding Weizhi (1989).

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between relative in-groups and outsiders. The main attendees in the ceremony constitute the top inner circle, while the official attendees form a second ring. For example, the main performers at the celebration of Mao’s centennial are current leaders, who during the performance of the rites invite a close circle of attendees. The latter, the official attendees, as audience are crucial to the success of the ceremony, and add importance to both the performers and the symbolic capital in creation. Attendees of CASS ceremonies are chosen with care, especially if attendees are also expected to pass on messages to lower levels of organization. Announcements are made of the attendees’ role in ceremonial performances. Important attendees of the annual opening-of-the-year ceremony, such as the President, are announced with fervour. The presence of CASS leaders at national and international events adds importance to the role of CASS, such as when CASS Vice-President Guo Yongcai’s attended the world forty-third ping-pong championship (May 1, 1995) and when CASS Vice-Presidents Teng Teng and Long Yongshu attended the World Fourth Women’s Conference (August 22, 1995). When a CASS Vice-President attends a commemoration at CASS institutes, it usually means that the CASS leadership endorses the aim of the commemoration. For example, the wreath Vice-President Long Yongshu sent to Deng Tuo’s grave expressed more than just regret about the circumstances in which Deng had committed suicide. Deng was commemorated because his tragedy evoked strong emotions of sympathy and indignation, and because the Party and academics could identify with his work.30 Deng Tuo had been proud of the Chinese heritage, had emphasized the importance of knowledge, and had expressed a paternalistic concern for the needs of the ‘common people’. He also had emphasized hierarchy, selfdiscipline, and the culture of respected scholars. Furthermore, his approach to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought was one of cool, rational analysis. In short, Deng Tuo was ideal for advertising the scholarship promoted in the 1990s.31 Since they add weight to celebrations, CASS’s leaders are often in demand among the institutes. At the anniversary of a journal, the journal can draw attention from a broader audience. The intensity and timing (length, frequency, occasion) of commemorations and symbolic performances may express a political statement. Hu Qiaomu’s eighty-ﬁfth 30 31

Cheek (1986). Cheek (1986; 1997).

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birthday was celebrated only ﬁve years after his decease. Hu’s statue was unveiled at Yancheng library in Jiangsu eight years after he had passed away, and Hu Sheng called him an outstanding leader of Party theory and the propaganda front-line, a revolutionary politician and academic, and an encyclopaedic Marxist scholar. Memorials were also held to urge scholars to turn their attention to the study of official ideology. Just like the commemoration of Deng Xiaoping’s death in 1997, Hu Sheng’s was also used for organizing research topics on his thought. Attaching emotive values to occasions such as birth and death, peace and war, and to extend those values, the political symbolism of academic subjects prepares an academic public affectively for the reception of an ideologically endowed curriculum. Thus, posthumously sending a wreath to the famous ‘editor’ Deng Tuo’s grave at a time of economic reform may be more effective than an argument explaining the economic rational of research in that area. While rational argument requires counterarguments in order to force its logic, symbols, once accepted as natural representations and part of a just moral cause, connect emotive value and event as a matter of course. Ceremonial symbolism provides moral justiﬁcation for research on the ‘correct’ representation of these subjects in the social sciences. And when academics feel free to tie in their own research interests with these subjects, competition between approaches strengthens the belief in the truth-value of such representations.32 State propaganda tends to make the cognitive aspects of academic research subservient to its symbolic aspects. At CASS, a tendency to forge mental links between social-science research and symbolic phrases, such as ‘a great project of systems engineering of China’ or ‘national reconstruction’ attracts cognitive resources to their elaboration. Populist slogans such as ‘to serve the People’ (wei renmin fuwu ɨǦƠ²ɿ) and ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ and the ‘Two Civilizations’ (liang ge wenming ŵÅɲƢ)33 seem to provide, justify and lead the integration of an entire body of codes, symbols, icons and metaphors with the cognitive activities associated with academic research. The efficacy of such symbolism, however, depends on whether the academic audience conﬁrms their propagandist value by deploying them ‘correctly’ in an academic context. In fact, such usage displays a belief in the efficacy of such aca32

cf. Bourdieu (1988, 27–28). Constructing a socialist material and spiritual civilization is one of the main tasks in engineering modern China. 33

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demic symbolism, be it for the sake of acquiring research funding and/or for patronizing socialist patriotism. Although symbols are shared in many ways, different interpretations of these symbols continue to coexist so that their effects are hard to predict. In time, the re-creation of the historical experience no longer needs to have any of the mental links with the particular occasion celebrated originally. As ceremonial events, the creation of symbols may follow a plan, but as shown by the symbolism in River Elegy, as a political scheme symbolic meaning may start to lead its own life. This is true because different groups of people may pin different hopes and beliefs onto them. Some symbols are appropriated by groups with their own political agendas, and some may be regarded as a subversive weapon for use against ruling establishment ideologies. An example: Jiang Zemin’s symbolism and the mission of patriotic intellectuals After the Tiananmen tragedy of June 4, 1989, China’s political leadership gradually began to see the advantages of multiple views of the nation as conducive to national strength. Rather than rigidly deﬁning the one and only correct theory on the meaning of the socialist nation, the leadership saw that allowing a host of competitive theories on the nation could prevent an ideological vacuum if conventional theories of Chinese Marxism lost their credibility. Allowing competitive theories could also prevent nasty surprises of subversive versions of nationalist theory or even patriotism in times of crisis. Furthermore, the acceptance of pluralist nationalism could provide China with a range of beliefs that would suit the views of many and therefore prevent much dissatisfaction among the populace. As long as academic pluralism would respond to Party guidelines for academic research, the legitimacy of the leadership could be strengthened and obedient academics would not lose their motivation for doing their job. In this newly emerging political situation, different theories on Chinese national characteristics were combined or readjusted and others were imported and again others were newly made up. Now that theoretical combinations of socialism and Confucianism became common, the Siniﬁcation of foreign theories became a political priority, and tapping into Chinese tradition became a socialist virtue if it could add to the legitimacy of the regime. As a consequence, strength exuded by national self-conﬁdence began to take precedence over the contents of theories on national identity, and the act of referring to questions of national identity started to take priority over the trouble of answering them.

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On the one hand, political dissidence among academics was rejected, while on the other hand, theoretical pluralism was encouraged, as long as it was kept within the scope of views tolerated by the Party. After the temporary display of strength at Tiananmen, academic criticism of government policies was effectively lumped together into the political category of national disloyalty and state subversion, discouraging the habit of independent thinking, critical self-reﬂection, scepticism, and the candid expression of a constructive critique. Moreover, those who tried to put forth their academic alternatives by ignoring the now-established symbolical code of patriotic theorizing found themselves ostracized. Academics could stick to it or leave. On February 23, 1991, the newly appointed President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng visited CASS. The visit was a major event, symbolizing the leadership’s ‘genuine concern’ for CASS and exciting to everyone (even to those who disapproved of their presence).34 The leaders heralded the improvement of material circumstances at CASS and re-emphasized the role of CASS as a fortress of Marxism (ibid.). President Jiang Zemin’s May 1990 speech on ‘Patriotism and the Mission of China’s Intellectuals’ (Jiang Zemin, 1994) had already become widely quoted by academics of all hues, and had been largely adopted by CASS President Hu Sheng. In his 1991 speech at CASS, Jiang justiﬁed a nationalist approach to social science by deﬁning patriotism as a Chinese socialist tradition applicable to understanding and changing society.35 He also sketched a symbolic scenario in which ‘the West’ tries to control China by recruiting Chinese traitors and converting them to the ideology of ‘peaceful evolution’, that is, slow capitalist modernization. Crucially, he deﬁned patriotic education in such a manner that it included learning from those same capitalist countries. In this way, Jiang could advocate the patriotic nature of tasks intellectuals have in China’s tradition of self-strengthening (ziqiang buxi ͈ǐ-ʂ)36 by foreign means (zhongti-xiyong), in accordance with this popular phrase used in the May Fourth movement. CASS President Hu Sheng followed Jiang Zemin’s symbolism, deﬁning truly patriotic intellectuals as those that become part of the working classes and study Marx34

YB (1992, 3–5). Jiang Zemin (1994, 27). 36 Translated as ‘constant self-improvement’ or ‘self-improvement without interruption’. The phrase originates from the Taoist work of the Yi Jing (Book of Changes). 35

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ist thought and practice by ‘seeking truth from facts’ and acknowledging that ‘one divides into two’.37 The chains of meaning, symbolic contrasts, and moral references were part and parcel of CASS’s think-tank function to the government, a fortress of Marxism. Included in this function were the multidisciplinary development, strengthening, and application of this body of phrases and principles in many contexts and areas of society. Thus, the research curriculum was to reﬂect this new form of socialist patriotism.

National symbolism and the rationality of research The growing interest in foreign culture (foreign literature and art forms), modern science (systems fever, philosophy of science, history of science) and in post-modernistic currents (e.g., futurology, neo-structuralism, neo-Marxism, Alvin Toffler’s concept of the ‘third wave’, symbiotics) was related to several changes in Chinese society, not just a ‘bourgeoisliberalist’ fashion of painting Chinese culture as backward among intellectuals. The increased attention for culture and its symbolism spread over a wide range of disciplines, and also among scientists and orthodox Marxists. Broad agreement existed on the harm done by ‘feudal’ elements in Chinese culture, education and the legal system. The Culture Fever, therefore, lived not only among so-called bourgeois intellectuals, but had also roots in the den of the Party. The dispute centred more on the question of how to change culture, and of whether ‘an enlightened leader’, ‘the people’, or ‘the law’ would be responsible for its implementation. The debate took on various forms that could be found in, for example, systems science, history, philosophy, economics and political science. Though the question of how culture was to change remained unsolved, love for the nation was displayed as the ultimate aim for cultural change by all participants in the Culture Fever debates and was enforced by symbolic meaning.

37 Mao’s slogan ‘one divides into two’ was used in order to attack so-called revisionists who allegedly defended the view that ‘two become one’. The phrase and slogan ‘One divides into two’ meant struggle, revolution and separation, while ‘two become one’ stood for harmony, evolution and unity. Anyone who was thought to be a traitor of the revolution could be seen as a defender of the latter phrase (Cf. Xu Zhen, [E1980]; Meng Xianjun, [E1980]).

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Thus not only reformist and democratic intellectuals concentrated on cultural issues since the mid-1980s, but supporters of official policies also increasingly viewed culture as important in inducing change in Chinese society. After 1989, the concepts of culture and civilization also became important in discussions that looked for alternative political forms of organization. The values of Chinese tradition and Western societies were assessed, though the political leadership did not like the labelling of the CP tradition as feudal. Instead, it tended to back up neo-authoritarian views of leadership in its official propaganda. Although the leadership tightened up academic monitoring after 1989, in the 1990s a trend toward theoretical pluralism re-emerged and accelerated. This apparent contradiction can be explained partly by the availability of the ‘national’ concept as a framework for academic dispute. Various competing views used the same framework of the nation for the common purpose of persuading others of the correctness of their view by assigning different meanings and functions to the concept of the nation. The pluralism of the 1990s came to be predominantly based on various expressions found to characterize the functions of the nation. Within this realm, only the outer limits of such characterizations had to be indicated, which took place in debates that created the validity of markers for socialism and Chineseness in the context of ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’. A main task for ideological education was the solid re-identiﬁcation of patriotism with Party loyalty. In 1989, this was not easy as students during the demonstrations phrased their patriotism in terms of democracy. In the 1990s, official lines increasingly linked socialism to culture, which was much easier to associate with tradition and patriotism than was ‘the struggle between nation-states’ and ‘class struggle’ at home. Hence, patriotism increasingly included the ‘establishment of socialist culture’. At CASS, countless meetings of students and researchers discussed the meaning of the concepts of enemy presence, national safety, and the preservation of national top secrets. To ensure the ideological loyalty of exchange students, who would enter the lion’s den, training courses were organized, teaching students how to pet the lion and learn the secrets of its strength. In this chapter I illustrated some functions and applications of symbols in academic work with examples that show how symbols, official ceremony, politics, and administrative organization are intertwined with the planning and practice of academic research. The symbolic and cognitive functions of ceremonies, speeches, political and organizational meetings,

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and celebrations indirectly deﬁne the research curriculum, which is especially built up around concepts of national construction. The nationalism it is based on, however, derives from distinct views of China’s past, present, and future. As such, the unit of the nation in research serves as a discursive platform of academic and political dispute. This platform allows for competing ideals and interpretations while it strengthens concepts of the nation at the same time. Such a platform can also be used by the leadership to steer research in a certain political direction, especially as it creates the occasion for the meeting of symbol and knowledge, at which ceremony, ritual and academic research are linked together. The examples of President Jiang Zemin’s and CASS President Hu Sheng’s speeches on socialist modernization and socialist democracy show how their patriotism was linked to historical concepts of national self-strengthening and was symbolically tied to the struggle against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism. Jiang symbolically attributed the use of the concept of ‘peaceful evolution’ to ‘Chinese traitors’ in cahoots with the West. Furthermore, he encouraged students to dedicate themselves to strengthening China by means of borrowing from the West. He made the Party responsible for the healthy training of intellectuals, for instilling intellectuals with socialist principles, and for keeping them from becoming cultural nihilists. CASS President Hu Sheng followed his symbolism, celebrated it, and applied it to the research curriculum. But when subservient to politics, symbolic meaning is rarely realized exactly as it was intended. People attach different values to symbols, and their deployment may have unexpected effects. Some symbols turn into weapons against the ruling establishment, while other struggles over symbols generate new meanings, which may serve as a basis for further discussion and research. The examples of celebrations held at CASS show the ease with which symbolic links are created, which also serve as a basis for academic research projects. The availability of shared symbols provides a range of heroes, friends, and enemies to be picked to suit a particular research policy. Once accepted as naturally linked representations, symbols connect emotive value and event as a matter of course. In some cases, cognitive perception is made subservient to symbolic perception. Thus, scientiﬁc research at CASS is mobilized to work on the ‘great project of systems engineering of China’ through a tendency to equate social science to the establishment of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and the Two Civilizations. Cognitive activity, then, is made to serve the symbolism of the nation. In other words, in

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national celebrations performed at CASS, the ritualization of rationality serves the nation-state, and vindicates the (over)exposure of the unit of the nation endemic to official research projects, at the cost of other units of research.

chapter twelve THE TRANSFORMATION OF PARTY GUIDANCE IN CASS

This chapter asks how the CCP could survive under circumstances of apparent ideological bankruptcy during the reform period. In other words, how has the Party been able to retain its inﬂuence in academic life, and why has the state hung on to its socialist ideology. The answer to these questions lies in the reform of both Party ideology and Party organization. In other words, the modernization of Marxism and liberalization of Party ideology, combined with a re-identiﬁcation of patriotism with Party loyalty, gave space to a relatively theoretical pluralism. And organizationally, the Party began to use increasingly subtle forms of research regulation and looser forms of administration. Nevertheless, Party control of academic discourse did not subside. Academic discourse, besides being shaped through the competition between political factions, and the pressure exerted by peer groups and dissident subordinates, was also inﬂuenced by Party attempts at maintaining its inﬂuence, institutionally and ideologically. In this chapter, I show how official formulations and delineations of correct and incorrect categories narrow the range within which one could successfully conduct research or apply for funding. I substantiate this argument with examples from self-introductions of CASS institutes in the Yearbooks of CASS and with descriptions of research in the Compass for the State Key Item Programme of 1997, inviting CASS scholars to submit an application.

Transforming Party Guidance Not only have conceptualizations of the nation changed over the last decades, but conceptualizations of Marxism have as well. Until far into the 1980s the editorial boards and curricula of CASS stuck to Marxist basic concepts such as ‘dialectical materialism’ and ‘revolutionary struggle’. The Institute for Marxism-Leninism Research has played an important role in the adoption, deﬁnition, and reformulation of the Marxist vocabulary. The institute was set up as a part of CAS in 1955. Its his-

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tory is usually traced back to the inﬂuential Marxist-Leninist Academy (Yan’an Ma-Lie Xueyuan ʻƓŻʳ˾), renowned for its ideological work in the Yan’an, the guerrilla base of the CCP from 1936 to 1947 in Shaanxi province. This ‘Central Research Institute’ was small but had an eminent research staff: Party leaders, political activists, translator cum theoreticians, and theoretical critics from several ﬁelds such as history and MarxismLeninism. Among them were Ai Siqi, Chen Boda, Deng Tuo, Wang Youwei, Hu Qiaomu, Yu Guangyuan. The status of these historical thinkers in the 1950s was high and sometimes they were called ‘Great Secretaries’ (da mishu iƝȩ), which refers to the theoretical work done by secretaries to Mao in the Yan’an period. Many of them would wield great inﬂuence over academic life during the post-Mao reforms. The Institute of Marxism-Leninism followed the Soviet model closely, both in its institutional set-up and its teaching materials. In 1953, the movement to ‘learn from the Soviet Union’ crowned the completion of the draft of the ﬁrst ﬁve-year plan. Delegations to Moscow were organized, Soviet reference materials were translated for use in all of China’s research and educational institutions, and Soviet advisers helped in setting up study courses. Books on dialectical materialism and historical materialism were translated from Soviet works. They were edited according to the regulations of the Internal Promulgation Department of Party History (neigongbu dangshi ưË0qȗ)’. When relations with the Soviet Union were severed in the 1960s, the Soviet Union withdrew its advisers and technicians, so Chinese cadres had to edit their own books. Nevertheless, the framework of Soviet theory was largely retained, and its main vocabulary was dominant in academic writing and debate until in the 1980s. Editorial boards stuck to basic Marxist categories such as ‘dialectical materialism’ (bianzheng weiwuzhuyi $̟ɧɾ̺˕), ‘the differentiation between positive and negative’ (fenbian zhengfan ¤$̜), ‘historical materialism’, and an ‘economic base and ideological superstructure’, although their usage and context would produce new meanings in different political periods of time. In education, the subjects of Marxism-Leninism, political economy, dialectical materialism, historical materialism, scientiﬁc socialism, and Mao Zedong Thought were forged onto the same framework that was imported from the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Students had to take exams on these subjects, regardless of whether they were majors in English, physics, or economics. Textbooks based on this framework of thought remain prevalent in contemporary ideological education.

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Practice as the only criterion for truth? When Deng Xiaoping in 1978 declared that ‘practice’ was to be the only criterion for truth, this meant that Marxist-Leninist political guidelines were no longer expected to be the main criterion for correct knowledge. Such pronouncements were hard to implement, however, let alone supervise. An official evaluation by the Party of the movements in which intellectuals came under attack gives a clue to the ambivalent position of intellectuals during the initial years of the reforms. The Resolution on CCP History (1949–1981) issued an ‘Authoritative Assessment of Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution, and the Achievements of the People’s Republic’. The Document had been compiled under the supervision of Hu Qiaomu, the ﬁrst President of CASS, and was adopted by the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party on June 27, 1981.1 Its account of Rightist activities amounts to a justiﬁcation of the Anti-Rightists Campaign (1957), with only a single qualiﬁcation of its scope. That qualiﬁcation concerned the public’s role in offering advice. The Directives on the Rectiﬁcation Campaign, issued on April 27, 1957, by the Central Committee of the CCP, had ‘urged the masses to offer criticisms and suggestions’, But in the Rectiﬁcation Campaign a handful of Bourgeois Rightists seized the opportunity to advocate what they called ‘speaking out and airing views in a big way’ and ‘to mount a wild attack against the Party and the nascent socialist system in an attempt to replace the leadership of the Party. … It was therefore entirely correct and necessary to launch a resolute counter-attack [i.e., the Anti-Rightist Campaign]. But the scope of this struggle was made far too broad and a number of intellectuals, patriotic people, and Party cadres were unjustiﬁably labelled ‘Rightists’ with unfortunate consequences.2

Responsibility for the Cultural Revolution (May 1966–October 1976) was ascribed to Mao Zedong’s errors, which ‘had been taken advantage of by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing and others to commit many crimes behind his back, and brought disaster to the country and the People’.3 The erroneous ‘Left’ theses upon which Comrade Mao Zedong had initiated the

1 Hu Qiaomu, comp., Resolution on CCP History (1949–1981), Authoritative Assessment of Mao Zedong, the ‘Cultural Revolution’, and the Achievements of the People’s Republic (Beijing: Foreign Language Press. E1981). 2 Resolution 1981, 27. 3 Resolution 1981, 33.

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‘Cultural Revolution’ were ‘obviously inconsistent with the system of Mao Zedong Thought, which is the integration of the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete practice of the Chinese revolution’.4 The Resolution also makes clear, however, that the ‘so-called reactionary academic authorities in the Cultural Revolution, during which many capable and accomplished intellectuals were attacked and persecuted, also badly muddled up the distinction between the people and the enemy’.5 However, it did not explain who was the ‘enemy’ in the ﬁrst place. The Resolution argued that ‘It was we and not the enemy at all who were thrown into disorder by the ‘Cultural Revolution’.6 Denying the Party’s role in the Cultural Revolution, the Resolution maintains that the Cultural Revolution ‘was divorced both from the Party organizations and from the masses’, thereby making the Party a victim of the Cultural Revolution: ‘the Party’s leading cadres at various levels were subjected to criticism and struggle, inner-Party life came to a standstill, and many activists and large numbers of the basic masses whom the Party has long relied on were rejected’. Again, only ‘a handful of extremists approved of launching ruthless struggles against leading Party cadres at all levels.7 The Resolution attaches importance to the loyalty of intellectuals to the Party, which is ultimately equated with the love for the motherland. Even though its description (see below) refers to the past, it is obvious that its importance lies in the desirability for the future patriotic and socialist behaviour of Party members and intellectuals, rather than in its accuracy as an objective description of the past: Rigorous tests throughout the Cultural Revolution have proved that standing on the correct side in the struggle was the overwhelming majority of the members of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party and the members it elected to its Political Bureau, Standing Committee, and Secretariat. Most of Our Party cadres, whether they were wrongly dismissed or remained at their posts, whether they were rehabilitated early or late, are loyal to the Party and people and steadfast in their belief in the cause of socialism and communism. Most of the intellectuals, model workers, patriotic democrats, patriotic overseas Chinese and cadres and masses of

4 Mao’s principal theses appeared mainly in the May 16 circular, which served as the programmatic document of the Cultural Revolution, and in the political report to the Ninth National Congress of the Party in April 1969 (Resolution 1981, 32–33). 5 Resolution 1981, 35. 6 Resolution 1981, 35–36. 7 Resolution 1981, 35.

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all strata and all nationalities, who had been wronged and persecuted, did not waver in their love for the motherland and in their support for the Party and socialism.8

The reader is left with the idea that only a handful of Rightists and a handful of Leftists were to blame for the two periods of major disaster for intellectuals, while the Party itself has preserved its purity. In this account, the theory of Mao Zedong Thought may be retained, for Mao’s errors were not in agreement with the system of Mao Zedong Thought. And though the chief responsibility for the grave ‘Left’ error of the ‘Cultural Revolution’ lies with Comrade Mao Zedong, the graveness of this error is relativized because ‘after all it was the error of a great proletarian revolutionary’.9 The Resolution could not put at ease the minds of intellectuals as, apparently, it does not fully condemn the persecution of critical remonstrators. To be fair, the Resolution does offer two main historical causes underlying the Cultural Revolution. The ﬁrst cause it mentions lies in the fact that the Party was not fully prepared, neither ideologically nor in terms of scientiﬁc study, for the swift advent of the new-born socialist society and the task of socialist construction on a national scale. It had remained stuck in a tradition of large-scale, turbulent mass struggle of the past. The second cause was found in the arrogance of Mao at the very time when the Party was confronted with the new task of shifting the focus of its work to socialist construction: he put himself above the Central Committee of the Party while the Party attempted to foster a tradition of democracy and ﬁght a struggle against feudalism.10 Both causes are related to what is termed feudalism. It is a generic term that under Marxist inﬂuence in the ﬁrst decades of the twentieth century nearly became a synonym for ‘backwardness’. Among its features are a corrupt and oppressive bureaucracy, monarchic despotism, exploitation of backward peasants, and a stagnant economy. In the 1980s, accusations of being feudal directed towards the Party were to become a major source of poignant debate between ‘reformist intellectuals’ and defenders of Party purity.

8 9 10

Resolution 1981, 43. Resolution 1981, 41. Resolution 1981, 44–47.

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chapter twelve Modernizing Marxism

After the reforms of 1978, Marxism required updating in order to guide the social sciences to correct solutions to the question of how to modernize China. The Party, including its conservative members, regarded the development of science and technology as the most important item of the Four Modernizations, and progressive intellectuals regarded it also as a development that would go hand-in-hand with liberalization and political reform, including democratic reforms. In the 1980s, in various ﬁelds of philosophy and social science, attempts were made to adopt the latest updates of modern science theory to Marxism. For instance, systems theory, cybernetics, and information theory were much quoted, not only by liberals, but also by Party scholars who attempted to renew Marxism to maintain its authority in society. One example was the attempt to reconcile socialism with information society. It was precisely at the height of the Campaign against Spiritual Pollution (1983–1984) that the concept of the information society was supported and welcomed by Marxists who argued for its application as a productive force. The works of Alvin Tofﬂer, Daniel Bell, and John Naisbitt were widely read and adapted to the futurology of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The advantages of advancing the new sciences over theories based on conventional material were many: they could lead to a merger of white collar workers and engineers, and a disappearance of the class of blue-collar workers; information was the environmental-friendly solution to ecological problems of pollution; instead of ﬁrst having to go through a conventional stage of capitalist industrialization, information could facilitate a leap to a more advanced and cleaner information society. At the same time, it could avoid the problem of urbanization, as central information policies would prepare decentralized applications in the trade and production activities of the population in the countryside. CASS President Ma Hong reconciled the information society with Marxism. Quoting Zhao Ziyang, he contrasted the negative effects of information in crisis-prone capitalist countries in which information is used to legitimize capitalism with the positive inﬂuence of information on the mode of production under socialism.11 In this optimistic discur11 Speech at the Symposium on the Overall Development Strategy of the Economy, Society, Science, and Technology’, October 21, 1983, Jingji wenti, 1, (1984): 2–9; JPRSCEA-84–059, China Report: Economic Affairs, (July 19, 1984): 13–26, cited in Brugger & Kelly (1990, 36).

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sive mood, the question of how relations of production are affected by such radical changes in the production forces is either skipped or not considered to be problematic. A more pessimistic view, taken by critical liberals and Marxists, such as Wang Ruoshui, however, argued that achieving economic reform required changes in the political culture of the superstructure. This view not only regards the distribution of information as problematic, but also deﬁnes the nature of information in itself as subject to control by certain classes. In order to avoid the alienation of information, therefore, access to information should be a right of all individuals and not be concentrated in the hands of a few. Only in a free-information society, they argued, can individual creativity lead to an inventiveness that is conducive to stimulating the forces of production. In the late 1980s, the rift between the approaches of the optimistic Marxist reformists and pessimistic liberals started to grow, and the issue of ‘neo-authoritarianism’ became important exactly in this context of the ‘apolitical’ modernization of China and Marxism. Among the younger researchers working with Zhao Ziyang’s think-tanks were also optimists and pessimists. The optimists believed that an integration of the new sciences with Marxism could aid China’s modernization without changing the political superstructure, while the pessimists insisted on political reform. The former would ascribe to the nation characteristics that deﬁned China as led from above, either through the socialist representation of ‘the people’ by the Party, or through views of Chinese tradition as led by wise men, while the latter deﬁned the nation as ‘modern’, in liberal terms of the institutionalization of democracy that was usually conﬁned to an educated elite, and, more rarely, extended over the entire population, including the peasant majority. Dealing with the failure of the political reforms Looking back onto the 1980s, one wonders how reformist intellectuals and democracy-proponents managed to exist in a relation of dependency on the Party-state and as part of the establishment. Even more puzzling is the question of how dissident intellectuals that stayed on at CASS after the June fourth clampdown on the demonstrating students, workers, and intellectuals dealt with their situation. Did they change their mind about the political system after 1989? How did those who stayed on adjust themselves to new academic policies, and how could they justify their job as part of the establishment structure?

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According to some intellectuals at CASS, too much hope had been placed on the reforms, in particular in the ﬁeld of academic reforms. It should have been clear all along that Deng Xiaoping had not planned radical liberalization. It was proverbially known to all that he advocated a ‘no change theory’ (bubianlun). The reforms pertained to the economic, not to the political realm, which is, according to some, the main gist of the contents of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Both the leaders of CASS and the leaders of the institutes were expected to criticize the students and to have developmental inﬂuence on them ‘from within’.12 In other words, methods for teaching students how to behave were not meant to require the external correction mechanisms of the political leadership or military. Nevertheless, the implementation of the organizational and disciplinary adjustments of 1989 and 1991 did bring about the application of external control until CASS was considered purged. Thus, by 1991, the policy of gradually changing CASS into a stronghold of Marxism-Leninism had, at least outwardly, partly succeeded. This was partly due to an important source of pressure on the job security of intellectuals: CASS was considered to have grown bulky, costly, and inefficient. The number of institutes, research projects, and staff were to be cut. Initially, according to information leaks, and later according to official notes, staff had to be diminished by nearly a third: the target was to decrease the number of staff from 5,500 to 4,000. As no one knew how this goal would be attained, job insecurity put extra pressure on the academics that were dependent on the academy for an income, welfare, and a pension. Those that had hoped to change society from within the Party and within the legal bounds of state organization had to keep to themselves or pay lip service to politically acceptable views, if they wanted to stay on at CASS. But thorny questions kept teasing at least some CASS intellectuals: would a coup in the early 1980s have had a chance of succeeding? At the time, the now elaborate organizational structures for realizing China’s modernization and economic reforms had not been put into place yet. Therefore, the question arose as to which groups, aside from the Party, would have had enough authority and clout to lead and implement reforms without creating anarchy. Would democracy have worked at a time in which hardly anyone knew what it meant? Had the present Party-state leadership not improved China’s economic situation and given it a high

12

Zhize xuesheng, zai litou qile daitou zuoyong ̨̇ʳȋ̄ŧɘǊŹjɘ͓˦.

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stature in the world? It could hardly be denied that Deng’s reform policies had reduced direct state-intervention in the areas of the economy, society, and science, even though it now continued to pull the strings in alternative ways. China had opened up to the outside world, revived its regional economies, and created a thriving middle class of traders and manufacturers. Furthermore, had the Party-state not also given room to democratic parties in the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress? Had cooperation with the Party leadership and improvement of it from within not been the only right thing to do? These and other questions kept undermining the determination of the formerly self-conﬁdent political reformers. In view of these queries, only a triumph of the demonstrations could have ‘proved’ the line taken by the proponents of ‘democracy’ to be correct. An unequivocal dialectical approach and slogans such as ‘seeking truth from facts’ propagated by the revamped leadership added to the idea, tautologically, that the current regime was right. Especially the adoption of the strategy of harsh treatment for the few and leniency for the many, and the requirement that those who had committed errors reﬂect upon their mistakes and ‘correct’ them, pushed many dissenters into a situation in which complacency seemed the only reasonable attitude to adopt. Of course, this was only possible for those who had not been imprisoned, killed, gone abroad, or had ‘jumped into the sea’ (xiahai ʇÞ), i.e., make the ‘jump’ to enter the market. At the same time, academic attitudes responded to political demands of academic work, and a more broadly deﬁned view of ‘competition between schools of thought’ made stepping in line with establishment policies easier for an increasingly docile majority of academics. This became even more true after 1998, under President Li Tieying, who formally placed this policy on the academic agenda. Even after the Party had persecuted intellectuals, their families and colleagues, most of them were happy to be allowed back into the Party, convinced that the only way to function effectively, after all, is within the context of the political and academic establishment. After 1989, numerous intellectuals started to re-evaluate Chinese culture in a new light. Re-identiﬁcation of Party loyalty with the nation Whereas in 1989 the authorities cracked down on academics, and the monitoring of academics was tightened up, in the 1990s a trend toward theoretical pluralism re-emerged and accelerated. How could these two

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seemingly contradictory tendencies coexist? One answer lies in the availability of the ‘national’ concept that became a checkpoint for academic control. The politico-cultural boundaries, part and parcel of deﬁnitions of the Chinese nation in its global setting, were predicated on a set of features corresponding to the parameters of nationhood used in theories developed by academics and politicians. Such parameters were cultural, political, economic, ecological, linguistic, and biological in kind, and expressed various political views. A main task set for ideological education was the solid re-identiﬁcation of patriotism with Party loyalty. This was a daunting challenge, considering that students during the demonstrations had held up banners that read ‘We love our country, but we hate our government’. Therefore in an attempt to overcome hostilities towards the Party-state, former Tianjin Mayor Li Ruihuan in his speech equated the eyes, ears, and mouth of the Party with those of the People.13 Socialist modernization in official propaganda now became a matter of patriotism, and increasingly included the ‘establishment of socialist culture’, i.e., the ‘construction of material civilization and spiritual civilization’. Though Zhao Ziyang had once called the student demonstrators patriotic, it was more usual in official speeches, journals, and newspapers, for particular students and intellectuals to be accused of insulting Chinese tradition. At the same time encouragement was given to the reinterpretation of Chinese tradition in terms of communist revolution, traditional forms of trade, family networks, and classical science and moral philosophy. These traditions, apart from being studied academically, were skimmed for their use to back up ideologically the prospects of a China undergoing successful modernization with socialist characteristics in the midst of a deteriorating capitalist world of envious and scheming Western opponents.

Guidelines for academic writing under Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Generally, CASS scholars do not exclusively concern themselves with sensitive political issues. Most scholars spend considerable effort trying to avoid them. Scholars in the 1990s could go ahead with their private research topic and write about it by leaving official policies alone as far as they were able. This strategy, however, did not make them rich, 13 Li Ruihuan had replaced Hu Qili in the Standing Committee of the Politburo in charge of Propaganda.

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as the new system for funding at CASS especially emphasized the link between theory and its application to society. Apart from participating in a research group or doing research jobs for leaders, researchers followed their own research projects.14 Such research projects ranged from introducing the work of controversial foreign scholars and schools of thought to the study of historical events, personae, and social problems relevant to the discipline under concern. If they wanted to oppose or challenge the leadership, scholars would have to follow their own ‘secret’ research agenda, besides retaining an outwardly acceptable one. Dissident scholars refrained from openly venting their dissatisfaction with fundamental ideological tenets, and in official journals or newspapers their views did not get printed (in a way they found acceptable). Not even the most daring scholars of repute dared to say in public that rather than regarding Marxism-Leninism as a main guiding source, it should be treated as one of many theories. In this sense, propaganda and guidelines marginalized the views of dissenters. The ‘weapons of the weak’ here were silence and secrecy, which are weak weapons in the academic world where views are in competition with one another openly. This situation might explain the lack of major theoretical innovations in CASS (with the exception of the ﬁeld of economics, in which CASS had strong competition from Renmin University in the 1990s), as well as the great amount of what in the West has become known as ‘Orientalism’ in historical works, and the continued reproduction of official jargon in socially and politically oriented CASS publications. The rules of writing are different, however, for those who in their official publications touch upon matters that are politically sensitive. Though the media and universities largely lack systematic censorship, the threat of sanctions after publication encourages academics to administer self-censorship. To prevent complications, scholars take care that they formulate their ideas in politically acceptable language. The management and manipulation of formulations is central to censorship. The political manipulation of language and choice of form inﬂuences the message and contents of academic writings. Subject choice, conceptual usage, method, and the selection of sources, and research results in aca-

14 Before 1992, this practice was frowned upon. Yu Wen strongly repudiated such private appropriation of time and sources in his December 1991 speech (YB [1993, 10]). After Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Inspection Tour in 1992, academic policies started to favour private initiative and market activities though, in the end, their fruits were to beneﬁt the Party Units of CASS Institutes.

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demic writing at Chinese academic institutions—all these are heavily inﬂuenced by official policies, ironically, often formulated with the help of academics. On the level of academic forms of expression, certain formulations are taboo while others are prescribed.15 The issue of the use and abuse of formulations is subject to constant strategic deliberation at the highest levels of the CCP. A deﬁning characteristic of the formulation is its ﬁxed form. A slight nuance can change its entire meaning.16 Chinese political discourse is restricted not so much with respect to content as with respect to form. ‘Incorrect’ language is not published officially.17 Regulation of the formal aspects of discourse may be a more effective means of control than is a simple compilation of an index of taboo topics, as it affects a whole range of possible responses in dealing with a research topic. The maintenance of such regulation is relatively simple as deviations from the canonical lists of guidelines, principles, and set phrases of official ideology are easily spotted. For example, the jargon used in the academic yearbooks of CASS that introduces its research institutes makes them sound very similar by the use of official political and technical jargon in their introductions. The stated main research focus and tasks of the Institute of Economics could be the blueprint of most introductions of the Institutes of CASS: To study completely and systematically the discipline of political economy in a broad sense, guided by Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought. It includes the study of the social dynamics of political economics and presocialist political economics. It focuses on studying socialist economic theory with Chinese characteristics. Its tasks concern researching the historical economy of China and foreign countries, and the history of economic thought, especially modern and recent history on the one hand, and its link with present reality on the other hand; researching important issues in modern capitalist economy and the socialist economy, in particular China’s political reforms and opening up to the outside, and comprehensive questions in the construction of socialist modernization, with the purpose of stimulating the enrichment and development of the science of economics.18 (Italics are mine.)

15

Cf. Schoenhals (1992, 107–109). Schoenhals (1992) gives the following example: the distinction between jieji shehui (‘class-society’) and you jieji de shehui (society having classes) implies the difference between a ‘class society’ and a ‘society including people with different class background’ (Schoenhals [1992, 7]). Only the former is politically correct as it unambiguously refers to class society implied in official ideology. 17 Ibid.: 20. 18 YB (1993, 32). 16

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If we substitute ‘religion’ for ‘economy’, this introduction still makes sense as formal academic policy, and consequently does not add any information to what the reader that is aware of establishment ideology already knows. In other words, such jargon makes poor discourse. Now compare the introduction of the Institute of Political Economy to that of the Institute of World Religion: Studying under the leadership of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and by means of scientiﬁc method the three great world religions (Buddhism, Christianity and Islam) and other religions, their religious theory, history, present situation and their inﬂuence on human society and culture. Researching religious issues in our socialist country’s society, providing a theoretical basis and logistic service in accordance with the policies on religion as stipulated by my country’s Party and the political ministries concerned; studying the principles of the science of theology in order to give a contribution to the development of a Marxist theological science with Chinese characteristics and constructing the Two Civilizations.19 (Italics are mine.)

Both accounts could have been written by anyone who is aware of Party guidelines, without knowing the ﬁrst thing about either of the subjects. The main three ingredients of the introductions are (1) the leadership of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, (2) science with Chinese characteristics, (3) the contrast between tradition and modernity, and capitalism and socialism. When the three are well mixed and cooked, this concoction results in the construction of socialist civilization. The Key Research Items and the Compass Some important means of monitoring academic research are Key Research Item Programmes (KRIP), which in the 1990s was increasingly relied upon for their steering power. At least two kinds of KRIPs are employed to regulate research: the State KRIP, and the CASS KRIP (additionally, in Beijing municipality, there is the Municipal KRIP). In light of the need for developing social-science disciplines, CASS KRIPs are carried out in a ﬁve-year span. Here, I use the State KRIP to draw attention to their regulatory function and instructive jargon. State KRIPs serve as supportive research and follow national ﬁve-year plans. The CASS Leading Group and Academy Committee selects and compiles them. For 1998, they are listed in the internal circular of the 1998

19

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Subject Compass of the State Plan for Philosophy and the Social Sciences (hereafter, ‘Compass’). Even though the Compass is meant for insiders only at CASS, its purpose is to recruit applicants for the research topics listed. The Compass includes twelve ‘rolling key items of research’ (Gundong zhongdian keti), constituting part of the Ninth Five-Year Plan. It contains an additional 316 items spread over social-science disciplines. Applicants must stick to the original formulation of the subjects. The Compass is based on the official guidelines, lumped together, in one very long sentence. It utilizes the following list that summarizes the basic policies toward the social sciences, which is frequently quoted in official documents and cited in academic texts: – Taking Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as a lead; – Upholding the basic line on the ﬁrst stage of socialism and basic leadership of the Party; – Positively, fully, precisely and thoroughly implementing the spirit of the 15th Party Congress in 1997; – Linking theory with practice; – Taking important theoretical and practical issues in China’s policy of reform and opening up toward the outside world, and the construction of a socialist modernization as the main direction of attack (zhugong fangxiang) (‘attack’ here is used in the revolutionary spirit of ‘constructive struggle’); – Seeking out positively the laws of development of the Chinese characteristics of the socialist economy, socialist politics and culture; – In the service of the policies of the Party and the government; and, – In the service of the Two Civilizations. For a general idea of the pervasiveness of political guidelines of the Key Item plan research topics, consider the list of twelve main ‘rolling Key Item subjects’ of the ninth ﬁve-year plan: – Deng Xiaoping Theory constitutes the Marxism of China’s new stage of development (Marxism-Leninism; scientiﬁc socialism); – The legacy of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory is passed on as a uniﬁed scientiﬁc system (Marxism-Leninism; scientiﬁc socialism); – The basic line and basic guidelines for the Party in the ﬁrst stage of socialism and China in the ﬁrst stage of socialism (Party History; Party Construction);

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– Upholding and improving the basic economic system and practice of the economic reforms under socialism with Chinese characteristics (economic theory); – Marxist theory of public ownership and the issue of the multifarious expression of public ownership (economic theory); – Give full rein to the market system and construct a healthy system of macro-regulation (applied economics); – The important status of State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s) and the correct leading thought, directions and policies of the reforms (applied economics); – A basic programme, basic policy, and research into the reform practice of the political system for the maintenance and construction of socialist political system with Chinese characteristics (political science); – A basic programme, basic policy, and research into the reform practice of culture for maintaining and setting up socialist culture with Chinese characteristics (philosophy); – A general programme for building an overall stronger Party and an effective realization of Party construction (Party history, Party construction); – Guarding against and resolving ﬁnancial hazards (applied economics); – Deng Xiaoping’s concept of One Country, Two Systems and solving the Taiwan issue (Marxism-Leninism; scientiﬁc socialism). The ﬁrst three subjects deal with updating general Marxist theory. Research item number one solicits researchers to write about how China is currently different from conventional Marxist China; thus, it refers to a ‘new stage of development’. Item number two invites the researcher to link up Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping Theory in a way that expresses its continuity with the past, while it prescribes and expects the formulation of it to be an integrated whole, and adequately justiﬁed by means of scientiﬁc theorizing. This research task was to contribute to the (then) future theory of President Jiang Zemin, who had recently been added to the pantheon of Chinese great thinkers. The third item asks the researcher to regard China’s contemporary situation as the ﬁrst stage in a system of development and implies that it still has quite a few steps to go. Topics four through seven and item eleven concern the development of the economic reforms, or the underdevelopment of Chinese social-

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ism. The relatively recently identiﬁed stage of underdeveloped socialism assigns the main role of modernization to the development of productive forces, with an emphasis on science and technology. Eventually this development is expected to lead to a new system of socialism, though paradoxically, this system is still under design. Topics seven, eight, and nine all refer to socialism with Chinese characteristics with respect to the economy (seven), the political system (eight), and culture (nine). Academic policy-makers and academics have paid considerable attention to the oxymoron of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and have spent signiﬁcant research time on delineating the unique nature of Chinese socialism in academic discussions since 1985. The concept, exactly because of its paradoxical character, has generated a ﬂood of debate on the uniqueness of the Chinese nation in a way, probably, that no other straightforward or unambiguous concept could. Topics ten, eleven, and twelve address speciﬁc problems facing the CCP leadership. Topic ten (a general programme for building an overall stronger Party and an effective realization of Party construction) is concerned with the generally acknowledged weakness of Party ideology. Though the number of CCP members is still growing steadily, the lack of ideological dedication of its members is widely lamented by the guardians of Party theory. Points eleven and twelve refer to issues that have come to be of great urgency to the leadership and have great practical consequences. The study of ﬁnancial risks (eleven) became urgent when in 1997 the Asian ﬁnancial crisis made clear how dependence on global ﬁnancial currents could wreak havoc on the national economy. The last topic (twelve) of Deng Xiaoping’s concept of One Country, Two Systems and solving the Taiwan issue, interestingly, is to be resolved through Marxism-Leninism and scientiﬁc socialism; the Taiwan area studies are not mentioned. True to its name, the compass locates sets of boundaries, signposts, from which the academic may choose to proceed on the road to ﬁnd funding or to conduct research for the greater good of the Chinese socialist nation. The commissions in the compass embody official policies, ready to be elaborated, developed, applied and multiplied in various disciplines and practices, and, additionally, to be recycled as ‘advice’ to government authorities. It is up to the academic to apply. The proscription of selected formulations makes the introduction of new concepts no easy matter: the prescribed repetition of a limited number of ‘scientiﬁc’ formulations promotes acceptance of already existing

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conceptions, while it discourages the creative formulation of ideas into new concepts. The prevailing syntax and the sign structure of academic language implicitly expresses the official ideology mandatory in the academic community, and facilitates uncritical acceptance of conventional assumptions, impeding the expression of critical or heretical ideas. Of course, such a system of censorship is vulnerable to blasphemous violations. Rebellious scholars can try to abuse and manipulate formulations in order to express their critique. This, however, may be more hazardous than openly criticizing official policies, as it may be considered as a surreptitious form of subversion, forming an even more serious threat to the establishment since it comes from within. Another perceived threat to the ideology of the establishment is the indiscriminate application of official formulas and Party jargon. Apart from encouraging ‘Leftist’ dogmatism, it severely inhibits the production of new ideas favourable to the official policies of reform. Hu Sheng, the President of CASS (1985–1998), in an article based on his 1992 speech at the celebration of the ﬁftieth anniversary of the Yan’an rectiﬁcation of incorrect working styles (Yan’an zhengfeng ʻ̛ª), illustrated how academic policies get entangled with the undesired results of those policies.20 Trying to reintroduce Party discipline into CASS, Hu placed emphasis on opposing Revisionism and Bourgeois Liberalization. He criticized their ‘methods’ as invariably dogmatic and empiricist. Revisionists, Hu complained, discard the basic principles of Marxism, and they also always quote out of context from the works of the creators of Marxist thought in order to use it as a basis of their own work. Alternatively, bourgeois liberalists borrow views straight from bourgeois works and turn it into holy, inviolable dogma. Furthermore, they always base it on one-sided and partial experiments. In Hu’s materialist frame of thought, ‘Subjectivism’ (zhuguanzhuyi) forms a great danger to The People: ‘Revisionism and Bourgeois Liberalization fundamentally contradict the historical reality of the broad masses, which is the biggest subjectivism’. ‘So we could’, concludes Hu, ‘no, we must oppose subjectivism and criticize Revisionism and Bourgeois Liberalization from the stance of opposing subjectivism, so as to oppose dogmatism and empiricism’.21 Clearly, if a scholar wants to avoid trouble, s/he must develop a sense of recognizing the correct ‘-isms’, and ﬁnd out what formulations apply to which label (Revisionism, Bourgeois Liberalization). This requires keep20 21

Hu Sheng (1992, 1–3). Hu Sheng (1992, 2).

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ing up-to-date with the prevailing recommendations in official documents, and knowing which formulations are currently rejected. The ambiguity of instructions does not make it easy to ﬁgure out what methods or views are condoned, even though the instructions are meant for application in a wide range of disciplines. For example, the prescribed phrases of ‘seeking truth from facts’ and ‘basing theory on practice’ do not automatically conﬁrm the correctness of using empirical research methods, as these in some circumstances may be rejected as empiricist. According to this line of thought, empiricism allows the academic to be led by subjective conditioning due to lack of correct theoretical guidance. On the other hand, the vagueness of concepts such as Bourgeois Liberalization and Revisionism allows for inconspicuous divergence from official formulations, leaving space for the creation of theoretical diversity inside official research programmes. However, Hu Sheng was not just worried about the jargon of the ‘right’, but also about the liturgical discourse of the ‘left’, suggesting a grain of truth in his warnings against the use of dogmatic jargon: ‘Even if Marxism is made into religious dogma’, Hu argued, ‘then Revisionism and Bourgeois Liberalization still cannot achieve victory: history proves that Bourgeois Liberalization loses its vital forces; conversely, it provides fertile ground for revisionist dogmatism. In other words, one kind of subjectivism cannot be combated by another kind of subjectivism’. Hu warns that fake Leftist subjectivism cannot overcome rightist subjectivism: ‘Therefore we must uphold the basic principles of Marxism and its synthesis with concrete reality’.22 In this passage, Hu deftly creates a political constellation in which official Marxism is propagated as a politically correct centre, and the fake-left and right are rejected as objectionable radical poles. Disregarding his own jargon of political attack, Hu concluded that Party jargon is always an expression of subjectivism and sectarianism. Though during the Cultural Revolution, Party jargon was rampant, at present it no longer occupied a leading position within the Party. ‘However, we must admit, in our papers and periodicals essays still appear that do not sincerely analyze and argue problems and, instead of providing new views and materials, only provide some trite sayings so that the reader feels irritable, or wants to stop reading’.23

22 23

Hu Sheng (1992a, 2). Hu Sheng (1992a, 3).

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The changing role of Party guidance Since the start of the reforms in 1978, the Party role in academic work has diminished substantially, but has not altogether disappeared. The analysis of the Compass for the State Key Item Programme is a good example of how the Party was forced to change its approach to social science in order to retain inﬂuence. It shows that the Party’s guiding role changed from using rigid ideological prescription to the structuring of ideas and topics of research through the use of particular research formulations and the organization of information in shared frameworks of reference. After 1977, the use of ‘dialectical materialism’ was no longer a compulsory source of reference and the blame for the Cultural Revolution was no longer a major topic of dispute. Deng’s view of practice (not ideology) was to be regarded as the only criterion of truth. CASS in the 1980s was heavily involved in integrating modern science theory with Marxism, through which both liberals and Party scholars attempted to obtain authority in society for their respective democratic and conservative reform plans. The latter proceeded from the idea that socialist societies had the advantage over capitalist ones, as the information society would improve the socialist mode of production faster. The so-called neo-authoritarians, however, thought that this advantage was due to the hierarchic structure of Chinese society. In contrast, pessimistic democrats believed that only in a free society, not in a socialist class society, could information circulate freely and work optimally. The desired free society and the political reforms did not come. Instead, after the crackdown at Tiananmen, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics was created and formulated by CASS intellectuals. Those who remained at CASS were expected to conform to new guidelines, even if the Party had persecuted them and their colleagues. But the broadly deﬁned view of ‘competition between schools of thought’ made staying in line with establishment policies easier for an increasingly docile majority of academics. And in the 1990s, intellectuals started to reappraise Chinese culture in a framework that reidentiﬁed patriotism with Party loyalty and socialist modernization: the ‘construction of material civilization and spiritual civilization’. Communist, cultural, philosophical, and scientiﬁc traditions formed important sources for the design of a successful modern China with socialist characteristics. Since the mid-1980s, supporters of official policies launched a critique at the obsession with culture among intellectuals. Despite that critique,

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after 1989 the emphasis in official propaganda increasingly shifted to the cultural instead of the material inferiority of the West. The trend of Culture Fever had not just been a matter of short-selling Chinese tradition, but had involved a variety of positive and negative evaluations of Chinese tradition. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s the political leadership mainly considered liberal intellectuals, who criticized the Party tradition for its feudal politics, as a threat, unlike the work of authoritarian ‘traditionalists’. In effect, the Party backed the latter in its official propaganda, while at the same time making a fresh effort to integrate a whole spectrum of useful aspects of China’s ‘excellent ancient legacy of science and culture’ with Chinese socialist views on China’s civilizational development. Denying in public the importance of Marxism-Leninism and the Chinese Marxist legacy as a guide for academic research would be asking for trouble. Sticking to the official formulations of social problems, political issues and economic theory in the spirit of patriotism, if not overdone, made academic life much easier. In this sense, Party guidelines tamed radical dissenters and took the sting out of upsetting theoretical challenges. The regulation of the formal aspects of discourse became a smooth and far-reaching means of control, compared to the rigid censorship of taboo subjects before the reforms. The problem was, however, that it did not have the strength to motivate exciting challenges of current social-science theory, thus, making the coveted applied research basis dependent on a pre-set framework.

chapter thirteen STREAMLINING CASS—FROM DIRECT CONTROL TO REGULATORY INFORMATION NETWORKS

This chapter examines if and how political control over academic research can enhance without damaging the academic ﬁelds that are expected to promote advancements to the building of the nation-state. Apart from analyzing methods used to direct research and academic behaviour, it also examines the historical and institutional changes in the academic curriculum and discipline structures and re-organizations that took place in the 1990s. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the number of academic disciplines grew very fast to the point of overspecialization. The organization of academic disciplines was largely managed through blunt, central power and ad hoc decision-making. In the 1990s, however, disciplines and personnel were cut, and research topics began to be systematically related to state policies. At the same time, management methods seemed to be more sensitive to the intellectual and material needs of academics. It was no coincidence that in the mid-1990s, many of the reform policies followed by CASS resembled the new political course taken by President Jiang Zemin, whose power base had been rapidly consolidated after Deng Xiaoping took ill in the second half of 1995. It was then that Jiang Zemin launched a propaganda campaign for ‘reviving the nation through science and technology’, reconﬁrmed during the Fifteenth Party Congress. He politicized this elaboration on Deng’s concept of science and technology as the primary productive force by combining it with movements to build a spiritual civilization, strengthen Party supervision, and revive socialist morality. By placing emphasis on reforming the political system, rather than political reform, Jiang opted for strengthening political control. Under his rule, attention was paid especially to the dynamics of organization: strengthening the Central Committee General Office, expanding the functions of many leading groups within the Central Committee, and the reinstatement of the Maoist practice of the Responsibility System for regional cadres.1 Furthermore, political discus1

See, Chapter 8.

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sion in the media and academic world was mobilized through the adage of ‘talking about politics’, and by identifying patriotism and the propagated ‘Party spirit’ with his own political orientation. CASS was linked to President Jiang’s policies not only through the President’s ties with CASS leaders, such as with CASS Vice-President Liu Ji, CASS also adopted Jiang Zemin’s neo-conservative preference for centralized leadership, expressed in the implementation of the responsibility system and ‘talking politics’, and his call for the modernization of scientiﬁc socialist culture. This chapter will show that, at ﬁrst sight, academic disciplines were liberalized, academic organizations democratized, and scholars given the chance to earn extra money. A further look shows, however, that the entire structure of disciplines, at least on paper, was monitored by means of selections, checks, and evaluations, and academic organizations directed by means of a complex network of documents, instructions, meetings, and political movements. On the other hand, scholars were given more leeway to do their research on any topic they chose. Nevertheless, they were led or forced to keep their interpretations within the scope of endorsed political guiding principles. In a sense, therefore, the clashing schools were part and parcel of one and the same political system that tolerates and stimulates the expression of diverging views within limits in support of itself. It is not easy to estimate how and to what extent the design and practice of academic research and research projects were affected by the release of numerous political directives and documents, although there is tangible evidence that central guidelines do inﬂuence academic work through administrative organization. Apart from modes of direct or ‘vertical’ Party power (Chapter 12), the inﬂuence of symbolism (Chapter 11), and the reciprocal relations of favours and duties between leaders and the led (Part Three), administrative guidelines and circulars also have a strong but unclear role in the shaping of academic discourse. Of course, these forms of power are entangled, and the results of the inﬂuence they exert on academic work may be unintended. As for conferences, meetings, and research projects on spiritual civilization and against corruption, they were undoubtedly inﬂuenced by instructions from the political leadership and the Central Committee Commission for Propaganda. For example, when the research Centre for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and the Institute of Law jointly held a conference on ‘rule by law and establishing spiritual civilization’ in

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April 1997, political instructions preceded it.2 Only in rare cases can one detect a hint of resistance in, otherwise, obsequious rhetoric. For example, Vice-President Teng Teng with regard to a report from the CASS Party School pointed out two things: ﬁrst, one should keep an eye on the capacity for training new students and, second, studying theory should be integrated with practice. Teng Teng expressed his agreement with Li Peng, who had pointed out the centrality of the issue, and commented ‘it is necessary to ask some theory researchers of a high calibre to explain how to conduct research by using Marxism as a lead to practice, in combination with implementing the Double-Hundred Policy. It is a core problem at CASS’ (my italics, MSF).3 Besides the more obvious inﬂuence the leadership exerted over policies on the supply of jobs, libraries, official status, accommodations, compensation for medical expenses, scholarships, and income, a range of other secondary and indirect sources are relevant to understanding techniques for academic regulation and streamlining. Prizes and grants, promotion, recognition, Party membership, status, permits, facilities for publication, information—all these are means deployed in guiding politico-academic behaviour. Thus, in order to increase Party membership, extra status was conferred on older members and more career possibilities were provided to younger Party members.4 Furthermore, moral recognition was given to ‘good’ members, in an attempt to increase job satisfaction.

Deepening of the Reforms in the early 1990s Usually researchers acknowledge as a matter of fact that CASS as a ministerial institute conducts research that is done to beneﬁt the state or the People. Other research, however, is thought to live up to the expectations scholars have of independent and objective research. I believe this is true to a certain extent only. Apart from the strict measures taken after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, institutional reorganization at CASS strengthened control of the political leadership and the Party over the research institutes and research offices. This tendency, especially appar2

April 18–20, 1997, YB (1998, 412). March 10, 1994. (YB1995, 403.) 4 In 1993, twenty-six percent of CASS Party members were above the age of ﬁfty, twenty-two percent below twenty-four, and ﬁfty-two percent in between. The average age of the leadership cadres was 52,3. Seventy members were above ﬁfty-ﬁve, and twentythree under forty-ﬁve (YB 1995, 1994 CASS Work Meeting Documents, Hu Sheng’s work report to the CASS work meeting, February 21, 1994). 3

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ent in Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour in 1992, went hand in hand with another tendency of liberalization. This took the shape of the encouragement of research in a much wider range of subjects than before. Nevertheless, as academic reforms in other academic institutions had advanced comparatively quickly, many talented researchers left CASS or had started to concentrate on safer subjects, such as those in the areas of metaphysics, the remote past, or the Chinese economy. The ‘Views’ and the Deepening of Reforms at CASS In April–May 1992, only a few months after Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour, a ‘Leading Small Group for the Deepening of the Reforms at CASS’ and, in July, a ‘Leading Small Group for Developing Earning Income (activities) at CASS’ were to look into CASS’s operational planning of the reforms and the management of CASS’s entire administration. It decided that the results of studying documents on Deng’s Southern Tour and the Fourteenth National Party Conference in 1992 were to be announced in an important document called ‘Views Concerning Our Academy’s Deepening of the Reforms’.5 Eleven full CASS leadership meetings were held involving over 180 professors in conducting comparative research into the reform situation at other research organs. In February 1993, ‘Views Concerning Our Academy’s Deepening of the Reforms’ was completed (‘Views’ from now on).6 According to ‘Views’, CASS had to alter its spending behaviour from using a full State ﬁnancing of research to using State-credit only for ﬁlling ﬁnancial gaps. Eventually, institutes were to become self-sufficient. According to ‘Views’, CASS was also plagued by many gaps, such as knowledge gaps between disciplines, and the gaps between existing expertise and what was needed for academic tasks. The former kind of gap was blamed on overspecialization, while the latter kind was a result of the unfortunate situation in which ‘those needed do not enter, while those not needed do not leave’.7 The ‘Views’ promised a period of radical reforms, a direction not entirely to the liking of the new Head of the Party Committee, General Secretary Wang Renzhi. 5

Guanyu wo yuan shenhua gaige de yijian Ò˭ɷ˾ȅõ¸Ãw˔Ġ. These were explanations by Comrade Wu Jiemin in ‘Concerning the View on Deepening the Reforms at CASS’ (Guanyu wo Yuan shenhua gaige de yijian), February 23, 1993. Wu here represented the CASS Party Committee and the CASS Academic Affairs Commission (YB 1994, 17–20; YB 1994, 18), February 23, 1993. 7 Again, these were explanations by Comrade Wu Jiemin.’ See previous note. 6

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‘Views’ recommended that the tasks and research directions of all institutes were to be deﬁned beforehand, and the capacity of secondary and tertiary disciplines be arranged around a number of main disciplines in order to establish Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.8 This was to take place according to a set of general principles involving the various disciplinary modules set up around various themes, and the whole plan was to be placed in charge of the newly chosen CASS vice-presidents. On June 12, 1993, the Fourth Presidium was appointed: Hu Sheng, Wang Renzhi, Liu Guoguang (who was replaced by Wang Luolin in the following year), Ru Xin, Teng Teng, Jiang Liu, Liu Ji, and the CASS Academic Affairs Committee (Wuyuanhui) assigned a module to each of the latter ﬁve. The ‘main battleﬁeld’, the module of economics (headed by Liu Guoguang), concerned the creation of a theory of socialist economics, and the acceleration of the maturation process of the market system by, for example, improving the macro-regulation mechanism of the socialist economy. The module of political studies and law (including the social sciences), led by Jiang Liu, had to cater to the needs of the establishment of a socialist market system and modernization, especially in the ﬁelds of commercial law, economic law, administrative law, international public law and international economic law, human rights, and in the task of improving the socialist political system. Social sciences, such as sociology and ethnology, were to respond to changes in social control, social security, the relationship between town and countryside, the economy and social situation of minority regions, and ethnic relations with historical research, social-science theory, and political measures. Disciplines in the ﬁeld of international relations (led by Teng Teng) were to strengthen research into regional and area politics, economics, diplomatic relations, and international circumstances and strategy, with an emphasis on the comprehensive research of postwar capitalist development and new issues that have emerged during this period. Attention was to be paid to research into the particularities of patterns of change and new international situations, while focusing on the issue of how Western trends of thought are reﬂected in international relations. Finally, philosophy and the humanities (led by Liu Ji) were to concentrate on ‘stabilizing scale and developing excellence’. One research area constituted the establishment of the theory of strengthening ‘socialist cul-

8

YB (1994, 20–24).

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ture with Chinese characteristics’ and research into putting it into practice. Furthermore, it was to spread the excellent cultural traditions of Zhonghua Minzu (the Chinese nation/people), and positively absorb all excellent results of civilization from all countries. Additionally, they were to set up a socialist view of humanism, ethics, and a theory on how to serve socialist spiritual and material civilization.9 Support for Deepening of the Reforms was re-emphasized by Ding Guangen, a socialist patriot who had replaced Wang Renzhi as Head of the Propaganda Department, in his February 23, 1993, speech at the Annual Work Meeting of CASS. He announced that the implementation of the spirit of the Fourteenth National Party Conference held in 1992 would require enthusiasm and adjustment in the work of all researchers, cadres, and personnel of CASS. In order to realize this positive spirit in practice, it would be of utmost importance to study, propagate, and research the theory of establishing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.10 Since Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour of January 1992, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics had meant the inclusion of Deng Xiaoping’s recommendation of the Deepening of the Reforms (shenru gaige ȅǱ¸Ã). This, according to Ding, required researchers to increase modernization efforts and the reorganization of disciplinary structures. Additionally, new research projects were prepared, requiring the adjustment of the Eighth Five-Year Plan, and the creation of thirty-eight Key Research Items. Furthermore, to strengthen disciplinary management, the ‘CASS Work Regulations for Scientiﬁc Research Planning (try-out)’ and ‘CASS Management Regulations for Research Subjects (try-out)’ and were laid down, and an investigation was made into the circumstances under which the 422 Seventh Five-Year Plan Items (State Key Items, CASS Key Items, and Social Science Fund Key Items) had been carried out.11 Considered essential to the Deepening of the Reforms was the renewed emphasis on disciplining and grooming of a new generation of red experts. To this end, CASS further implemented the responsibility system through Party activities. After 1992, another nine Party Committees were set up in CASS institutes. Now, with the exception of seven research 9

YB (1994, 20–24). 1993 CASS Work Meeting Document. Comrade Ding Guangen’s speech to the CASS Work Meeting, February 23, 1993 (YB 1994, 4–5). 11 Hu Sheng, February 23, 1993, Work Report of Comrade Hu Sheng to the CASS Work Meeting (YB 1994, 5–6). In 1993 the number of Key Research Items grew to 510 (Ibid. YB 1994, 10). 10

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institutes (among which were the Institute of Industrial Economics, the Institute of Literature, and the Institute of Religion), each institute had a Party Committee that was supposed to conscientiously carry out regulations to be laid out for Party Committees and Heads of Institutes.12 Hu Sheng believed that power in the academy was too highly concentrated at the centre, and that its organizational structure was too bulky and too complex; it is ‘too swollen’, and there are too many ‘small but complete’ departments’, i.e., small departments that want to be fully equipped.13 In order to simplify the structure of the research institutes, and to avoid ‘small but complete’, the following institutes were made to share personnel, logistics, and research materials: the Institute of Philosophy and the Institute of Marxism-Leninism; the Institute of Literature and the Institute of Minority Literature; the Institute of Law and the Institute of Political Science; the Institute of Japanese Studies and the Institute of Paciﬁc Studies; and the Institute of American Studies and the Institute of West European Studies.14 Appreciating the spirit of the Fourteenth National Party Conference, Hu Sheng discerned two ﬁelds in which research was urgently needed. The ﬁrst concerned research into problems that emerged as a result of and in the process of the establishment of a socialist market economy. Establishment of such an economy required supportive social-science research, especially that involving values, morality and socialist civilization.15 The second area involved the exploration of the direction in which research was needed, and required the adjustment of the structure and management of the social-science system in accordance with the establishment of a socialist market economy. It was felt that social-science organs run by the state are not the same as other governmental organs. Nor could one run social science organs like companies. The direction of the development of social-science research, therefore, was not to be determined by the market and its contents nor was it determined by state rule. Both the market and state rule would lower the quality of research and also endanger the survival of a number of research ﬁelds. But in order to introduce a distinction between high and low quality research and to get away from egalitarianism and ‘eating from the large iron rice bowl’,

12

YB (1994, 6–7). YB (1994, 8.) 14 CASS Work Meeting Documents, Hu Sheng’s work report to the CASS work meeting, February 21, 1994 (YB 1995, 7). 15 YB (1994, 8). 13

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research institutes with excellent research credits were to be rewarded more than others. Apart from competing for state credits, therefore, institutes were also to ﬁnd other ways of exploiting ﬁnancial resources.16 Personnel management Other reforms at CASS were to take place in the ﬁeld of personnel management and the implementation of the responsibility system. For example, the element of competition was to be emphasized. If Key Research Item Projects (KRIPs) were completed in time and yielded high quality results, researchers were to be rewarded ﬁnancially by adding ten to twenty percent to their usual remuneration. Prizes and grants were organized for high quality work. Special achievements were rewarded with better conditions for research, such as receiving titles, housing, the opportunity to go abroad, and special subsidies from the government. Prizes, ranging from 3,000 Yuan to 10,000 Yuan, were awarded to ‘outstanding academic results’ by CASS;17 and, the CASS Youth Scientiﬁc Research Fund was set up for researchers under the age of thirty-ﬁve. From the KRIP costs, 300,000 Yuan was reserved for this fund.18 Restrictions were placed on promotion by applying stricter rules in the evaluation system used for the appraisal of experts and professionals.19 From 1993 onward, promotion of those sixty or older was prohibited (apart from those already nominated) and the retirement of a large number of elderly researchers was instituted to make place for younger ones. Promotion at sixty or older was possible only if one had been recommended by the Head of Institute, the Head of Personnel Affairs, or the Science Supervision Office (keyan guanli bumen ŒʺÕť0Ƙ). The evaluation season was to start in mid-December and ﬁnish early March.20 Of major importance was ‘to forestall the swelling of numbers of administrative personnel and the accumulation of inadequate personnel’. All kinds of non-professional personnel were expected to be downscaled, receive lower wages, or get laid off. By strictly controlling the number of personnel, the quality of the system was expected to improve. Under 16

Hu Sheng (YB 1994, 9). According to the 1993 regulations for awarding outstanding academic work by CASS (YB 1994, 339). 18 According to the regulations of April 22, 1993 (YB 1994, 341). 19 Document on the appraisal of the work of experts and professionals (December 10, 1993) (YB 1994, 345–347). 20 YB (1994, 345–346). 17

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the new rationalized system, the number of Party and administrative staff and workers were targeted for a decrease from eighteen percent (or 998 people) to below twelve percent of CASS personnel. The number of persons connected with organs directly organized under CASS, such as personnel at the Graduate School, had to decrease from 10.7 percent (592 people) to six percent.21 Work on logistics had to enter the market as well: assignments by outsiders were to be paid at commercial rates, while internal CASS logistics were to be treated as a compensatory service.22 Another major step in the reforms of the personnel system was the expansion of the authority of institutes with respect to personnel affairs, especially at the level of the research office. The research office was deﬁned as an academic-level research organ, which does not fall under administrative policy regulation. Research offices belong to research institutes, which can establish them with permission of the President. But as the research institute is an administrative level unit, it is still indirectly managed by administrative means. To keep the numbers in check, it was decided that functional organs of below the number of 100 staff members should at least have an office, those of 100–200 members should have an office and a science office, and those of above 200 should have an office, a science office, and a personnel office. The Personnel Office also functions as the Party Committee Office.23 Heads and Vice-Heads of Research Offices no longer fell under administrative cadre management. The CASS Board (yuanli ˾ŧ) and Personnel Bureau now were in charge of cadres only on the departmental level (juji ŃČ) of institutes, the level of professors and professional cadres. The research institutes were to decide on appointments of personnel from the level of assistant professor downward (to the level of M.A. students).24 They also would have the right to decide on the establishment of research offices and their accommodation (in accordance with the needs of the disciplines in question). They did need, however, to obtain permission from the supervising CASS President. Research office staff had to include at least ﬁve professors, among whom at least two were high-grade profes21

YB (1994, 19). Ibid. 23 ‘Try-Out Regulations Concerning the Functional Structure of Research Institutes, and the Supervision of Research Offices at CASS’ (Zhongguo Shehui Kexyueyuan guanyu yanjiusuo zhineng jigou he yanjiushi guanli de zhanxing guiding (̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾Ò˭ʺľȿ̤Ʊă ÎæʺľȡÕťw̅ʥÙ). Implemented on June 12, 1993, when it passed the Academic Affairs Committee (Yuanwu Huiyi) (YB 1994, 343). 24 YB (1994, 20–24). 22

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sors, and one of those had to be the Head of Office. After the research office was partly de-linked from the administration, the Heads and ViceHead of Research Offices still had to assign the new Head of Office a rank and fee according to the cadre and subsidy system of the administration. More importantly, Heads and Vice-Heads could be taken on only if they followed Party policy and political directions. They also had to be familiar with the scientiﬁc discipline relevant to the office they headed, and they had to develop it according to the plans made by CASS and the research institute they fell under.25 This apparently rather liberal reform of the system of personnel contained several catches. The decentralization of decision-making in personnel affairs did not entail a true devolution of power. First, the CASS Board was still responsible for the task of appointing high-level professors who occupied the main positions in a research office. Therefore, when appointing the remainder of the staff (below the level of professor), the selections made by professors were not likely to diverge greatly from the policies of CASS personnel. Second, the removal and appointment of Heads and Vice-Head of research offices were proposed by the Head of the Institute, examined and approved by the Party Committee, and recorded by the Reporting Office of the Education Bureau (baorenshi jiaoyuju Ǧțħ˸Ń). Similar procedures applied to the appointment and removal of the Head and Vice-Heads of offices, science offices, and personnel offices. If there was disagreement on the choice of candidates, or if the number of personnel exceeded the maximum limit, the Education Bureau was to examine the issue at hand and come to a decision about it.26 Third, the institutes were under great pressure to implement the responsibility system under the Party leadership, a practice that virtually prevented the delegation of decision-making power from top to bottom. And ﬁnally, the research cadres that had passed the age of retirement, if necessary, could be kept on in order to bridge the gap between generations within expert teams. When retired full (high-grade) professors were re-appointed ‘to maintain research continuity’, ‘the chances of a successful reorganization and decentralization of power are small’.27

25 Additional requirements are that they have the research capacity and skills in the ﬁelds of organization and management, occupy a post of assistant professor (fu-yanjiuyuan) or higher, and are still below the age of 60 (YB 1994, 343). 26 YB (1994, 343). (Try-out regulations concerning the functional structure of research institutes, and the supervision of research offices at CASS). 27 Ibid.

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Academic exchanges The reforms entailed a more liberal policy on academic exchanges as well. Academic exchanges between CASS and universities abroad have increased enormously over the last decade and in the 1990s they were ﬂourishing. Exchanges, here, included the meetings of CASS leaders with leaders of academic institutions abroad, jointly organized conferences, and the exchange of scholars and students. Meetings were held on academic issues, but many of them concerned the administrative and ﬁnancial conditions of exchange agreements. Fig. 7. Academic exchanges at CASS (1992–1998) (and the three ﬁelds with the highest numbers of academic exchanges)28 Year 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

Nr of scholars sent abroad 710 975 847 1,288 1,116 1,073 1,056

Fields with most exchanges* Ec, his, IR Ec, IR, lit Ec, IR, his Ec, his, IR Ec, IR, his Ec, IR, his Ec, IR, his

Nr of visiting scholars 783 1,051 1,203 1,406 1,185 1,481 1,322

Fields with most exchanges* Ec, his, IR Ec, lit, IR Ec, his, IR Ec, ling, his Ec, IR, lit Ec, IR, his Ec, his, IR

* Ec = economics; his = history; IR = International Relations; lit = literature; ling = linguistics.

Academic exchanges were closely coordinated with state policies and CASS KRIPs, especially research that aided in the completion of the nation’s socialist market system. After Deng’s Southern Tour, an increase in exchanges even became ‘a necessity’ to the Deepening of the Reforms. In 1993, there were 2,026 cases of diplomatic and academic exchange. This was an increase of thirty-six percent compared to 1992.29 Despite this progressive policy toward academic research, many complaints revealed much corruption and squandering of resources. Heads of institutes and academic leaders warned researchers not to arrange foreign trips at one’s convenience. Instead, they were encouraged to put great effort into ﬁnding foreign counterparts to cooperate in research into 28

CASS Yearbooks 1993–1999, statistics. Comrade Teng Teng’s Speech at the Work Conference of CASS, February 22, 1994. (YB 1995, 26). 29

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KRIPs.30 As some foreign universities pay scholars to visit them, Teng thought it was hardly necessary to travel on public money. The official political principle in acquiring the support of foreign organs in academic exchange explicitly required efforts to arrange exchanges to beneﬁt the Chinese party.31 This did not mean that no one could go abroad without foreign ﬁnancial support. Some funds were reserved for foreign visits. In either case, however, the overall framework and goal of foreign trips had to be clearly stated and veriﬁed.32 Partly due to these ﬁnancial and ideological complications, the selection of exchange students became part of a critical political process of academic planning. Around ﬁfty students could go abroad annually, among whom approximately forty-ﬁve were academic students and ﬁve management cadres. These students belonged to the select groups of topnotch establishment talent. The group of exchange students was organized systematically, and plans for their grooming and studies abroad were made beforehand. Wang Renzhi in 1996 reported success in the choice of exchange students, who had been instructed in politics, duty, and thought. All of them came back within the time allocated.33 The increase in the number of group visits abroad warranted new CASS regulations for official group visits abroad, which were accepted in February 1997.34 Documents speciﬁed that foreign visits could not be used to further selﬁsh interests. Nor could scholars whose work was not related to the subject of research obtain permission to join such groups. Additionally, many precautions were taken to prevent political dispute and espionage; sensitive research subjects required consulting the embassy or another representative, and the involvement of a ‘Hot-issue country’ demanded supervisory measures. In the event of incidents of a strong political nature, the leadership of the Unit involved had to examine the group and take responsibility for its actions. The regulations repeatedly emphasized that the various units 30

YB (1995, 25). ‘Regard Me as the main, create beneﬁt for Me’ (yi wo wei zhu, cheng wo you li ˑɷɨ ̺ɷ˩ū) (YB 1997, 28). ‘Me’ here means China. 32 Comrade Teng Teng’s Speech at the Work Conference of CASS, February 22, 1994 (YB 1995, 26). 33 Comrade Wang Renzhi’s Report to the Work Conference of CASS, February 15, 1995 (YB 1996, 6–15). Though their return could say something positive about the intention of exchange students to return to China, some students (and their families) risked losing large sums of money if they did not. 34 CASS regulations for official group visit abroad, February 21, 1997, passed the CASS Affairs Committee Meeting (YB 1998, 369–370). 31

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had to rely on CASS for the application of ﬁnancial support. Thus, no Unit or individual could privately apply for external funding. Furthermore, in principle, foreign organs or individuals were prohibited from directly participation in research in the PRC (guonei). And research that involved sensitive issues and national secrets did not allow the presence of outsiders. In case research results were submitted abroad, such results ﬁrst had to be duly evaluated by the CASS Secrecy Commission. Scholars on a study visit abroad ﬁnanced by foreign sources were not to be granted permission to continue their research in social science on their return to China.35 In short, the political aspects of foreign visits were regulated in detail, and were clearly aimed at keeping academics under official control and preventing them from becoming disloyal to their country. The re-organization of disciplines In 1995, CASS leaders summed up the correct steps of work-tasks in ﬁve phrases: ‘grasp chance, deepen reforms, spread ‘opening up’, stimulate development, and preserve stability’.36 The phrases expressed a positive message in support of the continuation of the reforms. CASS academic planning began to reveal a pattern in which links were forged systematically between the disciplinary reorganization of scientiﬁc disciplines, the distribution of ﬁnancial, material, and intellectual resources, and the intensiﬁcation of political work. Thus, Hu Sheng announced that in 1995 CASS was to study Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and especially Deng’s Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The latter was to be scientiﬁcally framed and integrated with contemporary circumstances. This was possible, according to Hu, because upholding the leadership of Marxism and carrying out the Party’s Double-Hundred policy were one and the same thing.37 All work done by CASS, Hu asserted, was closely related to, and in support of Key Item research. Sources regulating and facilitating Key Item research included CASS fund allocation, the evaluation of professionals, the policy of sending people abroad for study and research, the

35

Ibid. Grasp chance, deepen reforms, spread ‘opening up’, stimulate development, and preserve stability (zhuazhu ji-ou, shenrui gaige, kuangda kaifang, cujin fazhan, baochi wending ̾̽ ă˶ȅǱ¸ÃŞiŋ¡eĳ̌Nɴ). 37 YB (1996, 10). 36

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reallocation of housing, and the recruitment of research students. Furthermore, the organization of disciplines was to be revised, readjusted, and strengthened in support of the approximately 600 Key Research Items.38 The Ninth Five-Year Plan of academic research, which would centre on the establishment of the socialist market system, had to be based on Marxism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. And in ﬁve years’ time, 200 Marxist research leaders (160 experts from CASS, and 40 outsiders), and a hundred high-level management cadres familiar with science, were to be trained to tackle these challenges in the new century. Half of them had to be under the age of forty-ﬁve. They were going to receive many advantages, such as generous ﬁnancial support, chances to study abroad, assistance after returning home, and encouragement to serve the motherland in many different ways.39 This new arrangement to improve the quality of staff had consequences for the academic research hierarchy. It altered the proportions between researchers. Instead of a proportion of high, middle and lower level researchers of 4:4:2, in the year 2000 a proportion of 5:4:1 was targeted.40 The reorganization of disciplines comprised a number of selective measures: ﬁrst, the promotion of KRIPs on the agenda of Party politics; second, the establishment of and support of disciplines that could cater to KRIP; and, third, discarding disciplines that could not. It was a move in the direction of more effective supervision, steering and control of academic work, based on the freedom of research but within the limits set through political guidelines. The move was presented as a technicality, a way of organizing academic life in a more efficient way. In order to ﬁght the tendency towards an increase in the number of departments and an unruly expansion of disciplines, it was decided in 1995 that a three-point adjustment strategy was to be adopted by the CASS Party Committee and the Academic Affairs Committee:41 – Determine a group of KRIP disciplines on the basis of presently available superior ones; direct ﬁnancial and human resources to those disciplines, and maintain or increase its academic excellence; – On the basis of the policies of Reform and Opening Up, and the Establishment of Two Civilizations, select and establish an appropriate number of disciplines that lack excellence at present, but have 38 39 40 41

YB (1996, 11). YB (1997, 21). YB (1997, 22). YB (1996, 18).

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a disciplinary basis. By concentrating support in them, develop disciplinary excellence so that they can serve as key disciplines; – Slim down or abolish obsolete disciplines, disciplines that overlap, disciplines that dissipate their resources, and those that under-perform.42 A rather straightforward example of solving overspecialization can be found in the Institute of Philosophy, which belongs to the philosophy cluster: the Research Offices of Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism were merged into the Research Office of the Principles of Marxist Philosophy; the Research Offices of Chinese Modern Philosophy and the History of Marxist Philosophy were merged into the Research Office of Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong thought; and the Research Offices of the History of Western Philosophy and Modern Foreign Philosophy were merged into the Research Office of Western Philosophy.43 The following examples of the reorganization of the division of labour between disciplines had far-reaching implications for the ways in which social-science research would be conducted: the module of international studies was streamlined on the basis of the stipulation that reallocates regional research subjects related to the general disciplines such as history, philosophy, and literature to their corresponding research institutes, and not to area studies. The same was decided for the study of Chinese traditional culture, which was accommodated with research offices in the Institutes of History, Philosophy, and Religion.44 In other words, regional study topics did not remain conﬁned to the boundaries of speciﬁc area institutes but were integrated with the social sciences and humanities, while exclusive regional studies remained with the area institutes. Institutionally, therefore, research into the particularity of various regions in non-regional research institutes was facilitated by the policy of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and received additional leeway by the alteration in CASS’s institutional set-up. Instead of waiting for academics to set up organizations, CASS now followed the policy of encouraging ‘self-organization’ but provided the rules for setting them up in advance. For example, The Work Regulations of the CASS Research Institutes deﬁned academic associations as authoritative academic vanguards, and evaluative organs of research institutes. According to the regulations, an academic association conducts its work 42 43 44

YB (1996, 19). YB (1996, 21). YB (1996, 22).

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under the leadership of the Academic Affairs Committee of the institute in question. It consists of seven to ﬁfteen members, and if needed, it can choose members from outside. The committees are chosen for ﬁve years, and membership changes must be reported. Its decision-making structure was to be based on the principle of democratic centralism,45 and the conditions for setting up an academic association were support for the leadership of Marxism, following the Party line, and ‘warmly loving the socialist motherland’ (reai shehuizhuyi zuguo ǥȁĀ̺˕͏Ý).46 Even organizational changes of institutions that seemed to be directed at creating institutional autonomy mainly pertained to self-sufficiency with respect to ﬁnancial matters. For example, in 1995, it was announced that as of January 1996 the publishers of CASS were to become independent from CASS. This did not mean that the publishers could freely publish or invest. Its complex ﬁnancial set-up and its dependence on CASS meant that they were still tied closely to state-policies. Though the Publishing Company had to look for housing elsewhere, pensions of its retired personnel remained tied to CASS. Wage-earning policies were to stick to state regulation that kept them low, and the publishers were expected to continue producing for the state. Even the possible proﬁt left after taxation was to be used ‘rationally’ and allocated according to state and CASS regulations.47 The establishment of research centres (yanjiushi ʺľȡ) (which, in turn, are set up by research institutes [yanjiusuo ʺľȿ]). As research offices are officially regarded as bodies independent from the administrative leadership (though indirectly they are not), one would expect research centres to be quite autonomous. This is a wrong assumption: the research centres were expected to skip the level of research office to acquire permission from leaders on higher administrative levels for the planning, ﬁnancing, and organization of research. This becomes evident when one reads the call for an alteration of the original regulations in the management of the development of research centres (of November 21, 1992), which added the following supplementary regulations:

45

The concept of democratic centralism is discussed below. Try-out Work Regulations on the CASS Research Institutes Setting up Academic Associations (April 29, 1994) (YB 1995, 359–360). 47 This was the try-out method of the reform of the CASS management system of publishers. It passed the CASS Academic Affairs Committee (December 22, 1995) (YB 1997, 367). 46

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– Planning, academic activities, and external communication must go through the scrutiny of the Research Institute’s leadership. The research centre operates under the leadership of the research office, and important problems must be dealt with by the leadership of the institute; – If the research office assigns work to the research centre, the latter should report its research plans and results to the Head of the research office, which is to support the research centre, even though it does not carry responsibility for it; – In case the centre should receive ﬁnancial support (including external or foreign support), the centre must follow CASS ﬁnancial regulations, and be managed by them.48

Applied research at CASS—Jiang Zemin’s ascendance In the ﬁrst half of the 1990s, new Party groups had been set up, and the responsibility system implemented; study groups had been set up and Party cadres, the leadership, and Party members were required to study the documents on the Third Plenum of the Fourteenth National Party Conference and to read the Third Part of Deng Xiaoping Selected Works.49 Some of these reform measures had ambiguous results. The CASS United Front Work Meeting, for example, discussed how to develop a ‘democratic party’ in the new era (the reform era), and how it could be used to inﬂuence intellectuals outside the Party.50 Some scholars regard this kind of practice as a cunning and distasteful tactic of expanding the CCP by waving the ﬂag of democracy. Two years after the June 4th demonstration, however, austerity measures started to make space for academic reform. And although many of the re-organizational efforts had little impact and could hardly be said to diminish the topheavy organizational structure of CASS, after Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour, reform activities and study meetings had been held in the spirit of internal political reform, streamlining the bureaucracy and economic liberalization. But when it became clear that Jiang Zemin, who by 1995

48 Supplementary regulations, ‘Some Regulations of CASS on Establishing Research Centres’ (March 16, 1995) (YB 1996, 337). 49 YB (1995, 7). 50 June 21, 1994 (YB 1995, 409–410).

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had occupied his position as President for six years, would become the successor of much of Deng Xiaoping’s authority, this situation in CASS altered. Thus, it was in early 1996 that ﬁfteen experts reported on the question of how to carry out Jiang Zemin’s speech on ‘talking politics’ in the context of conducting research.51 Ironically, the effect of their efforts on academics eventually resulted in extreme self-awareness and a hesitation to speak freely, frustrating the usually lively atmosphere in the academic institutes. According to Matt Forney, the Party hoped to literally buy intellectuals off: ‘All senior staff at the CASS have been ordered to compose essays of 3,000 characters lauding Jiang’s speech.’ Authors of essays good enough for publication received up to $350 directly from the Party.’52 A more serious matter, however, was that the emphasis on ‘talking politics’ was felt as a form of censorship. As a result, moral reward and punishment could become important instruments in guiding academic debate. The power to reject and give recognition to the work of scholars is one that should not be underrated in an academic atmosphere in which it is uncertain when politics may play a crucial role in obstructing the ambitions and careers of scholars. It has the power to force intellectuals to apply self-censorship, to drive them eventually to revolt (which they are not likely to survive, academically), or quit. In such an atmosphere the recognition of a journal as ‘outstanding’ can be very important to an entire institute, and not just academically.53 It became quite common to reward contributions that are thought conducive to academic policies. For example, on November 1, 1996, Party Secretary Wang Renzhi convened a Party Committee meeting on creating an Information Small Group to study the information networks of institutes. At the all-CASS information work meeting of the following year, ‘carrying on the spirit of the Information Department of the Propaganda Department Information was celebrated, and awards were conferred on ‘good informers’ in front of the 100 representatives of all CASS units.54 ‘Talking Politics’ and

51 April 10, 1996 (The meeting included the well-known Marxist researcher Xu Chongwen from the Institute of Philosophy) (YB 1997, 411). 52 Forney, 1997. 53 On February 13, 1996, the ‘outstanding quality’ of the journals ‘Archaeology’ (Kaoguxue) ‘History Research’ (Lishi Yanjiu) and ‘Philosophy Research’ (Zhexue Yanjiu) was recognized (YB 1997, 410). 54 April 11, 1996 (YB 1997, 411–412).

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the centralization of information then became important tools in combination with other measures for reforming the organizational structure of CASS. Democratic centralism and bi-directional elections Another means of guiding ideology was the increased emphasis on democratic forms of organization, and the introduction of a bi-directional election system. As explained in the CASS Head of Institute Work Regulations of October 28, 1996, the heads of institutes are responsible to the Party Committee of CASS.55 The Party Committee supports both concepts of democratic centralism and collective leadership. In research institutes, the principle of democratic centralism works as follows:56 the approximately seven members of the institute’s Party Committee (suodangwei ȿqɪ) are chosen for ﬁve-year terms at the Plenary Party Meeting to which they are accountable as are they to the CASS Party Committee. Their appointments are ratiﬁed by the CASS Party Committee.57 Central to this form of democracy is the rule that the minority abides by the decisions of the majority. As the views of minorities are usually discounted, official toleration of minority views is regarded as a favour toward minority views. The difficulty, however, is that some but not all minority views are tolerated. Such a policy, of course, may cause confusion among intellectuals and reverse the effect by encouraging extreme caution. The introduction of the bi-directional election method was meant to ﬁll research offices with members united by a team spirit, albeit one 55 CASS Head of Institute Work Regulations, on October 28, 1996, passed the Yuanwuhuiyi (YB 1997, 376–378). 56 The Principle of democratic centralism is a pyramid of hierarchical organizations (Saich 1995). The Common Programme of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, passed at its ﬁrst plenary session on September 29, 1949, formulated the principle of democratic centralism in the following way: ‘The People’s Congresses shall be responsible and accountable to the People; the People’s Government councils shall be responsible and accountable to the People’s Congresses. Within the People’s Congresses and within the People’s Government Councils, the minority shall abide by the decisions of the majority; the appointment of the People’s Governments of each (lower) level shall be ratiﬁed by the People’s Government of the higher level; the People’s Governments of the lower levels shall obey the People’s Governments of the higher level and all local People’s Governments throughout the country shall obey the Central People’s Government (Christiansen & Rai 1996, 86–87). 57 But if necessary, the CASS Party Committee can decide to appoint its members directly.

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that was in tune with official policies. The principle of the bi-directional method even gave a justiﬁcation for removing ‘surplus’ scholars from their offices. The bi-directional method works from the top downward: the leadership selects the team responsible for putting together a research office; the team selects the members of the office, who then choose their leader from among the office team. The entire procedure is led by the Party, and it is implemented according to the responsibility system of the administrative leadership (to the Party Secretary, one level up). The team or person responsible for (re)organizing the research office is elected by the leadership ‘after the views of the masses and the Academic Committee have been consulted’, and ‘after a possible examination by the cadre management’.58 The person responsible for the research office chooses members on the basis of their specialty and research direction. If there was great disagreement on the choice, the Personnel Office of the Party Committee will decide.59 The persons left over after selection were encouraged to move out of CASS. They were ‘allowed to take up retirement, and keep on receiving the lowest wage level’, and they are expected to sign on at the ‘human skills exchange and training centre’.60 Early retirement, resignation, job switching and gradual release were the various methods used to achieve the removal.61 For instance, in late 1995, after the bi-directional election system was introduced in fourteen research institutes, it resulted in the adjustment of the posts of forty-seven people, and a ‘release’ of eighty-seven surplus persons.62 In 1996, another eighteen units implemented the new election system. A number of 171 staff members remained as ‘surplus’, and ninety-one were ‘adjusted’. The cumulative total of excess members came to 257, and 154 members were ‘adjusted’ to another unit. Management leaders were relieved, as the bidirectional election method had eliminated the former problem of ‘can enter, but cannot leave’; ‘can go up but not down’, and ‘do a job well or not: it is all the same’.63 58 Temporary method of carrying out the two-direction selection work at CASS, March 12, 1995 (passed the CASS Affairs Committee) (YB 1996, 338). 59 Ibid. YB (1996, 338–339). 60 Ibid. YB (1996, 33). 61 Ibid. YB (1996, 341). 62 YB (1997, 28). 63 ‘Can enter, cannot leave; can go up but not down; and do a job well or not: it is all the same’ (Neng jin bu neng chu, neng shang bu neng xia, gan hao gan huai yige yang Ʊĳ-ƱV Ʊǽ-Ʊʇºãº÷ˎÅˇ) (YB 1998, 30).

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The effect of the introduction of this election system was that institute leaders were appointed by members and approved by the political leadership of CASS. And when disputes occurred, the Party Committee had the ﬁnal say. The hold of the Party over CASS research offices was further extended officially by the supervision of Party branches established in the research offices. Research offices and bureaux were pressured into setting up Party Branches. In case the number of Party members was small, the establishment of so-called interoffice small groups was encouraged instead of Party Branches. Their members were elected at the Plenary Party meeting for three-year terms. The Party Committee consisted of three to ﬁve members, one Secretary, and the remaining others responsible for organization, propaganda, and disciplinary investigation. The Committee was required to be politically obedient, spread Party propaganda, and apply the principles of democratic centralism.64 In December 1995, the introduction of new regulations for internal Party supervision was meant to strengthen waning Party discipline. Supervision here refers to control of political discipline that conforms to the regulations for propagandist publications, and the correct practice of democratic centralism. According to the regulations, supervisory investigation was required to ﬁnd out if individuals obey Party organization, if minorities obey the majority, if lower ranks obey higher ranks, and the entire Party obeys the Central Committee. It also had to investigate whether the implementation of the decisions of the collective leadership was sincere and whether it corresponded to the division of responsibility of individual labour; whether the internal solidarity in the leadership was consciously maintained; whether the Party was in close contact with the masses, listens to their views, and if bureaucratism was consciously resisted and overcome; and whether CASS’s ‘Work Regulations of the Research Institute’s Party Committee’ was sincerely implemented.65 Although applying all of these regulations seems impracticable, they did constitute a framework of reference that can be fallen back on in cases of dispute or slackening of Party rule. In this sense, they played a vital role in the planning and establishment of organizations. And as will 64 ‘View on the Strengthening and Progress of the Establishment of the Party Branches on the Level of Research Institutes.’ December 29, 1995 (CASS Affairs Committee) (YB 1996, 351 3). 65 Temporary regulations on strengthening the Party internal supervision of all CASS Party members and leading cadres, December 22, 1995, (passed the CASS board) (CASS Affairs Conference) (YB 1996, 348–349).

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become clear in Part V, they formed a prelude to the reforms under the CASS leadership of Li Tieying.

Part IV: Reforms at CASS It is usually assumed that the role of politics in the social sciences diminished after the start of the reforms in 1978. Developments at CASS, however, show that the changes in political pressures and guidelines have radically altered the set-up of the social sciences. This change was achieved gradually by weaving a complex net of regulatory devices for steering the organization and programmes of the social sciences. The changes in the political structure of CASS have been made possible through Party ideological reforms and the strengthening of its position within CASS. Institutional reforms entailed reforms of Party ideology and provided new forms of guidance for the social sciences. As Party ideology mellowed and changed up to the point that its socialism became hardly recognizable, its relative weight in the organizational structure of CASS increased at the same time. An important task was to give political direction to the development of a social-science debate, while ushering the debate into modes of thinking that eschewed radical political change. This way of guiding debate did not so much take place ‘in secret’, but in the open for everyone to see, and it took manifold forms of rules, regulations, guidelines, meetings, academic activities and ﬁnancial, material and social encouragement. Due to years of debate focused on strengthening China, a patriotic vocabulary, and the experience of frequent ceremonial and commemorative meetings, researchers of very diverse political hues could work on common tasks, while still generating discussion and new ideas. Official CASS meetings, including formal meetings, commemorative ceremonies, and rites of passage, linked symbolic and cognitive knowledge to form a common basis of, at least, a partly shared perception of history and society. In combination with the loosening of Party ideology at the same time, the renewed and more accommodating research curriculum attracted enough willing researchers to continue CASS’s function as advisory organ to the state and the CC of the CCP. The new regulations introduced in 1995 for internal Party supervision, however, were intended to strengthen waning Party discipline by fortifying adherence to political discipline and democratic centralism. Party Committee members were to check on individual obedience, majority

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rule, and the efficacy of Party leadership. Since the question of whether the implementation of collective leadership is really sincere is not a straightforward matter, this requirement contained an atmosphere of uncertainty. At the same time, attempts were made to reinforce establishment ideology when the leadership put forward the ‘three directions’ of guidelines for political, theoretical, and academic directions, and President Jiang Zemin’s maxim of ‘talking politics’. Accordingly, in 1996 most departments started to organize study-meetings for talking about ‘talking politics:’ conference-style propaganda now induced scholars to talk politics, while boundaries around forbidden zones were delineated at the same time. One of the reasons that the reforms were taken seriously by various scholars is that direct coercion and brute force were not inherent to the system, although academics could be sanctioned for violating official policies. If anything, academics were encouraged and guided into speaking their mind. The way rewards, promotion, research meetings and research funding were organized, in itself became a form of political guidance. At the same time, the material and academic circumstance of academicians had improved and most academics could choose whether to cooperate in research programmes or apply for funding. Academic debate seemed to take place in relative peace.

part v SHAPING CASS AND THE WORLD UNDER LI TIEYING AND AFTER

This concluding part concerns Li Tieying’s reign at CASS from 1998 until 2003 and elaborates on two core issues that were central to the previous twenty years of institutional development of CASS, from its conception in 1978 until the departure of former CASS President Hu Sheng in 1998. The ﬁrst issue relates to the efficacy of academic planning, more speciﬁcally, the plans to streamline the academic organization and personnel of CASS. In the 1990s CASS leaders voiced their intentions to reorganize CASS personnel, to cut expenses, redistribute facilities and rationalize research planning. These plans were to be implemented by introducing competition, creating new housing schemes, re-organising medical facilities and overhauling the system of remuneration. Chapter 14 concerns an analysis of the implementation of these plans and an estimation of their effects. At the same time, it throws light on how administrative measures were used to direct research at CASS, which will help in the exploration of a second question, that of the evanescent concept of the freedom of research. I propose to explore the scope of the freedom of research in terms of the role played by CASS in state policymaking, in its incentive system for initiating and conducting research, and in the way in which research concepts are deﬁned as part of overall research planning and funding. Chapter 14 discusses changes in academic organization and provides a short overview of Li Tieying’s presidency from 1998 to 2003. Under Li Tieying’s presidency decisions were made that greatly inﬂuenced CASS’s organization of research, the grant system for research items, research funding in general, the reorganization of the academic structure of disciplines, the living conditions of academics, and the channels through which academics met and communicated. These aspects of academic organization also deﬁne the general contours within which research was designed, formulated, and put into practice. On the basis of this link between CASS policy-making and administrative organization, I argue in concluding Chapter 15 that the formulation of research policies and the symbolic meaning used in officialdom are of great inﬂuence on the delineation of academic research ﬁelds, con-

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strained in particular by the use of officially authorized research concepts and ideas. Symbols, as argued in Chapter 11, are not just used by the government for the purpose of propaganda; the use of symbols is also a means for expressing political identity and affinity in academic work. The close link between policy-making and academic work at CASS facilitates a symbolic reading of academic work. And ideas endowed with symbolic meaning may trigger powerful thought associations, mobilizing structures of thought that may not have been intended in the ﬁrst place.

chapter fourteen LI TIEYING AND THE ROLE OF CASS IN STATE POLICY-MAKING

The role of CASS vis-à-vis the CCP and the state changed substantially in its ﬁrst twenty-ﬁve-year existence, i.e., from 1978 until 2003. It started out serving as a lively think-tank following factional strife among political leaders. After this function exploded in the face of state leaders in the late 1980s, the reorganization of CASS shifted the balance of power to the Party Committee and turned CASS into a more docile work force. At the same time, a reorganization of Party Committees and a revision of Party ideology made academic research along Party guidelines acceptable enough for researchers to elaborate on research themes relevant to national governance, such as ‘socialist democracy’. It also enabled them to contribute to these themes by feeding back new ideas in aid of and altering national policies. The changes that were implemented under the reign of Li Tieying, as is outlined below, reinforced this tendency. In order to make these changes acceptable for CASS academics, at the same time, work and living conditions improved substantially. However, the improvements have not kept up with those at other universities or even those made to municipal civil servants at the same level of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The combination of these political, ﬁnancial, intellectual, and external (opportunity) factors led to great problems in the areas of academic recruitment and personnel, and worries about the reputation of CASS and the quality of its research.

The reign of Li Tieying: appreciating CASS (1998–2003)1 Under the leadership of Li Tieying bureaucratic forms of guiding academic work spread. His reform plans of 1998 meant that much funding went to research projects for political applied research. Moreover, the actual system of funding and the research organization also became 1 In 2003, after ﬁve years, Li Tieying’s term was up. He resigned from his post as President of CASS and became a vice-president of the National People’s Congress.

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tightly integrated with the larger system of political decision-making by the PRC political leadership. In practice, CASS’s re-established function as think-tank to the political leadership required institutional ﬂexibility, organizational streamlining, and controlled competition. Role and leadership assignments to CASS CASS explicitly became an advisory organ to the state under Li Tieying’s reign. In March 1998, President Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao advised Li Tieying to ‘make sure that he would manage CASS well’.2 And according to Li’s pun, CASS should be ‘promising’ (youwei ˩ɨ) in the service of the reforms and not covet ‘status’ (youwei ˩ɮ3 The basic tasks of CASS, as Li summarized them, were to promote the development of Marxism in the following ways: to explore the evolutionary rules of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, to strengthen China’s knowledge of the world and, to create the capacity to change the country. To groom the required talent, President Jiang Zemin’s instruction was to turn the CASS Graduate School into an incubator for ﬁrst class researchers.4 These assignments, according to Li, would stress the importance of CASS as an important advisory organ, thereby mending CASS’s reputation, which had suffered in the 1990s. As if symbolizing the era of Li Tieying, the enormous ‘Daewu’ advertisement was taken down from the roof of CASS, expressing the will to refurbish CASS’s academic reputation. In fact, this clean up took place to celebrate the ﬁftieth anniversary of the PRC in 1999. It was striking how the position of CASS, compared to that of universities such as Beijing University, changed radically since the 1990s. In the 1980s, Beijing University, Qinghua University, CAS, and CASS had equal status. In the 1990s, however, academic institutes of higher education became increasingly independent, partly because the state allowed higher tuition fees for Beijing and Qinghua Universities. Furthermore, those universities use science and engineering to run proﬁtable companies. Investments into those universities were also aimed at giving direction to and reorganizing the academic curriculum. The Central Committee sought to increase investment in Beijing and Qinghua Universi-

2 3 4

YB (00, 7). YB (01, 10). YB (00, 13–14).

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ties, partly because they are rated highest and are inﬂuential, and as such constitute the top of the educational pyramid. Although investment in CASS had been substantial, its leadership was felt to be no longer competitive. During the ﬁrst decades, the political leadership had been keen on maintaining CASS’s high reputation. But after June Fourth, the high status of CASS leaders dropped; scholars of high repute started to leave or were removed. CASS had had Party historian Hu Qiaomu as its ﬁrst President; and, the well-known philosopher Ru Xin, International Relations specialist Li Shenzhi, China’s famous literary scholar Qian Zongshu, and the internationally renowned religion specialist Zhao Fusan had become CASS Vice-Presidents or heads of departments. Another famous Party historian, Hu Sheng, followed Hu Qiaomu as President. Zhao Fusan and Li Shenzhi were both removed from their office for political reasons. Even Li Tieying was a Party cadre managing CASS for the political leadership, while (vice-)presidents of CASS tended to be picked from Party cadres too.5 In short, bureaucracy at CASS is felt to have increased considerably. Li Tieying and the restructuring of CASS A factor of importance in understanding the government’s appreciation of CASS is the alteration in the distribution of ﬁnancial resources to CASS and the increase in its amount. Since the leadership indicated that the quality of research at CASS was a priority, methods were devised to make investment in CASS more effective. This had involved the streamlining of research and reorganizing of the curricula, setting up key-item research tasks, and reforming the medical system and the system for allocating housing at CASS in the 1990s. When Li Tieying became President of CASS in February 1998, Li spoke to President Jiang Zemin about CASS’s ﬁnancial difficulties, including the low pay of CASS researchers. The state wage system for civil servants, including those of CASS, is egalitarian. Therefore, a substantial increase of the salaries of CASS academics was out of the question, though an award system could be introduced and research-task fees (ketifei Ŗɋ£) could be increased. Thus, in 5 Under Li Tieying most vice-presidents were Party cadres or bureaucrats, with the exceptions of Wang Luolin, who is an economist, and Jiang Lansheng from the Institute of Linguistics. Vice-president Li Shenming used to be the secretary of Wang Zhen; Zhu Jiamu, who was recently promoted to vice-president, used to be Hu Qiaomu’s secretary; and, the current head of the secretariat, Vice-president Zhu Jinchang, used to be a Party cadre as well (interview, January 22, 2004).

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1999 it was decided to radically increase research funding and investment in CASS.6 Not only has state investment into operational expenses continued to increase each year by ten to twenty percent since 1998, investment into research has gone up substantially since 2000. CASSlevel research expenses paid for by the Ministry of Finance have increased from ten million Yuan to thirty-ﬁve million Yuan in 2001; and, research institute level key-research item expenses have increased from twelve million to ﬁfteen million Yuan.7 CASS President Li Tieying, as a former Minister of the State Commission for the Restructuring of the Economic System, Minister of the State Education Commission, and member of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, was in a position to understand and arrange various ﬁnancial matters for CASS. According to rumours, one of Li’s ﬁrst undertakings as President of CASS was a visit to Premier Zhu Rongji. With an eye on the turn of the millennium, he asked for ﬁfty million Yuan from the Premier’s Fund to renovate the CASS building and the CASS graduate school campus.8 President Li is also admired for the several hundred million Yuan that he is supposed to have wrangled out of the Premier for the purchase and renovation of housing and to obtain the ﬁnancial means for building a new sixteen-storey modern library.9 And, in 2000, he managed to add over a hundred new medium and large research tasks to the research spectrum of CASS. Finally, the setup of the new CASS newsletter, the Yuanbao ˾, was attributed to him. Formerly, there was just a thin bimonthly newsletter called ‘tongxun ɔ ʷ’, which seemed to contain mainly retrospective news, and was obviously lacking a forward-looking agenda.10 Because it is distributed nationally, contains social science discussions, and news about academic activities at CASS, the Yuanbao considerably facilitated the communication of research results and academic activity and exchange.

6

YB (01, 31). YB (01, 31); YB (02, 45). 8 Additionally, the building at the back of CASS, the six-storey building where the history and agricultural development used to be housed, were renovated and rented out in the late 1990s. 9 The State Commission of Science and Technology invested a total amount of 114.49 million Yuan (YB01, 31). 10 CASS members were informed personally by the office secretaries or had to check all announcement boards to ﬁnd out if what was going on (personal experience in 1997– 1998). Cf. YB (02, 43). 7

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The information ﬂow between CASS and the CC of the CCP Although the state did not give the same ﬁnancial support to CASS as it did to the universities, much effort and investment went into CASS’s reorganization and its maintenance. Further alterations focused on strengthening the ties between CASS and the Party Central Committee and the government. To strengthen the relationship between CASS and the Central Committee of the CCP, instructions for ‘reporting the outline’ (Huibao-Tigang þɊ½) of social-science research explained the position and tasks of social science in China.11 In various ways CASS’s reporting to the CC was rationalized, with the most important way being through the internal Yaobao ˉ, which carried information on the research and academic activities of the various research institutes of CASS. A second method of assisting the CC of the CCP and the government was via the research tasks organized by the Central Committee Zhongyang jiaoban keti ̰ˁĦŖɋ. The research tasks were devised jointly by the leadership and the Party Central Committee and its Propaganda Department. In one year there are approximately ten to twenty large Zhongyang Jiaoban Keti. Large research tasks were organized on, for instance, the disintegration of the Soviet system, the Asian Model of Development, or, after the September eleventh terrorist attack, international terrorism and anti-terrorism. From many departments scholars came to attend meetings on these research tasks. Individuals could also apply for research tasks, but they receive only small sums of research support, ranging from two-to-ten thousand Yuan.12 Finally, CASS also provides the Party and the government with information through the Yuan Zhong Keti (CASS Key Research Tasks), mentioned above. The Yuanbao, the institute journals, and a journal called Xueshu Dongtai ʳȫɂ (Academic Forum) fulﬁl similar functions, and aim to reﬂect the research achievements of CASS. At the instruction of the leadership, under Li Tieying two research centres and two new research institutes were set up to deal with societal problems: the Institute for China’s Contemporary Problems (Zhongguo Dangdai Wenti Yanjiusuo ̰Ýpkɵɋʺľȿ), headed by Zhu Jiamu, a former secretary of Hu Qiaomu, and the Institute for Financing/Banking (Jin-

11 12

YB (00, 44). YB (02, 474).

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rong Yanjiusuo įǬʺľȿ).13 Although ﬁfty-three academy-level research centres and thirty-three institute-level research centres had been there before Li’s arrival at CASS, the research centres were now accommodated within the ninth ﬁve-year plan.14 In 2000, various research centres were set up, including the CASS Research Centre for Democracy Issues, led by Li Tieying, the CASS Research Centre for World Socialism, led by Li Zhenming (from the Research Institute for Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought), and the CASS Research Centre for the Science of Old People, led by Guo Yongcai (Bureau for Old Cadres).15 In 2001 the numbers of academy- and institute-level research centres had already risen to seventy-six and thirtynine, respectively.16 The establishment of these research centres was also intended to facilitate interdisciplinary research and attract researchers from other departments and offices, so that their research themes would draw external resources and outside attention. Encouragement was given to research centres to work on research tasks or to propose research tasks for which they have permission to recruit people externally and from various departments across disciplines.17

Streamlining CASS research and the reorganization of major research items Since Li Tieying in 1998 decided that CASS salaries would remain on the level of the income of civil servants, they were left far below the income level of academics at universities. Instead of a substantial increase in line with academic salaries at the better universities, CASS academics were given the opportunity to apply for research-item grants. Every year approximately ﬁfty million Yuan was to be spent on a hundred key research items and the major research task (zhongda keti ̴iŖɋ) system discussed below.

13 For a list of the academy-level research centres and institute-level research centres in 1998, see YB (99, 426–428, 429). 14 YB (99, 18). 15 YB (01, 474–477). 16 Cf. YB (99, 02). 17 For the regulatory statutes for research centres, see YB (02, 471–473).

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Fig. 8. The Rising Cost of Maintaining Academics Average Expenses Expense annual Nr. of employees Pensions* Salaries* salary p.c. Total nr. employees Academics Pensioners (total) 1998 1999 2000 2001

2484 3079 3568 4478

2265 2574 2842 3908

9094 11,600 14,600 19,200

6070 6088 6275 6308

975 928 873 867

2303 2392 2648 2685

* = × 10,000

Because the salaries of civil servants, including CASS academicians, could not be increased, CASS was to spend approximately ﬁfty million Yuan annually on a hundred key research-items and the major research task system. The major research task system, ﬁrst implemented in the year 2000, was meant to improve the distribution of resources and to advance research through the competition between research subjects on major issues in state policy-making and the establishment of academic disciplines. Thus in the ﬁrst year, sixty-nine major subjects were initiated, including ‘Theoretic Research on the Socialist Market Economy’, ‘Research on Issues of Democracy’, ‘Economic Globalization and China’, ‘The Twenty-ﬁrst Century Exploitation Strategy of Western China and Policy-Making’, and ‘Theory and Practice of Establishing a Socialist Legal State’.18 The zhongda keti system was also expected to help to improve the subject selection within CASS, improving the key-item research plan of CASS’s Tenth Five-Year Plan. In practice, it would mean a great reduction of Academy-level, key-item research subjects, as the large major research tasks would cover large issues.19 In 2001 major research tasks were divided into Academy level (A) and institute level (B) tasks, set up by the research institute. The research scope and research funding of both levels are limited and do not exceed 100,000 Yuan.20 This system was meant to strengthen the autonomy of research institutes and give them more responsibility, as part of a broader trend of rewarding academylevel and research institute-level research subjects separately.21 However, according to the ‘Regulations of the CASS Major Research Task Super18 19 20 21

YB (02, 42). YB (01, 27, 33). YB (02, 57); YB (02, 475). YB (01, 34–35).

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vision’, the Academic Committee of CASS votes about whether B-task projects are awarded or not. It also makes progress reports of the academic value and its theoretical signiﬁcance, the deﬁnition of the problem and the argument, the research train of thought and planning and the capacity and achievement of the project initiator.22 To a certain extent, this clause works as a safety valve against stray thinking. A critique of the funding system may provide more insight into such research practices. Min Jiayin, a concerned Party member and systems philosopher at CASS compiled a whole list of criticisms.23 He advises against always using the same conceptual framework and repeating studies, such as is the case with many projects based on Marxist philosophy. Investing large sums in big projects that are deﬁned vaguely, such as discussions on the nature of the universe, he believes is wasteful as is the writing of tedious descriptions that lack any theoretical basis. He further criticizes academics for publishing long monologues and edited books without apparent connection between separate, similar contributions, which usually are just a means for researchers to become well-known quickly. Moreover, there is too much copying and stealing of other people’s work. The easiest form of this kind of plagiarism is copying work from foreign scholars. And, ﬁnally, translating without thorough experience in the English language leads to absurdities. As an example he mentions a scholar who translated the Milky Way literally as niunai lu Ƶ ƮƇ, instead of yinghe ˜é (Min Jiayin 1999: 536–538). The management of academic research funding (keyan jingfei ŒʺĹ£), according to Min’s distressed view, resembles the plan-economy mode. First, it is based on ‘metaphysical management’ (xianyan guanli ʊˀÕť), as it allocates money to people on the basis of their position, without evidence for the feasibility and scientiﬁc value of their research. Second, it resemble elementary school in that scholars are expected to ‘write articles on assigned topics’ (mingti zuowen ƥɋ͓ɲ): in this case they can choose from an annually compiled ‘subject compass’. The topics proposed by scholars only constitute ﬁve percent of the total. Third, it is based on ‘collective production’ (jiti jingji ĊɌĹď) as the great majority of the funds go to collective topics, ignoring the fact that academic collectives achieve little; and, ﬁnally, it has ‘the three-year deadline’ (sannian weiqi

22

YB (02, 475). Min Jiayin’s ‘Reﬂections and suggestions on the reform of the administrative system of research funds of CASS’ is a proposal submitted to Li Tieying (See Min Jiayin, 1999). 23

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ǶƲɨǇ), which constitutes a rigid limit to which topics must comply,

without taking into account their complexity or value.24 The evaluation system was reinforced in response to such criticism and led to the installation of evaluation committees for the key research items and the major research tasks (zhongda keti).25 In every odd year, the CASS academic committee of about ﬁfty members evaluates the work of scholars. The committee eliminates or confers awards to scholars.26 Although the sums for research funding have increased, the method by which money is allocated over research items is criticized. Some academics feel that the system has become an instrument in the hands of the leadership for steering the thought and work of scholars. Scholars in the lower levels of the academic hierarchy especially worry that those higher up could take advantage of the work of others or obtain funding by unfair means. All that leaders have to do, and this is also thought to be true for recipients of State Social Science Funding, is to ﬁnd a small group willing to nestle their research question within the context of the research-item system, receive higher support, and get the small group to do the work for them. For example, all the vice-presidents currently have research tasks worth 500,000 Yuan. As inferiors do the bulk of the research work and writing, this situation has led to conﬂicts over authorship rights. The vice-presidents of the Institute of Philosophy (over the last four years it has not had a proper head) have taken on projects of 300–400,000 Yuan. The distribution of the actual work and the credit for it are a bone of frequent contention. Working conditions at CASS The faltering reputation of CASS, the perceived low salaries and diminishing welfare beneﬁts as observed in Chapter 10, have affected various scholars in different ways. Average income differs depending on the institute and position scholars have in the academic hierarchy.27 CASS itself 24

Min Jiayin (1999, 539–540). YB (99, 17). 26 YB (01, 6). An alternative for funding applicants is the State Social Science Fund (Guojia Sheke Jijin), which allocates more modest funding to the social sciences at a national level. 27 The average annual income of all workers at CASS is 14,600 per capita. The Research Institute of Modern History and the Research Institute for World History have the lowest average annual income per capita (13,000 Yuan) and the Research Institute for Industrial Economy has the highest annual average income p.c. (22,100 Yuan) (YB[01, 25

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also has to bear the consequences of its declining attraction to good scholars. Quite a few scholars of good reputation have found it more rewarding to move to Qinghua University, Beijing University, or Beijing Normal University. They move despite the fact that the generous research time they enjoy at CASS generally decreases when moving to an institute of higher education. The ﬁnancial situation of some researchers has become an important topic of dispute. Thus, the removal of the advertisement logos on top of the CASS building was followed by ﬁerce protestations. It was argued that the loss of income of over four million Yuan per year could have complemented the income of the poorly paid. The policy of reform and opening up had created the impression that advertizing was to be regarded as a part of state policies. Leaders, to the dismay of the protesters, seemed to regard the poverty of academicians as subservient to the dignity of CASS. But low pay, according to the researchers, did not enhance the respectability of CASS as a prestigious state academy.28 The ﬁnancial difficulties were felt in the area of personnel management as well. For instance, the Institute of Philosophy had over 222 members in 1992. This number dwindled to 147 in 2001.29 Some professors have retired and others left for positions at other universities, but they are not easily replaced. Various institutes suffer from similar problems, and have to see their best researchers leave. For example, Hu Xinghe, the institute’s head of the Office for the Philosophy of Science and Technology, in 2001 left for the Graduate School of CAS; the well-known literary scholar Chen Xiaoming moved to Beijing University; and, a well-known researcher from the Institute of World Religions, He Guanghu, departed for Renmin University. Furthermore, promising young researchers do not usually want to stay on at CASS. As a result of the brain-drain and the difficulties in recruiting staff,30 the quality of work at CASS can no longer compete with that of Beijing and Fudan Universities. In the 1980s and the ﬁrst half of the 1990s, an attractive housing arrangement and cheap health care had comprised positive features of

456–457]). It must be pointed out that these numbers do include the average salaries of some part-time workers, and administrative personnel employed by these institutes. 28 In 1999, en lieu of the celebration of the ﬁftieth anniversary of the PRC, it was decided to change the face of the city. In the centre, many of the city’s ads were taken down. Some residential areas and companies, however, continued to carry them. But state / government buildings were not allowed to continue the practice. 29 YB (93, 301); YB (02, 491). Excluding administrative personnel, the ﬁgures were 196 and 133, respectively. 30 YB (99, 16).

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working conditions at CASS. But under Li Tieying’s reign, major changes were introduced.31 The changes in the housing system had farreaching consequences. Formerly, academics had enjoyed housing that was almost free, but in the late 1990s academics had to buy their own houses; in many cases, housing was torn down and academics were forced to buy or rent other accommodations. To facilitate this considerable purchase, the inhabitants of the accommodation in question could take out a mortgage and return the money from their salary in stages.32 In effect, therefore, the collective housing system crumbled.33 Li Tieying had made available large amounts of research money to CASS. Although the income of those who successfully applied for research money apparently rose, basic salaries had not improved if one takes into account the increase in costs of living and demands of raising children. Moreover, compared to other institutes of higher learning, salaries decreased substantially. At Beijing and Qinghua universities the basic income of a professor in the year 2003 was at least 5,000 Yuan a month; at CASS, professors only got paid half of that, about 2,300 Yuan per month. Now that the housing allocation system had changed, staying at CASS has become a lot less attractive, especially to middle-aged scholars that are not likely to receive larger living quarters soon. Then they may go to a university at which they can rent larger houses and get higher salaries.34 The medical system has also been under reform since the late 1990s, as many work units could no longer afford to pay for medical expenses.35 Under the new arrangements, the work units subtract a certain amount 31

YB (00, 18–19). In 2000 and 2001, 26,480,000 Yuan and 54,980,000 Yuan was made available to facilitate the reform of the housing system (YB[01, 4]); (YB[02, 4]). 33 The land in the centre of Beijing is very expensive. In 2003, one square meter is worth over US $ 10,000 (80,000 Yuan), which is more that the price of land in the heart of Hong Kong. In one case, a family had to move as housing was torn down. They only received 7,000 Yuan for one square meter. This is not an uncommon case, and people are aware that the state is keeping the proﬁt. Many academics sell their house to the government (for the state is owner) and buy a house in the outskirts of Beijing, where housing is cheaper. 34 One of the reasons for the increase in salaries of university professors is that the student fees have increased. In 2003, the average university fee of a ﬁrst year’s student was approximately 10,000 Yuan per year. A university with a good reputation charges even more. Many students from poor families cannot cough up such huge sums. The government therefore made it possible to apply for a low-interest bank loan. At CASS, about half of the research students have grants and the other half pay 20–30,000 Yuan. 35 YB (00, 18). 32

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from the monthly salary (about 1,300 Yuan a year), which is placed into a fund for medical subsidy (yiliao buzhu ˏŸ,̻). The introduction of an expense ﬂoor, above which you could start declaring your expenses, approximately 1.300 Yuan in 2003, made for a considerable set-back in income, especially to elderly academics. Expenses of over 1.300 Yuan were compensated for against receipts.36 Retired scholars, however, were also given the opportunity to earn extra income. Generally, CASS members retire at sixty years of age, as is the case with all civil servants, but professors that supervise PhD students in various work units were allowed to continue until the age of 65.37 Some scholars do not understand why the retirement age had to be at 60, believing that social scientists become more productive in life only after the age of forty-ﬁve, acquiring deeper insights only after the age of sixty. For the over 2.500 retired academics at CASS, an Old People’s Research Item Fund (laonian xueke jijin ţƲʳŒĂ į) has been organised. It is however a rather small fund of approximately one million Yuan and could only ﬁnance roughly two large research items.

Reforms at CASS under Li Tieying A main reason for reforming the medical and housing systems is that the state wanted to stimulate the economy and decrease the large amounts of accumulated savings. Over a trillion Yuan of savings sat in the bank inactively, even though the interest rate was very low. But the reforms had brought uncertainty and anxiety, so that the motivation to save was strong. To stimulate the economy and to induce people to spend their savings, the state needed strong incentives. Buying a house, therefore, was made attractive through the provision of low interest loans and advantageous payment schemes. Moreover, the buying of houses started to be viewed as an attractive object of investment to many citizens. So despite 36 For instance, if you hand in 1,500 worth of bills, then you get 200 Yuan compensation. If you don’t reach 1,300, you have to pay it all yourself. 37 The retirement age of the Institute of Philosophy is high, as the institute has a staff problem. In 2002, twelve professors were between sixty and sixty-ﬁve, and were retired. It is possible, however, to reverse retirement for PhD tutors (huantui). In the Institute of Philosophy, there were three PhD supervisors that have come back (Wu Yuanliang, Lin Xiashui, Chen Ying). Each time, this reversal is decided upon for just one year. And at sixty-ﬁve everyone has to retire. University professors may retire at sixty-ﬁve and supervise many PhD students, sometimes over ﬁfteen.

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the tendency for people to save up for the increasing amount regarded as minimally necessary for a living, such as school fees, medicine, travel, transport and retirement, considerable amounts of money were injected into the housing market, especially after the latter half of the 1990s. It looks like the research-item funding system certainly had the effect of organizing research in a planned manner. Be it the state, CASS, or other research items, such as the Municipal research items, they are organized in a way that presupposed different schools of thought and are deﬁned in a manner to be useful to government policy-making. It is arguable, though, that the way of presenting academics with a menu of items, even if CASS leaders have a say in their formulation, does not stimulate creative research. And although it may encourage competition between schools, it does not support an optimal condition of free competition between autonomous schools of thought. Rather, the system is conservative in that it augments current schools of thought allied with established organizational networks in the academy. Nevertheless, one can also argue that this is what some academics employed by CASS want to do. Although the most talented scholars are drawn to other academic institutions, especially well-known and well-paying universities such as Beijing University, Qinghua University, and People’s Normal University, a majority of scholars may actually accept and endorse a system consisting of research choices that are congruent with current policies of reform and opening up. Though this system is not designed to turn academics into nouveau riche, it does provide average researchers with extra means of conducting research on top of their basic salary. From a comparative and more critical point of view, however, the salaries of CASS members are not much better than in the 1980s. Taking into consideration the restructuring of the welfare facilities at the academy, the increase in daily expenses, and the increased costs of raising a family, this is especially so. But as official views decided that political reforms had to be gradual, salaries at CASS had to remain on the same level as those of the ministries. Compared to the ﬁnancial conditions of civil servants in the municipal government, however, CASS academics had less access to welfare facilities and welfare support. On the whole, therefore, the gross income of CASS academics was felt to be much lower than those of Municipal civil servants and those of university colleagues. Furthermore, the cost of living in Beijing is higher than in many other regions of the country, which is not taken into account by the egalitarian ideology at the basis of the personnel administration of the national bureaucracy.

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The prospects for improvement since Li Tieying’s departure are not much brighter, for the new leader of CASS, President Chen Kuiyuan, in one year’s time has not managed to accomplish anything in this direction. Chen, a former Henan secretary and philosopher from the Mongolian Normal University, does not have a history of a political heavyweight such as had Li Tieying, and he did not come to CASS with a bagful of ﬁnancial promises. His appointment may be an additional sign that CASS is losing its importance to the government, perhaps creating a sense of crisis among some CASS scholars. Under Chen Kuiyuan, CASS is not thought of as ‘democratic’, a concept used to imply righteousness. This view partly expresses frustration with the change of CASS leadership, which, in the past, was refreshed and replenished every ﬁve years at all levels. But after Chen Kuiyuan took over the presidency, no change of guard took place, purportedly because Chen had wanted time for the adjustment of research in CASS. Nevertheless, under Li Tieying’s presidency, the management of personnel and the use of material and informational resources were rationalized. Its reporting to the state and its internal and public communication were improved substantially. CASS work on propaganda and policymaking for the government received an increased emphasis. Despite his achievements, some regard Li Tieying as ‘the political secretary from Henan’, that is, as a bureaucrat. A frequent complaint is that Li Tieying treated CASS as a ‘writing group’. For example, when Jiang Zemin said ‘Democracy is important’, Li set up the ‘Centre for Democracy’ and put together a writing group that subsequently wrote a book on democracy under which he put his signature.38 In the process, various institutes had to conduct a general discussion on the meaning of ‘democracy’, and ‘human rights’. Such trends raise questions about the extent to which Li Tieying succeeded in streamlining research in an academic sense: Did his policies really result in his announced free competition between schools of thought, a situation in which originality, creativity, and openness of debate are perceived to reign in the academic world? How did the research task system impact the free competition between schools of thought and how did it affect the organization of research? I will discuss these issues in the last chapter relating the introduction of the research item system, changes in the research and working conditions at CASS, to an exploration of research freedom.

38

Li Tieying (2002).

chapter fifteen CHANGING THE SYSTEM FROM WITHIN?

In Parts Two-Four I discussed three forms of power that have been crucial in shaping academic discourse in CASS. One form of power is expressed in the ways in which symbolic concepts, often initially used in formal ceremonies and rites, are mobilized in academic policy-making and Party guidelines, but are variously interpreted and used both in support of and in opposition to the political and Party leadership (Chapter 11). Symbols of the nation especially seem to be treated as vessels of meaning, whose various interpretations are used in debate between academic factions. They were inﬂuential and persuasive as triggers of mental links between patriotism and the policies of various academic and political factions. A second form of power was the vertical, top-down leadership of the Party (Chapter 12), which in CASS was instrumental in stipulating research topics, ideological education, and the generation of a whole vocabulary based on Party ideology, including certain formulations, phrases and slogans. A third form of power is exerted through organizational devices, such as the bi-directional elections, the responsibility system, the topic research system, and various modes of rewarding academicians (Chapter 13). This form of power informs the discussion on how leaders at various levels of the hierarchy, deal with the conﬂicts between the duties/forms of their own administrative cum ideological position and the political views/factions they support themselves (discussed in Part Two-Three). Chinese intellectuals, both outside and inside the educational system, have been credited with the capacity to change themselves at will, and power changes have been regarded as the logical outcome of political clashes of thought. But such views are one-sided, as they ignore the relatively independent structural dynamics of academic institutes and the pressures exerted by the decisions made about the organization of academic institutions. In the case of CASS, these have played a crucial role in the research planning and the lasting coherency of the institute. Nevertheless, the power base of the institutional structure in CASS has changed over time, and the development of its research curriculum could hardly have been predicted by its creators, be it leaders or led.

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In the previous chapter I discussed how working conditions, the new research-item systems, and means of academic organization impact the limits of what can or cannot be researched. On the basis of recent developments under the Presidency of Li Tieying and on the basis of the changing forms of power mentioned above and discussed in former chapters of this book, I argue in this ﬁnal chapter that: – CASS leaders have used the status of CASS as a state institution to co-opt CASS academics into refraining from openly violating state policies; – Since the beginning of the ﬁrst decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century, major changes in academic policies and ideology have come about mainly through the gradual ideological change of the Party organization in CASS, and require internal efforts; – Changes in political ideology at CASS occur slowly, and they happen by means of changes in academic and ideological symbolism, which are tied to Party propaganda and government policy-making; and, – Cases of dissidence at CASS occur mainly as a by-product of this mode of change: among well-reputed, established scholars who change their course mid-career or inadvertedly become entangled in sensitive political issues. I will conclude this chapter with a discussion of the various ways in which academics are grouped into categories by themselves and others, and with an elaboration of the meaning of research freedom in the context of developments in CASS over the last decade. As argued in Chapters 8 to 10, progressively accumulated ﬁnancial advantages and limited career opportunities motivated researchers to stay at CASS. Though since the 1980s a process of liberalization has broadened the freedom of publication, ﬁnancial and administrative restraints led them to research certain subjects rather than others, and to take into account political guidelines for academic work. The latter requires academics to keep up with what is regarded as violating state policy, for state ideology is subject to change. For instance, in the second millennium even officials express the view that they are in favour of democracy; in the 1980s and in part of the 1990s, intellectuals were sooner locked up for demonstrating for democracy. Of course, the political context in which the concept of democracy is used was also important, then. In the 1980s, patronizing ‘socialist democracy’ was no problem, but since

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the late 1990s, CASS has made space for official Democratic Parties that compete for members with the CASS Communist Party.1 It is obvious, therefore, that the meaning and the political implications of the concept of democracy have changed. Although this does not mean that at CASS democracy is ﬂourishing, its symbolism has lost much of its triggering impact.2 The loss of the triggering power of concepts such as democracy may partly be related to the decreasing importance of academic writing, when it does not directly concern state political issues. It may also be due to the changing functions of CASS as an advisory organ, considering that the way in which academic research at CASS stimulates especially those academics that are willing to work on research items that are related to state policy. To counter a trend of armchair research, Li Tieying warned against the tendency of academics to lock themselves into their ivory towers, condemning the attitude of ‘two ears that do not hear what goes on outside the window’ (liang er bu wen chuangwai shi ŵ-ɳYɝ ț).3 Academics, according to Li, should base their research on China’s experience in socialist practice; but they should not become so engaged in practice that they turn their schools of thought into social or religious movements.4 The motivation of academics for working at CASS has changed. As shown in Chapters 4 and 5, in the 1980s the hope that academic institutes at CASS would become ﬁnancially independent was driven by the desire for an independent role for intellectuals in society. Thus between the 1980s and the ﬁrst decade of the twenty-ﬁrst century, one can observe a change regarding the way in which critical intellectuals envisaged their role from enlightened independence to critical social scientists involved in applied state policy-making. Therefore, a change took place from actively opposing the notion of being an ‘instrument of the state’ to an attitude of ‘changing the state system from within’. Reformist intellectuals that decided to stay on at CASS—those that had not been forced out after June Fourth, had not entered the free market, or had not left for other universities—have turned to ‘changing the system from within’.

1

See CASS Yearbooks under Party Organization Work (Dang de zuzhi gongzuo qw͐

̣Ê͓). 2 3 4

See Chapter 11 for a discussion on symbols. YB (00, 10); YB (01, 18). YB (01, 14, 17–18).

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On the whole, the reorganization of research at CASS, including the streamlining of administrative structures, and the rationalization of fund allocation, all have contributed to narrowing the scope for political dissidence. Financial constraints and state dependency have a great impact on the work of academics, but the academic reforms of CASS in the 1990s have made it possible for academics to either choose to cooperate or stay out of the mainstream of academic discussion at CASS (See Part Three). In this sense, therefore, radicals have become so irrelevant to academic research at CASS that they have marginalized themselves. Thus, dissidence occurs mostly in situations in which established academics decide to change their course of research or when they inadvertedly chose the wrong side of a debate on a sensitive subject. The ﬁnancial situation of CASS research institutes varies, and one could imagine that researchers in enterprising institutes are less inﬂuenced by political instructions than those in others. Nevertheless, dependency on CASS as a state institute places restraints on most. For stateacademic policies and guidelines structure the academic environment, shaping research tasks to perform a supportive role. Researchers whose aim it is to earn a living at CASS are usually not interested in violating state ideology or policies (See Chapter 8). The four economy institutes can earn money by offering consultancy services to enterprises; the Institute of Law earns extra money by offering advice and services. Quite a few researchers have started their own companies, and it is not uncommon for them to own cars. So at CASS the earnings of some researchers derive from a wide range of activities, including managing enterprises, free-lance writing, and conducting major research task research. Others, however, have very low incomes. Some intellectuals that ventured to join the free market as free-lance intellectuals sell their work abroad, but there are not many intellectuals who manage to earn a living through free-lance work only. The intellectuals that are openly critical of the political establishment in a way that counters the basic tenets of the official policy-line have done this from a relatively independent position. Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming are early examples of such independent intellectuals. In 1986, Chen founded the ﬁrst independent social-science research organization (SERI), which was joined by Wang in 1988. Wang in the 1980s supported democracy, universal suffrage, checks and balances, and a multi-party parliamentary system. But even Wang asked demonstrating intellectuals

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to make national stability their ﬁrst priority. Another critical thinker, Wei Jingsheng, insisted on the need for democracy by non-violent means, but he spent many years in prison and now resides abroad. It is unlikely that a person of his views and ways of expressing them could occupy a position in an institute of higher education in China. Other critics such as Su Wei, Peng Rongchong, Liu Binyan, Yan Jiaqi, Su Xiaokang, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Zaifu, Xuan Zhiming, Zhou Duo and Fang Lizhi all rejected present-day Chinese Marxism, and went to live in exile abroad. In addition to their rejection of Marxism, they had in common their wish for intellectuals to change their relationship with the state. For instance, Peng Rongchong, who was exiled after June fourth, wanted intellectuals to have a close link with the people, and found the role intellectuals have taken upon themselves as loyal remonstrators naive. Su Wei supported the 1989 demonstration, and signed a petition for Wei Jingsheng. He argued that intellectuals had to change their social role, and not serve as ‘instruments’ of the political establishment. Su appealed to intellectuals in exile to use their creative support to accumulate more ‘cultural capital’. At the same time he denounced the dependence of intellectuals on the establishment and on patron-client networks. The attitudes of intellectuals had to change from utilitarian to democratic, and they had to re-evaluate their relationship with the state. Chen Yizhi, President of the Centre of Modern China, and former member of Zhao Ziyang’s think-tank, Su Wei, Wu Jian, and others believed that the sixth generation of intellectuals still lacked economic independence. As a result, intellectuals were forced to rely on their political patrons. Many have lost their boldness, and do not even remonstrate with the leadership. It is common for them to withdraw into their studies. Thus, the intellectuals that are openly critical of the state constitute only a small segment of the intelligentsia. Since the 1980s, criticism of Marxism has both softened and has become less relevant to the authorities. Criticism has softened as many regard Marxism as a source of morality and less relevant because academics have become less relevant to policy-makers, unlike the social and religious movements such as those of the unemployed and the Falungong. The attention paid by the international media to dissident thinkers may have created the impression that in China a new social class of critics of the regime is emerging. In fact, restrictive social-political and economic conditions have hampered such development.

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Academic reforms and monitored freedom In the 1980s, only a few intellectuals could afford to be critical. In the 1990s, criticism of socialist planning, authoritarian attitudes and ideological radicalism were widespread. But the boundary of what was acceptable criticism had shifted. This is why it was possible for some critical intellectuals to continue seeing themselves as ‘mouthpieces of the People’, and act as the standard-bearers of morality, critics of the authorities, and spokesmen and protectors of ‘the People’. The leadership stepped up its efforts to condone and predeﬁne the role of intellectuals in ‘guiding’ and ‘serving’ the People. It frequently referred to official policies that research at CASS should follow, and explicitly referred to CASS as a state socialscience research organ under the supervision of the State Council and under the leadership of the Central Committee of the CCP. Thus, in the year 2000, Li Tieying reported that many academics were engaged in great quantities of theoretical research, propaganda activities and translation with respect to the three political struggles against American hegemony, the separatist policies of Li Denghui, and the Falungong.5 In the 1990s, intellectuals critical of China’s national policies increasingly had to swim against the stream to organize themselves. For, as outlined in Chapters 9 and 12, academic policies were pre-designed to create diversiﬁcation and competition in a way that did not question the close link between state policy-making and academic research. Furthermore, in CASS a selection mechanism was at work that lifted, stimulated and groomed talented and dedicated scholars loyal to the establishment.6 Their increasing diversity and variety of interests actually made it even harder for academics to organize themselves. Together with former generations of intellectuals, academics formed a heterogeneous group of different age groups, educational backgrounds, political experiences, support networks, and political orientations. Compounding the situation, the CCP practised a divide-and-rule policy of deferential treatment towards the intellectuals of the natural sciences and technical ﬁelds, the talented cream of young and ambitious intellectuals, and the loyal followers of establishment policies. Nevertheless, some of the intellectuals that wanted to change government policies felt that they were better off as part of the state system of academic learning. A dilemma for them was that they would not draw 5 6

YB (01, 11); YB (01, 25). YB (94, 6–7).

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much attention unless they were to become part of the academic hierarchy. A great variety of critical books on Chinese society were published, but unless they were related to official policy-making, they were largely ignored. In this sense, it was attractive for intellectuals to be part of a state-institute for academic research. Furthermore, the emphasis on academic reform, cultural pluralism and competition between schools of thought added to the attraction of working to change Chinese society and its policies by means of intellectual labour from within an established academic context. Moreover, changes in CASS since the early 1990s laid down the basis for this form of administrative and organizational ﬂexibility in the academy, making possible the continuation of the reforms within CASS and gradual change of its relationship with state policies. The decision to reorganize the CASS leadership structure and to strengthen its control over research personnel in the early 1990s was accompanied by an investigation into the ins and outs of decisionmaking, the construction of new disciplines, ﬁnancial pressures, corruption, wastage and problems of personnel (cf Part Three). In this process, the views of the non-conforming enlightened intellectuals of the 1980s played an important role, for they were the designers of academic modernization that took the form of rationalization and indirect regulation instead of direct and authoritarian control (cf Part Two). Nevertheless, the changes that took place could not have been predicted on the basis of the reorganization plans of the old generation of reformist intellectuals and those of academic leaders, such as Yu Wen or Hu Sheng. With the privilege of hindsight, however, continuity can be detected between initial plans of restructuring and reforming CASS and the subsequent developments of supervisory structures, the streamlining of administrative management, personnel and academic guidelines, the stimulation of the creation and competition between schools of thought, the diversiﬁcation of research ﬁelds, and the loosening of direct controls over the work of intellectuals. Apart from the crack-down on the demonstrations of 1989 and the measures taken against Bourgeois Liberalization, various factors and developments were decisive in the subsequent reforms in the ﬁeld of academic management: – The green light for ‘deepening of the reforms’, after Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour of January 1992, made it possible for CASS to lay off scholars, introduce competition, and propagate moneyearning activities. This decision to deepen the reforms neatly ﬁt-

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chapter fifteen ted in with the ongoing plans of reform-minded administrators at CASS, who had realized that without new organizational life blown into its disciplinary set-up, scholarly work at CASS would become paralyzed and the proportion of accomplished scholars would gradually fall (Chapter 8 and 9); The new economic situation allowed talented activists or ‘subversive elements’ (including participants in the democracy and other emancipatory movements) to ‘jump into the sea’ and seek their luck in the expanding economy instead of in academic life (Chapter 10); The process of ‘Opening Up’, that is, the increased contact with foreign companies and modern research was a basic condition for obtaining scientiﬁc know-how, management methods, foreign theoretical models and examples. Had this process been endangered politically, it could have caused a crisis of conﬁdence in the Chinese economy and in reforms among foreign investors and companies. At the same time this would have led to a drop in academic exchanges, a money squeeze, and little prospect for the further development of the social sciences, which have been dependent on translations, foreign subsidies and scholarly exchanges (Chapters 8 and 9); A global trend of strengthening interdisciplinary research stimulated a similar trend in China, which began in the mid-1980s. This trend facilitated the marriage between science and social science, and in between scientiﬁc models and their ideological application. For this reason, the re-organization of disciplines and research also ﬁtted in with an international trend (Chapters 12 and 13); An increased emphasis was placed on the relation between culture and traditional thought, later called ‘indigenisation’ (bentuhua ɛõ) as a factor important to the explanation of the formation of Chinese society (cf. Chapters 4 to 6). The attention paid to the negative aspects of Chinese traditional culture by democratic and liberal opponents of the socialist regime in the 1980s affected and reinforced enthusiasm among managers of the social-science curriculum for the study of tradition. As a result, the attention for different forms of socialist patriotism grew, and discussions moved from ﬁerce debates between ‘reformist’ critics of Chinese traditional culture and orthodox Marxian stage theories of historical tradition to increasingly moderate debates covering a more variegated cross between the two (see Chapters 11 and 12).

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The above trends, of course, are interrelated. It is hard to say, however, to what extent they were hampered or facilitated by the efforts of reformist radicals in the 1980s. The regime has both opposed radicals and adopted their ideas, which is shown by the adoption and embroidery of the concepts of ‘the ﬁrst stage of socialism’ and ‘socialist humanism’. It is this intertwining of socio-political relations between opposing groups in the relatively small social space of the intellectual community that made it possible in the latter half of the 1990s for leaders to claim the victory of the reforms as theirs. Thus, on the occasion of the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of CASS, leaders such as Wang Renzhi, who now is regarded as relatively conservative, announced that CASS had been ‘a pioneering force in the reforms and modernizations’.7 This evaluation of CASS’s ﬁrst twenty years indicates that the radical disagreements between the so-called conservatives and reformers of the 1980s had either gradually been bridged or smothered.8 After the severe reprimands of CASS intellectuals and the restrictions placed on the decision-making powers of administrative leaders following the 1989 clampdown, a new generation of dedicated reformers with academic aspirations was silenced. Within two years, however, a new set of far-reaching reforms was formulated and this time was widely propagated, well-formulated, widely co-ordinated in a controlled manner from above, but also in co-ordination with academic organizations from below (Chapters 8 and 9). In the twenty-ﬁrst century, a trend developed of increasingly efficient integration of the major research subjects with the requirements of the CC of the CCP and state policies, academic activities,9 research groups and the training of a new leadership and talented researchers.10 Thus, the correct application of, for instance, the Five Research Cores,11 the

7

YB (98, 8). Ibid. 9 YB (02, 43). 10 YB (00, 47); YB (01, 34). 11 The Five Research Cores: Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory research cores, the research core of economic reform and development, the research core of socialist democratic legal and societal development, the research core for Chinese civilization and socialist culture, the research core of international theoretical issues and international strategy (YB[00, 13]). 8

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Four Basic Principles,12 the Three Talks,13 the Three Relations,14 and the Three Represents15 was repeatedly emphasized as crucial to good research behaviour. These numerical instructions deﬁned the boundaries of political correctness, forcing them to keep up with official political guidelines and constantly balancing the relations between the political and the academic, freedom of research and basic Party guidelines, personal view and academic reputation. The successful application for project funding, promotion, and Party membership and the set-up of academic organizations and evaluation committees, naturally, had to take these guidelines into account. In short, in the early 1990s, the atmosphere of acclaimed creativity and free debate was replaced by an atmosphere of controlled renewal and guided discussion. When, further into the 1990s, debates became less restrained, caution and uncertainty still rendered open debate a laboured ritual, no matter how many times the Double-Hundred policy was hailed and propagated by the leadership. The zest with which events were organized around the commemorations of the heroic dead and ceremonies held on official occasions reinforced this development. On the one hand, radical reformists and democrats were silenced or ousted, while other reformists in the aftermath of the June Fourth demonstrations became convinced that they had followed a mistaken path. On the other hand, moderate reformists seemed to have it their way, because reforms (espe12 The Four Basic Principles: Upholding the political guidance of Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and in particular Deng Xiaoping Theory, upholding the basic road of the Party, and maintaining political consistency with the CC of the CCP; upholding the support for the establishment of China’s socialist modernization, at the service of the upsurge of all of the Chinese peoples; upholding the principle that practice is the only criterion of truth; upholding the Double Hundred policy, encouraging the courageous exploration and the brave creativity of researchers (YB[00, 14]). 13 The Three Talks: The Talk of Study (sincerely studying Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory; Talk Politics (the Four Cardinal Principles, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics); Talk in a Healthy Atmosphere (integrating the practice of CASS with the worldview, view of life, and values of Marxism, not doing anything to blemish the country’s or people’s character, not violating any law or regulation, being sincere, upright, and serious scholars (YB[00,20]). 14 The Three Relations: Correctly dealing with the relationship between academic and political interests; correctly dealing with the relation between maintaining the Double Hundred Policy and upholding the Party leadership and observing the law; correctly dealing with the relationship between personal interests and the protection of the interests of the social science community (CASS) and its reputation (YB[01,11]). 15 The Three Represents, in short, deal with the effort put into the development and upholding of the production forces, spiritual culture and the people’s basic rights (YB[02,11]). See also the discussion in the following section.

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cially in the area of market reform and the legal system) were carried out, the freedom of opinion in China appeared to spread, and experiments were conducted with various forms of democracy. Criteria for grouping intellectuals During the 1990s, it became increasingly difficult to delineate groups of intellectuals: although differences between them multiplied, they also became subtler. Features shared by contemporary intellectuals (besides their work environment) included the disposal of a wide range of perspectives and theoretical plurality and the awareness of sharing a cosmopolitan intellectual context with thinkers throughout the world. Furthermore, most shared a renewed interest in traditional culture, and sought alternatives within China’s cultural resources rather than relying solely on imported ideas. Though many academics continued to participate in ideological construction for the authorities, others refused the role of ideological spokesman for the authorities. Some retreated into their studies and created their ‘own’ space between state and self. The great increase in the variety of academic publications also made it more difficult for intellectuals to categorize one another. To put it differently, the number of labels one could apply to others has increased to such an extent that their political bite became less wounding. However, distinctions between the various trends can be made from several points of view. First, a distinction can be made between intellectuals who are part of the academic community and intellectuals that work in conditions free from the constraints of academic regulation and prescriptions. A second, temporal, distinction differentiates between the reformintellectuals of the 1980s and younger intellectuals, some of whom use the former as a foil against which they deﬁne their own approaches. From the point of view of the 1990s, the thought of reform intellectuals in the 1980s was relevant for its ‘enlightenment’ function, and played a major role in constructing a new ideological support system underlying the reformist program of the 1980s. Thinkers belonging to the post-Mao Chinese Enlightenment movement have been discussed above and include Zhou Yang, Yu Guangyuan, Wang Ruoshui, Su Shaozhi, Yan Jiaqi, Li Zehou, Liu Zaifu, Jin Guantao, Liu Qingfeng, and Liu Binyan. Most were born before 1949, obtained their education before the Cultural Revolution, and opposed ultra-Maoist orthodoxy. Nevertheless, they operated largely within the Hegelian-Marxist and scientiﬁc traditions, exempliﬁed by debates on the ‘criterion of truth’ (zhenli de biaozhun ̕ťw&͂),

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alienation and humanism, subjectivity and individuality, the initial stage of socialism and the socialist market system, and reform in the Party and government structures. As a reaction to excessive voluntarism, subjective idealism and utopian romanticism of the Cultural Revolution, they made a turn to objective scientiﬁc rationality, and found in instrumental reason the core of reformist ideology. A third distinction can be made between reformist academics that operate close to the political leadership, and helped deﬁne academic policies, and reformist academics that tried to distance themselves from active participation in politics, and, instead, focused on scholarly contributions to the reforms in the ﬁeld of culture and social emancipation. Zhou Yang, Yu Guangyuan, Su Shaozhi, Wang Ruoshui, and Yan Jiaqi, for example, held key positions in the ideological establishment, displayed a high level of political consciousness, and were directly involved in the process of social reform. They were especially interested in the young Marx, and Marxist humanism, and created theoretical blueprints for economic and political reform. By contrast, Li Zehou, Liu Zaifu, Jing Guantao and Liu Qingfeng tried to create distance between their intellectual pursuits and socio-political reality as they saw it. They made use of Western scientiﬁc models, methods, and conceptual schemes, such as Jean Piaget’s concept of genetic evolution by Li Zehou,16 the models and methods of cybernetics and systems analysis by Jin Guantao, and the model of R.K. Merton by Li Xingmin. Such theories were to provide compelling theoretical justiﬁcation for Deng’s Open Door policies. Nevertheless, Chinese Enlightenment thinkers of the 1980s had certain features in common. They made use of all-embracing approaches in pursuit of the ultimate uniﬁed theory. This new metaphysics relished the tradition of grand systems, largely put together by employing ideas from modern science. An assumption they shared was that of historical necessity and the perfectibility of society, of economic progress and democracy, ultimately culminating in an ideal society. The unit in which self and society were envisaged invariably was that of the collective, the national community as a whole. Onto this unit, Chinese Enlightenment thinkers projected their scientiﬁc theories. Scientiﬁc reason would prove the necessity of progress and the power of reason. As Lin Min and Galikowski argue (1999), human reason in this context not only constituted a cognitive or methodological concept, but also an ontological category.

16

Cf. Chong 1999; Jin Guantao 1988; Li Xingmin 1990b.

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A new generation of intellectuals, which had enjoyed tertiary education in the late 1970s and 1980s, grew up during modernization and was confronted with the political signiﬁcance and consequences of the various ideologies introduced into intellectual and political life. This generation established a greater distance from politics, and was especially concerned with creating a philosophical basis of modernity, the hermeneutic interpretation of tradition, the cognitive and cultural framework of modern liberalism and pluralist society. They continued the tradition of systematic introduction of Western thinkers and elaborated on the relevance of their theories for the Chinese situation. Thus, Su Guoxun discussed Max Weber, Gan Yang reinterpreted Alexis de Tocqueville, and Zhou Guoping reappraised Nietzsche, and Liang Zhiping made a critical analysis of Western legal principles. Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Cassirer, Gadamer, Berlin: they all gained signiﬁcance in China’s quest for a new cultural consensus. But although this sixth generation formed a close ally of the 1980s reformists in their search for an open and liberal public space for ideological debate, in many areas their approaches clashed. Intense political involvement was replaced by a call for distance between scholarship and political reality. This group criticized all-embracing approaches for eliminating true individual subjectivity and liberty; Gan Yang especially argued that, instead of striving for perfectibility, a deep understanding of human fallibility had to be developed. Interpretative or hermeneutical approaches to human society gained in popularity compared to systems analyses of society as a project of systems-engineering. According to Gan Yang, the ‘epistemological turn’ lies in the breakdown of a tyrannical dominance of logical principles and increased freedom of human thought. In order to thwart the political belief in the progress of science and modernity, Zhou Guoping presented Nietzsche’s critical stance against scientiﬁc reason and announced that ‘communism was dead’; Chen Kuide et al. in 1983 wrote ‘A Few Ideas on Epistemology’, in which they challenged the official concept of truth in favour of a pluralist deﬁnition; Liu Xiaofeng argued for achieving inner consciousness and salvation, not through collective liberation and social engineering, but through individual soul-searching and emotional struggle. Moreover, tradition, according to Gan Yang’s interpretation of Gadamer, was not a pre-given, absolute, static entity, but a product of constant interaction between past and present.17 Others argued for

17

Lin and Galikowski (1999, 17).

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exchanging the optimistic ideas of the Enlightenment for critical scepticism. Su Guoxun, for example, called for a higher awareness of the dilemmas of modern society, such as the pervasive presence in society of instrumental rationality versus substantive irrationality. A fourth distinction can be made between academics that wanted to break entirely with establishment ideology and those that supported the establishment or former establishment ideologies. Radicals, such as Hu Ping, Fang Lizhi, and Wang Ruowang still used the conceptual framework of the Enlightenment (liberty, democracy, rationality, scientiﬁc truth, knowledge, modernization, science and technology). By contrast, cultural critics, inspired by modern writers, such as Nietzsche, Kafka, Freud, and Sartre, looked for new forms of self-expression and unconventional modes of presentation. Intellectuals such as Liu Xiaobo and Bei Dao engaged in cultural experimentation and concerned themselves with the subconscious and existential absurdity.18 Both groups, however, condemned the absolute and totalitarian nature of the system and aimed for a total break with the old ideological mode. The various forms of conservatism (baoshouzhuyi ȥ̺˕) range from views of proponents of a ‘Greater China’ and neo-Confucianist supporters of economic liberalism to neo-Maoism. The former was coined neo-conservatism by Xiao Gongqin at a conference held in China in 1990.19 Neo-conservatism originates in neo-authoritarianism, according to a debate held prior to and immediately after June 1989. It took a gradualist approach to development toward a strong and wealthy nation-state, and, overseen by an authoritarian regime, it looked to the Four Little Asian Dragons for a positive example and to the Soviet Union as a negative example. According to Lin and Galikowski, it aimed to establish a more open, liberal and democratic society. All this was achieved, they argue, by making an ‘organic synthesis’ of tradition and modernity.20 Here, Lin and Galikowski (1999) make a distinction between hard and soft neo-conservatism. Hard neo-conservatives (e.g., He Xin, Xiao Gongqin) supported the authorities, wanted to maintain political stability, were cautious about the pace of market reforms, but did not want to return to Maoism as the radical conservatives did. Soft neo-conservatives (e.g., Dai Qing, Wu Jiaxiang, Yuan Zhiming) supported reformist lead18 Cf. Bei Dao’s 13 Happiness Street (http://www.centennial.k12.mn.us/chs/LitOnlineText/13HS.html); Xu Xing’s Variations without a Theme and Other Stories, Wild Peony, 1997. 19 Lin and Galikowski (1999, 24). 20 Lin and Galikowski (1999, 25).

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ers in favour of market-oriented economic reforms.21 The neo-conservative approach was different from extreme conservatism (e.g., that of Hu Qiaomu, Deng Liqun), Lin and Galikowski argue, in that it combined the experience of the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) with political modernization into a stage theory that ultimately leads to an open society and a democratic political system. The theories of hard neo-conservatives, such as those of He Xin and Xiao Gongqin, oppose cultural nihilism, total Westernization, and stress a revitalized Chinese tradition and national self-strengthening, reminiscent of the German volk tradition. But their thought also places an emphasis on Western rationalist philosophy (Russell, Popper, Hayek, Dewey), especially instrumental rationality, while it consciously abandoned utopian idealism. At the same time, it opposes both Confucian fundamentalism and wholesale Westernization, in search for the rational in traditional social order and a system to facilitate its application in the process of modern transformation. In contrast with other conservative ideologies that stress individual freedom and rights, an open society, a free market, and little state intervention as a point of departure, Lin and Galikowski argue that Chinese neo-conservatism stresses the authority of the state, and promotes law and order at the expense of the individual. Academically, they opt for the legitimization of local knowledge, and challenge the universal applicability of what is regarded as classical gems of Western theory, especially Western-style modernization, democracy, and human rights. Interestingly, all the features Lin and Galikowski mention in their attempt to deﬁne neo-conservatism can be traced back to the policies supported by the CASS leadership, who largely follow state policies. Its ultimate aims have always been Reform and Opening Up (gaige kaifang), modernization and, in a later stage of development, the achievement of a democratic political system. This form of democracy is still in the process of emergence and seeks to omit the paths taken by the social movements that use Westernization and Confucianism for their own ends. Instead, it keeps the road to the future open. It encourages a selection of characteristics that combine joining the international market, modernization, and rationalization economically; it opposes corruption and effective reorganization organizationally, and political stability and faith in the Party leadership, ideologically. Indeed, it is a recipe for neo-conservatism.

21

Lin and Galikowski (1999, 24–25).

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But even the more subtle and complex distinctions, such as between hard and soft neo-conservatism, if not used for their heuristic value, easily become inaccurate labels, similar to those of Left and Right. After all, changing political conﬁgurations of factions make it necessary to keep up with their altering aims, images, and politics. Though relevant, such categories are problematic when copied uncritically from their use in official jargon or in politically tinted debates between factions. For example, the chaos during the Cultural Revolution is usually blamed on the ‘radical Left’—the speakers offer an ‘explanation’ for the Cultural Revolution and tell us they are not ‘radical Left’ themselves. Here political positioning and explanation go hand in hand. In official academic debate prevalent in the 1980s, distinctions were made between the following political directions: – The conservative Left, exempliﬁed by conservatives in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), who resented the concessions made to capitalism and Spiritual Pollution; – The Radical Left, who were nostalgic about the Cultural Revolution and wanted to reintroduce some of its policies of mass movement and its political morality; – The humanist Right, that wanted a more democratic society as a condition for economic liberalism; – The market reformers of the Right, who wanted to improve the economy by introducing liberal market reforms but were not prepared to implement democratic political reforms in the short term; – The pragmatists of the centre, who wanted economic growth, continued Party control, and moral purity.22 There are several reasons for using these ‘types’ with care. First, people’s orientations are subject to change, and they can shift between categories, even in the same argument. Some intellectuals ﬁt all categories at different points in their lives. Second, the concept of the political middle is a product of political steering and serves political ends. Radical deviation carries a political taboo. And, ﬁnally, the lumping of people into schools of thought is a common practice in official ideology. It serves to label them and position them in reference to the correct or incorrect political line. This practice makes it difficult to even draw heuristic distinctions between philosophical theory and ideology, epistemology and ontology, thus impeding the reception of alternative modes of thought. 22

Cf. Brugger and Kelly (1990, 14).

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The greater political tolerance in the 1990s for intellectuals to group themselves into schools has yielded a rich variety of ideological currents and has made it difficult to label groups of intellectuals for politicostrategic purposes. But as shown in the work of Lin and Galikowski, factions that are (self-) labelled are still of great relevance to academic organization and debate. Thus neo-conservatives are different from progressive reformists and liberals, and distinguish themselves from conservatives. More differentiation among neo-conservatives appears with the distinction between soft and hard neo-conservatives. But, of course, these distinctions only make sense in relation to actual issues. The relevance of this differentiation and labelling to the relationship between academics and state lies in the political diffuseness in which it results. It has become impossible to discuss issues of democratic organization concretely without plunging into a debate of whether socialist democracy, Confucian democracy, or neo-conservative democracy is at stake. Such distractions generate new ideas on the issue, but remain within the scope of political correctness. The impotence of scholars to organize themselves outside official guidelines for academic organization, the maintenance of ideological credibility when applying for research funding, and the myriad of loyalties that have to be maintained to further a career—all these hamper the effort to create schools of thought with political clout. Moreover, the numerous schools of thought are productive in that they remain creative in combining and recombining ideas from many political directions that as such they may be politically out of bounds. Thus, when democracy was Siniﬁed and made patriotically responsible, that was in accordance with Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Vague numerical phrases and new ideas and their meaning can be steered in the context of the growing number of academic research guidelines and Party work. And these do have real meanings in a great variety of practices and have consequences for the many situations in which academic freedom and academic hierarchy clash. Academic guidelines, ceremony and ritual Rationalization entailed more effective management of academic organization through an increase in academic guidelines. Plans were made to streamline the organization as an operational system, and the instructions for its operation were announced preferably on special occasions and through adages, numerical phrases and ideological concepts. Though it is a ﬂexible system, the occasionally perceived threat to its

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smooth operation is removed by silencing the people whose name appears on blacklists distributed to publishers. These individuals do not necessarily intend to abuse the system. However, some interpretations of the symbolic aspects of their messages may lead state bureaucrats to believe that they are trying to undermine the authority of the nationstate by misrepresenting its symbolism. And as some leaders at CASS have similar views, Party-state symbolism can easily become a bone of contention. Some critics have accused CASS of a conformist attitude towards the state. But according to CASS President Li Tieying, CASS as a state organ could not be seen as violating the state’s basic guidelines and propaganda. For, ‘At CASS, behaviour that damages the CCP, socialist China, the world of social science or CASS itself is absolutely intolerable’.23 Academicians, as the phrase goes, should accept that ‘Chinese scholars have freedom and propaganda has rules’ (xueshu you ziyou, xuanchuan you jilü ʳ ȫ˩͈˨ʰX˩ēƌ) and scholars must not violate the Four Cardinal Principles. Nor should academics publish controversial views that oppose the views of the Central Committee of the CCP on the international situation, whether on political issues, on economic issues, on the Falungong, or on other sensitive topics. Talking to journalists on such subversive subjects and translating attacks on basic state ideology into foreign languages is regarded as unpatriotic. Li Tieying made clear that he would not tolerate subversive expressions of opinion. The leadership separates itself from those who express those opinions, i.e., it cannot bear responsibility for them or tolerate their salaries.24 Li Tieying, as indicated in Chapter 14, decided to make research efforts effective and, therefore, supportive of state policies. Every year the work of scholars and their attitudes are assessed. The results of the evaluation hold for three to ﬁve years. Inadequate results can lead to removal. Usually academics are removed from office only when it is clear that they dodge their responsibilities, but some are laid off for other, political, reasons. A problem in the social sciences is, however, that the yardstick by which scholarship is evaluated does not say much about the political intention of its authors. In contrast with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which relies on a group of academicians to evaluate academic work, CASS does not have such an institution and relies on evaluation committees whose evaluative criteria are constantly under revision. 23 24

Li Tieying in YB (2001, 11). YB (01, 10–17).

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This is so partly because the assessment of academic work is responsive to the role played by political and bureaucratic issues and the use of Party ideology in research.25 For this reason, CASS tried to encourage high quality research by introducing systems of competition-based funding and grants, by means of rewards and prizes, by conferring honours and stimulating pride. After the 1990s systems of reward were rationalized, in the twenty-ﬁrst century its supervision was to become strict. CASS leaders used methods that treated academic organization as ‘a project of systems engineering’. In the year 2000, CASS initiated ‘Three Five One Engineering’, a ten-year project based on the cultivation of Three Target Groups,26 Five Research Cores,27 and One Basis for developing a broadly conceived, strategic, and forward-looking research focus.28 Generally, celebratory occasions were chosen to announce such principles, which are usually imbued with symbolic meaning. For example, on the ﬁrst of July 2001, the Party celebrated its eightieth anniversary, at which occasion Jiang Zemin gave a speech in which he introduced the Party’s ‘Three Represents’ (san ge daibiao ǶÅk '). The Three Represents indicate that the Party always stands for ‘the advancement of the material requirements for the development of the production forces’, ‘the advancement of cultural progress and spiritual civilization’, and ‘the advancement of the fundamental interests of the great masses’.29 In practice, the new policies were translated into support for modernization, the advancement of socialist spiritual civilization and Chinese patriotism.30 Authority, dissidence and symbolism under Jiang Zemin Since the late 1980s, despite the lauded competition between schools of thought, signs that political orchestration was present in this competition accompanied an atmosphere of increased uncertainty. Chapter 11 25 CASS just has the CASS academic committee, which consists of approximately ﬁfty retired renowned scholars and vice-presidents (of whom most are Party members). The members of the academic committee of CASS are called Yuan Xueshu Yuan, not Yuan Shi, as are the academicians of CAS. 26 A group of research institutes of high international reputation, a group of great scholars, and a group of valuable major policies. Each group in turn has some special political and academic signiﬁcance. 27 See note 50. 28 YB (01, 9). 29 Cf. Li Tieying YB (02, 10–16). 30 Cf. Li Tieying YB (02, 10–11).

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showed that patriotic symbols of socialism were presented at official ceremonies related to occasions ranging from funerals and anniversaries of conferences to the founding of the nation, and various anniversaries of birthdays, death, war, the heroic dead, and official diplomatic connections. One function of the celebration of these occasions was to unite participants, while the various symbolic values associated with such occasions were meant to reverberate among a broader audience. As different interpretations of these symbols continued to coexist, the planned manipulation of symbolic meaning was rarely realized in the way it was intended. When Jiang Zemin presented the Three Represents on the occasion of the celebration of the eightieth birthday of the CCP, writers of academic institutions such as SASS, CASS, the Party School, and Party media such as Renmin Ribao and Zhishi Qiushi wrote and published a spate of articles on Marxism and the Three Represents, following the motto of ‘catching up with the world’ (yushi zhuijin ˱Ț́Ķ). But elderly conservatives, in particular followers of Deng Liqun, were still in a position to exert power over the Party journals Zhenli de Zhuiqiu (Seeking Truth) and Zhongliu (Midstream), which they used as an outlet for their protestations. These journals published articles on Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents, which they equated with revisionism. They also accused Jiang of using the Three Represents for opening the way for liberals such as the well-known liberal economist Hu Angang, who in his turn criticized Jiang. The secretary of the Marxism-Leninism Office of the Institute of Philosophy, Li Chongfu, published internet articles directed against Jiang Zemin’s speech on the Three Represents. Hu and Li criticized Jiang from the Left, but others criticized him from the Right. ‘Liberals from the right’ also tried to publish critical remarks but not much came of it. In fact, journals were asked not to publish criticism from Left and Right. In the end a blacklist (heimin dan êƠn) came into existence that traced both persons and topics that had become symbols of threat. Editors received a blacklist listing the authors whose work was not to be published. In this way, the political situation seemed relaxed from the outside (democratic, humane, and free), though it was tense in its core (neijin waisong ư ıɝȶ). Of course, not all publishers stuck to guidelines and instructions, and some tried to evade the rules. Symbolic meaning, then, may be an instrument used in either propaganda or subversion, depending on one’s perspective. In the hands of academics, it may be regarded as a tool of subversion if directed intentionally against what are regarded as the authorities. But often the critics

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of symbolic concepts realize their meaning themselves when they ascribe threatening power to them. This is the case when communist cadres associate ‘democracy’ with capitalist exploitation and counterrevolutionary threat. It is difficult to predict when ideas are perceived as threats and for what reasons particular leaders decide to clamp down on particular publications and ideas. However, attacks and clamp-downs are likely to occur on occasions that are heavily loaded with symbolic tensions. Thus, one purge started at a celebratory occasion, after the wellknown head of the Institute of American Studies and former Vice-President of CASS, Li Shenzhi, in December 1999, had published an internet article on the government’s obsession with ‘social stability’. Li argued that a violent revolution would occur ‘if social evolution were not to come about’.31 It should be noted that ‘evolutionary change’ symbolizes gradual change that in the past always has been associated with development in capitalist societies. Not long after, in a celebratory speech of the PRC’s ﬁftieth birthday in Guangdong province, President Jiang directly criticized Li of Westernization and betraying Marxism, after which his work was banned from publication throughout China. Three of his colleagues at CASS were also blacklisted in April 1999, by the government: Mao Yushi, Fan Gangan, and Liu Junning. Liu Junning, a political scientist who has written extensively about the need for political reform, was expelled by the academy in March 2000, purportedly for granting interviews to foreign journalists on sensitive political issues. His editors at the state-owned Commercial Publishers had to write a self-criticism for publishing his book of collected essays, Republic, Democracy, Constitutionalism: Studies of Liberal Thought and Beijing University and the Liberal Perspective. According to Liu himself, the reason for his expulsion was that there had been an increase in liberal ideas in recent years.32 Liu left China, after accepting a fellowship at Harvard, but decided to return home in 2002, where he published in journals such as Strategy and Management,33 and gave lectures at universities. There appear to be two conﬂicting tendencies permeating the atmosphere among academics. On the one hand, there seems to be an increase in the freedom of speech and discussion among intellectuals and in the

31

Li Shenzhi, 2000. Liu Junning (2000, 48–57). 33 Government authorities closed down Strategy and Management, after it published Wang Zhongwen’s critique on China’s lenient foreign policy on North Korea (Cf. Wang Zhongwen, 2004). 32

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press; on the other hand, open deﬁance of political guidelines was interpreted as a threat to the authorities. Moreover, public behaviour that is seen to defy the authorities remains taboo. Such deﬁant behaviour would vary from demonstrating on the streets for labour rights and publicly meditating by the Falungong, to inciting protest on the internet and publishing ideological alternatives to state dogma by inﬂuential academics. After Hu Jintao took over the PRC presidency from Jiang Zemin in March 2003, the political atmosphere was expected to relax, and in a way it did. Hu led the Party’s withdrawal from daily life and, as a result, according to Liu Junning, people inside the establishment, such as teachers, entrepreneurs, and the middle classes, dared to take part in pressing for civil rights.34 However, this tolerance has mostly beneﬁted liberal intellectuals such as Liu Junning, who was more interested in writing articles on political theory than inciting the masses to stand up for their interests. The government’s increased tolerance seemed unpredictable, for it did not extend to all. For instance, Liu Di, a twenty-two-year- old Beijing University student and chat-room organizer, was charged in the beginning of 2003 with subverting state power for posting satirical essays on the internet.35 A plausible explanation for the increased tolerance towards intellectuals could be the political preoccupation with newer and greater threats to Communist Party control, such as China’s proliferating religious sects and rising numbers of worker protests.36 The authorities appeared to be more alarmed by the dissident behaviour of the man in the street rather than by the dissident thoughts of intellectuals. Even dissidents, who cannot publish in China, published abroad and on websites, and cooperated with (other) academics. They also talked of multiparty democracy and free trade unions, for which they would have been arrested in the 1980s. However, dissidents, such as Liu Xiaobo and others, worried that the increasing acceptance of traditional dissenting ideas may actually kill the movement before their mission of political change had even started. Human rights activists complained that dozens if not hundreds of dissidents are still in prison for espousing ideas that are now commonplace and even supported by officials. For instance, Hu Shigen, a physician, is halfway through a twenty-year prison term for suggesting that China permit press freedom and trade unions.37 34 35 36 37

Forney, 2004. Rosenthal, 2003. Kamm, quoted in Rosenthal, 2003. Rosenthal, 2003.

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There is much indignation about the fact that there are still hundreds of dissidents in prison, many of whom were arrested before 1997 for ‘counter-revolutionary activities’. The weak point of the dissident community is not that they have no outlet at all, but that they are not in a position to engage in a confrontation about it with the government. Although there is enough reason to feel outrage about the imprisonment of so-called ‘counter-revolutionary activists’, one can hardly compare the struggle for democracy in the 1980s with that of current democracy activism. It is important to note here that intellectuals were not jailed after the June Fourth demonstrations because of their beliefs in democracy (not many of the demonstrators even knew what it meant), but because they deﬁed the orders of the authorities. The concept of democracy at the time was a symbol of counter-revolutionary activism and therefore seen as a subversion of official authorities. Now that democracy has been redeﬁned and ‘indigenised’, it has lost its sting. It is in this process of ‘inoculation’ against foreign concepts and ideas that academics of the 1990s have played an important part and, to a certain extent, have made themselves obsolete. It is their main task now to maintain the symbolic boundaries of the Chinese nation-state, by deﬁning and redeﬁning the meaning of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, over and over again. Whenever social analysis is feared, however, the authorities themselves help create symbols out of the concepts criticized, by endowing them with power that they otherwise would not have had. The official criticism of Lu Xueyi is illustrative of such fears concerning the analyses of inﬂuential scholars, especially when talking to the foreign press about it. Lu used to be a student of historical materialism at the Institute of Philosophy, but moved to the Institute of Sociology where he researches the reforms in agricultural communities and the responsibility system. Lu was inﬂuential in his ﬁeld and thought of as a serious scientist. He never used to question official guidelines and was a conscientious representative in the National People’s Congress. On the basis of his major research task (zhongda keti), however, he wrote ‘An Analysis of China’s Ten Classes’ (Fenxi Zhongguo Shehui Jieceng de Jiaocha),38 comprising discussions of (1) human resource managers, (2) company and industrial leaders, (3) professionals and technicians, (4) office workers, (5) individual enterprises, (6) the service industry, (7) production workers, (8) peasants, (9)

38

Lu Xueyi 2001.

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the unemployed, and (10) those laid off (xiagang shiye ʇ¾Ȑˍ). Despite his scholarly intentions, Lu was criticized for reintroducing discussions about class, for speaking to foreign researchers and to the press (Beijing Ribao and Beijing Wanbao), and especially for representing himself as a CASS researcher when writing about ideas that were not considered to be representative of CASS policies. His opponents questioned whether China still was a class society; and, his motives for placing the proletariat in a very different category from the leadership were questioned. When this came to the attention of the leadership, the book was immediately disposed off.39 Though some authors are blacklisted and their books are taken from the shelves in the bookshops, one can hardly speak of censorship in the sense of a strict and consistent control of everything that is published by academics. Books in the area of policy-making are scrutinized through the normal channels of the Propaganda Department, and blacklisted if they violate official propaganda. This is especially true for CASS, whose relationship to the Propaganda Department is direct, but in a similar way scholars at Beijing University cannot ignore the current rules for political correctness either. It is clear, however, that the Propaganda Department can only exert a form of macro-control, keeping a check on the works of certain authors and communicating blacklists to publishers. In general, the Propaganda Department cannot investigate all publications. There are a few thousand publishers in China, so that it is impossible to keep track of all journals and books. Even if scholarly work violating official propaganda attracts public attention, it can still be taken off the market, and the author may still be constrained. Compared to the 1980s, however, these sanctions are much less severe, as the authors are not as easily sent to prison or relieved from their jobs. Moreover, a saying circulates in academic circles that ‘those who get criticized are those that become famous’ (shei bei piping, shei jiu chuming ȮƽǂȮŁVƤ), implying that some authors may have fared well because of such sanctions. In short, CASS acknowledges state authority partly through observing guidelines and respecting its symbols, so that symbolic meaning gains expression in guidelines for academic research. Consequently, when intellectuals apply social science concepts, the concepts may be given symbolic meaning with public acknowledgement or denial of the legitimacy of state authority. In this sense, the power of symbols makes state author-

39

Personal communication, January 2003.

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ity vulnerable to the (mis-)application of its own social-science guidelines. This is also why the reaction of state authorities to demonstrations and academic works sometimes comes across as paranoid. The recommendation of evolution or the socio-economic categorization of society into groups, then, may be politically translated as criticism, and come across to the authorities as just as threatening as illegal organizations such as Falungong or free trade unions. It takes time for the authorities to tame such symbols or to redeﬁne the threat and place it in a safer realm, within the boundaries of state political ideology and authority. During that time, those who are perceived as a threat to state authority are robbed of their means of participation in the arena of public discussion, until state propaganda has tackled the threat and redeﬁned the problem in its own terms. The meaning of dissidence, therefore, changes over time, just as do the forbidden zones and concepts in the social sciences.

Changing academic life (and the world) from within The meaning of academic change has shifted over the last two decades. In the 1980s, reformist academic leaders had ideals for which they sought the support of politicians, and for which they were prepared to ﬁght. Their ideals were full of hope and ideas of progress for the larger goal of an independent academic community that would advise those in power about the needs of society. At the same time, both the leaders of CASS and the leaders of the institutes were expected to have innovative inﬂuence over researchers and students ‘from within’,40 for ideal teaching methods did not require external political or coercive correction mechanisms. In the late 1980s ‘corrective’ measures were applied and political interference intensiﬁed in the research administration and curriculum. From the point of view of researchers, it became clear in the 1990s that internal change in the academic community was not likely to lead to academic autonomy, although academic facilities provided for scholars that dedicated their working life to academic research within a politically acceptable realm. The notion that a voice in academic policies and plans to alter society was best gained by cooperating with the implementation of new policies at CASS, rather than opposing the state and Party authorities, also induced former opponents of Party rule to enter the Party.41 40 41

Zhize xuesheng, zai litou qile daitou zuoyong (̨̇ʳȋ̄ŧɘǊŹjɘ͓˦). On the whole, the CASS Communist Party grew from 1998 to 2001. In 1998 there

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The same people who dubbed CASS an ‘ideological work unit of the Party’ now started to believe that change can only be achieved by becoming part of it. One academic said, ‘You cannot change the core of the system by acting as a Christian reformer’.42 Formerly, joining the Party was attractive as it gave one considerable power and many rewards, but nowadays ﬁnding a good job no longer required Party membership, and rewards could be obtained by other means. If one joins the Party now, it is because he wants to get things done and because it extends one’s network.43 An increasing number of academics at CASS now believe that, ‘because China has progressed from a closed communist country to a multiparty system or socialist democracy, it is a good thing to help changing the system from within’. Justiﬁcations for this stance include a number of arguments and observations.44 Some arguments are rather fatalistic, such as the idea that the current leadership was chosen by history. Furthermore, from 1978 onwards, the leadership’s policy of reform and opening up is regarded as an improvement to the ideology of Mao and Stalin, despite the slowness of political change. A pragmatic argument in support of ‘changing the system from within’ reasons that as an intellectual employed by the state you have a choice: you support the leadership or you oppose it. As opposition you have little chance of success; therefore, the better option is to contribute to positive change by joining the current government. Rather than aiming for the impossible or ﬂeeing abroad, one can also join the Party and push forward the reforms and the process of opening up. Only a positive attitude can resolve difficult political issues, such as those associated with Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan.

were 1127 Academic party members; in 1999, 1409; in 2000, 1416; and, in 2001, 1362. See CASS Yearbooks 1999–2002. 42 Personal communication, January 2004. 43 There are written exams for entering the Party, but one has to undergo training, attend meetings, and gather materials for writing essays on a person’s way of thinking, his thought history, and the way one’s thinking has changed over time. Finally, you can apply for a certiﬁcate with the Institute’s Party Department. In the ﬁrst year, you are a Preparatory Party Member (yubei dangyuan). After examination, you become a Party Member. If you display a bad attitude, Party membership may be denied. The Preparatory year can be extended by half a year or one year, but in practice this hardly ever happens. 44 These quotes are from interviews with CASS Party members in July 2002 and January 2004.

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Ideological motives for ‘changing the system from within’ can be found among those who feel that China does not have any religion or clearly delineated ideology to lean on. This view believes that Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought have been replaced by modernization and Westernization. To counterbalance the increasing materialism among young people, academics’ contributions to China’s leading policies would be helpful. Intellectuals, then, could renew knowledge and a belief in society: science and technology have to be renewed; culture has to be renewed; and Marxism-Leninism has to be renewed. There is also the issue of changing generations of leaders and scholars. Deng Xiaoping and other leaders were members of Mao’s ﬁrst generation. The current leadership, in this view, still belongs to the second generation. These ﬁrst generations were largely uneducated, heavily inﬂuenced by Moscow and vulgar Marxism or drawn into the political exigencies of the Cultural Revolution. The third generation, partly educated in the West, introduced liberalism, post-modernism, nihilism and other Western views. They could easily provoke a reaction among the old guard. To avoid bringing the reforms to a halt, the system had to be changed from within. The question arises, however, whether CASS still embodies the driving force of intellectual and societal change.

appendix i CASS RESEARCH INSTITUTES

The Institutes of CASS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

The Institute of Economics The Institute of Industrial Economics The Institute of Rural Development The Institute of Finance and Trade Economics The Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics The Institute of Population The Institute of Philosophy The Institute of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought The Institute of World Religions The Institute of Archaeology The Institute of History The Institute of Modern History The Research Centre for Chinese Borderland History and Geography The Institute of World History The Institute of Literature The Institute of National Minorities The Institute of Foreign Literature The Institute of Linguistics The Institute of Law The Institute of Politics Institute of Nationality Studies The Institute of Sociology The Institute of Journalism The Institute of World Economics and Politics The Institute of American Studies The Institute of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies The Institute of Japanese Studies The Institute of European Studies The Institute of West Asian and African Studies The Institute of Latin-American Studies The Institute of Asia-Paciﬁc Studies The Institute of Taiwanese Studies

appendix ii CHRONOLOGY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE XUEBU AND CASS INSTITUTES

The numbers (1.; 2.; …) count the periodical accumulation of the number of institutes that are considered not to have transformed, merged or disappeared since the date of their foundation (in parentheses); * The institute merged or disappeared, but not during the current period; (*) The institute merged or disappeared during the current period. Period: 1950s 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. *. *. 8.

The Institute of Linguistics (1950); The Institute of Modern History (1950); The Institute of Archaeology (1950); The Institute of Economics (1953); The Institute of History (1954); The Institute of Literature (1955); The Institute of Philosophy (1955); The Institute of Minority Languages (1956); The Institute of Ethnology (1958); The Institute of Law (1958).

Ten institutes under the Xuebu in the 1950s Period: 1960s (before the Cultural Revolution) (*). The Institute of Asian Studies (1961); included the Institutes of West Asian and African Studies. The institute was divided into the Institute of SouthEast Asian Studies and Institute of West Asian and African Studies in 1964, and was brought under the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the CPC. In 1981 it was reallocated to CASS; *. The Institute of Latin-American Studies (1961); closed down during the Cultural Revolution; re-established in 1981; 9. The Institute of Minority Languages (1956) merged with the Institute of Nationality (1958) into the Institute of Nationality Studies (1962); 10. The Institute of Foreign Literature (1964);

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11. The Institute of World Religions (1964); 12. The Institute of World History (1964); *. The Institute of World Economy (1964): merged with the Institute of World Politics in 1981.

Fourteen institutes under the Xuebu in the 1960s Period: 1975 to 2003 (*.) The Institute of Information (1975) grew out of the Information Research Office (1957), was renamed in 1961 as Academic Materials Research Office. In 1975 it expanded and was coined the Research Office of Information [Qingbao Yanjiushi]. In 1985 it became a combined Document and Information Institute, with the Information Research Institute as its base. In 1992 it was altered to the Document and Information Centre.; (*.) The Institute of World Politics (1978); it merged with the Institute of World Economy in 1981; 13. The Institute of Journalism (1978); it changed its name into the Institute of Journalism and Media (1995); 14. The Institute of Industrial Economics (1978); 15. The Institute of Rural Development (1978); 16. The Institute of Finance and Trade Economics (1978); (*) The Institute of South Asian Studies (1978): it merged with the Institute of Asia-Paciﬁc Studies in 1988; 17. The Institute of Sociology (1979); 18. The Institute of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought (1979); 19. The Institute of National Minorities (1980); 20. The Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics (1980); (*.) The Institute of Youth and Juvenile Affairs (1980); 21. The Institute of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies (1981) (Or. Estbl. 1965). It grew out of the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies, which was originally administered jointly by the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences under CAS and the International Liaison Department of the CCP Central Committee. The institute was incorporated into CASS in 1981, but was given its present name in 1992; 22. The Institute of World Economics and Politics (1981) [a merger of the Institute of World Economy (1964) and the Institute of World Politics (1978)]; 23. The Institute of American Studies (1981); 24. The Institute of Japanese Studies (1981); 25. The Institute of European Studies (1981). It grew out of the Institute of West European Studies. 26. The Institute of West Asian and African Studies (1981) (Originally established in 1961). It grew out of the Institute of Asian Studies (1961). The institute used to be divided into the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Institute of West Asian and African Studies in 1964, and was brought

chronology of the founding of the institutes

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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under the International Liaison Department [Zhonglianbu] of the Central Committee of the CCP. In 1981 it was housed under CASS; The Institute of Latin-American Studies (1981); it grew out of the identical named institute established under the Xuebu in 1961; The Institute of Population (1982); The Research Centre for Chinese Borderland History and Geography (1983) The Institute of Taiwan Studies (1984) The Institute of Political Science (1985). This Institute is said to have disappeared after 1989; The Institute of Asia-Paciﬁc Studies (1988) [incorporates the Institute of South Asian Studies (1978)]; The Research Centre for City Development and Environment (1995).

From 1975 to the beginning of the second millennium, CASS included thirty-one research institutes, two research centres, and one document and information centre.

appendix iii ECONOMIC RESEARCH INSTITUTES AND THEIR RESEARCH DIVISIONS

1. The Institute of Economics (1953) grew out of the Institute of Economics of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences, CAS. Research divisions: Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Economic Thought, Political Economy, Modern Economic History, and Ancient Economic History. 2. The Institute of Industrial Economics (1978) grew out of the research group of industrial economics in the Institute of Economics, CASS. Research Divisions: Industrial Development, Industrial Investment and Marketing, Industrial Layout and Regional Economics, Enterprise Systems, Enterprise Operating Management, Small and Middle-Sized Enterprises. 3. The Institute of Rural Development (1978). Its original name was the Institute of Agricultural Economics, and it was renamed in 1988. Research Divisions: Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Macro-economics and management, Rural Production Economy, Rural Economic Organizations and Systems, Rural Ecological Economy and Environmental Economy, Rural Industries and Regional Economy, Rural Development Theory and Policy, Rural Quantitative Economy and Statistical Analysis, and Rural Poverty. 4. The Institute of Finance and Trade Economics (1978). It grew out of the research group of ﬁnance and the research group of business in the Institute of Economics, CASS. The institute is a comprehensive institute of economics, which includes the ﬁelds of ﬁscal and monetary matters, domestic trade, foreign economic relations and trade, prices, service economy and tourist economy. Research Divisions include Finance Policy, Commercial Economy, Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, Prices, Service Economics, City Economics, Monetary Economics, Synthetic Theory. Research Centres include the Centre for Finance Studies, Centre for Foreign Economic Trade & International Finance.

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5. The Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics: (1982). This institute is an amalgamation of the former Institute of Technical Economics, the Quantitative Economics Division of the Institute of Economics, and the Management Modernization Division of the Institute of Industrial Economics. Research divisions include the Theory of Quantitative Economics, Economic Models, Economic Systems Analysis, Theory and Methodology of Technical Economics, Resource Technical Economics, Environmental and Technical Economics; research centre: The Centre for Technical Innovation and Strategic Management Studies. 6. Institute of Population (1980) includes the research divisions of Population and Economy, Population Statistics and Analysis, and Population and Society.

appendix iv THE HISTORY OF THE LEADERSHIP SYSTEM OF CASS

CASS was officially established on May 7th, 1977. The General Office of the CCP CCC changed the former name of CASS Xuebu (̰ÝŒʳ˾ ̓ʳʳ0) to CASS (̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾). 1. In September 1978, the CASS Party Group ˾q͐ was set up. Its Presidium included: Secretary Vice-Secretaries

Group-members (day-to-day)

Hu Qiaomu ñǑƫ Deng Liqun zŭǢ, Yu Guangyuan ˭×˽, Liu Yangqiao ƃˆ͜, Chuang Yiping Zˎǁ, Wu Guang ɼ×, Mei Yi ƕ˖ Zhou Yang ̷˃, Xu Dixin ʮ}ʟ, Huan Xiang úʐ, Ma Hong Ɠî, Zhang Youyu ̐˪˯.

In July 1980 the Party Group withdrew, and the CASS Party Committee was set up. First Secretary Secretaries

Members

Hu Qiaomu ñǑƫ (Nov 1977 – May 1982) Mei Yi ƕ˖, Huan Xiang úʐ, Ma Hong Ɠî, Peng Dazhang ƻg̏ Hu Qiaomu ñǑƫ, Deng Liqun zŭǢ, Mei Yi ƕ˖, Yu Guangyuan ˭×˽, Huan Xiang úʐ, Ma Hong Ɠî, Peng Dazhang ƻg̏, Yang Ke ˂Ŕ, Du Ganquan ºǠ, Wen Jize ɱď̊, Zhao Feng ̒«,

312

appendix iv Sun Gengfu ȼÈ¯, Li Yan Ŧʿ, Wang Yalin ɟʹż.

The ﬁrst group of administrative leaders of CASS were: President Vice-Presidents

Head Secretariat Vice-Head Secretary

Advisors

Hu Qiaomu ñǑƫ (Nov 1977 – May 1982) Deng Liqun zŭǢ (Nov 1977 – May 1982) Yu Guangyuan ˭×˽ (Nov 1977 – May 1982) Zhou Yang ̷˃ (Sept 1978 – May 1982) Huan Xiang úʐ (Sept 1978 – May 1982) Ma Hong Ɠî (May 1979 – May 1982) Zhang Youyu ̐˪˯ (Sept 1979 – May 1982) Wu Guang ɼ× (Oct 1979–1981) Chuang Yiping Zˎǁ (Oct 1979 – May 1980) Mei Yi ƕ˖ (April 1980 – May 1982) Liu Yangqiao ƃˆ͜ (Sept 1978 – April 1979) Wu Guang ɼ× (concurrent: April 1979 – Oct 1979) Mei Yi ƕ˖ (Oct 1979 – April 1980) Wang Zhongfang ɡ̵ (Sept 1978 – Nov 1978) Liu Daosheng ƃrȋ (Sept 1978 – Nov 1978) Du Ganquan ºǠ (Sept 1978 – April 1982) Mei Yi ƕ˖ (Sept 1978 – Oct 1979) Yang Ke ˂Ŕ (April 1979 – Sept 1980) Zhou Yang ̷˃ (Dec 1977 – Sept 1979) Ji Yanming ǉʾƣ (Sept 1978–1978) Chen Hansheng Háͩ (Sept 1978 – May 1982) Xu Liqun ʮŬǢ (April 1979 – May 1982) Sun Yefang ȼˌ (April 1979 May 1982) Yang Shu ˂Ȭ (April 1979 Sept 1980) Lü Zhenyu Ɗ̗˴ (Nov 1979 – July 1980) Qian Jiaju Ǎĕł (1981 – April 1982)

In May 1982, the Academy Affairs Committee ˾ɾɪ˼Ā was set up, and the CASS Party Committee System qɪ̬ was changed into the Leading Party Group System q̬͐. First Secretary Second Secretary Party Lead. Group (day-to-day)

Mei Yi ƕ˖ Ma Hong Ɠî Liu Guouang ƃÝ× Ru Xin ǰʡ Wen Jize ɱď̊ Li Yan Ŧʿ Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ

In July 1983 three Leading Party group members were added:

the history of the leadership system of cass Sun Shangqing ȼǾǖ Zhao Fusan ̒¶Ƕ Sun Gengfu ȼÈ¯

The second group of administrative leaders of CASS consisted of: President Vice-President

Head Secretary Vice-Head Secretary

Advisors

Ma Hong Ɠî Xia Nai ʉ͘ Qian Zhongshu ǎ̲ȩ Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Ru Xin ǰʡ Mei Yi ƕ˖, Sun Shangqing ȼǾǖ Zhao Fusan ̒¶Ƕ Sun Gengfu ȼÈ¯ Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ Hu Qiaomu ñǑƫ Yu Guangyuan ˭×˽ Xu Dixin ʮ}ʟ Zhang Youyu ̐˪˯ Huan Xiang úʐ Qian Junrui ǎŉǳ Pu Shouchang ǅȦ> Luo Gengmo ƒÈƩ

In 1985 CASS appointed the third group of leaders of CASS: Leading Party Group First Secretary

Hu Sheng ñȍ

Party Leading Group (day-to-day)

Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Zhao Fusan ̒¶Ƕ Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ

The administrative leadership Honorary President President Vice-Presidents

Head-Secretary Advisors

Hu Qiaomu ñǑƫ Hu Sheng ñȍ Zhao Fusan ̒¶Ƕ Qian Zhongshu ǎ̲ȩ Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Li Shenzhi Ŧȉ̢ Ru Xin ǰʡ Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ Mei Yi ƕ˖ Yu Guangyuan ˭×˽ Pu Shouchang ǅȦ>

313

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In 1988 the CCP CC appointed the fourth group of CASS leaders: Leading Party Group First Secretary Hu Sheng ñȍ Party Leading Group Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× (day-to-day) Zhao Fusan ̒¶Ƕ Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ Li Shenzhi Ŧȉ̢ Ru Xin ǰʡ Liu Qilin ƃǋŽ Zheng Bijian ̞!Ę Ding Weizhi ɫ̪

In December 1989 the leadership group was adjusted: Zhao Fusan, Li Shenzhi and Ding Weizhi were removed; Qu Weizhen and Jiang Liu were new-comers. Leading Party Group First Secretary Vice-Secretary Party Leading Group (day-to-day)

Yu Wen ˵ɲ Qu Weizhen ǜɩ̘ Hu Sheng ñȍ Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Jiang Liu ĤƄ Ru Xin ǰʡ Liu Qilin ƃǋŽ Zheng Bijian ̞!Ę

The CASS’s fourth Administrative Leading Group: Administrative leadership President Vice-Presidents

Advisors Special Advisor Head-Secretary

Hu Sheng ñȍ Yu Wen ˵ɲ (Dec 1989 – dec 1992) Qu Weizhen ǜɩ̘ Qian Zhongshu ǎ̲ȩ Jiang Liu ĤƄ Ding Weizhi ɫ̪ (dec 1988 – Aug 1990) Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Li Shenzhi Ŧȉ̢ (Dec 1988 – Aug 1990) (check next years) Ru Xin ǰʡ Zhao Fusan ̒¶Ƕ (Feb 1988 – Jan 1990) Zheng Bijian ̞!Ę (July 1988 – Oct 1992) Pu Shouchang ǅȦ> Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ Liu Qilin ƃǋŽ (Feb 1988 – April 1992) Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ (May 1992 – Oct 1993)

In October 1991, CASS set up a new CASS Party Committee:

the history of the leadership system of cass

315

The establishment of the new CASS Party Committee coincided with CASS’s implementation of a responsibility system in which the President of CASS is responsible to the leadership of the Party Committee, and it withdrew the original Party Group. (Thus, Hu Sheng became responsible to First Party Secretary Yu Wen): First Secretary Vice-Secretary

Yu Wen ˵ɲ Qu Weizhen ǜɩ̘ (retired in 1993 with illness, Wu Jiemin became responsible for day-to-day affairs) Party Leading Group Hu Sheng ñȍ (day-to-day) Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Jiang Liu ĤƄ Ru Xin ǰʡ Liu Qilin ƃǋŽ Zheng Bijian ̞!Ę Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ Liu Qilin ƃǋŽ Wang Wenfeng ɟɲª

CASS leadership in 1993: Jiang Liu, Qu Weizhen, Liu Guoguang were removed CASS Party Leading Committee First Secretary Vice-Secretary

Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Teng Teng ɉɈ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Party Leading Group Hu Sheng ñȍ (day-to-day) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Ru Xin ǰʡ Zheng Bijian ̞!Ę Wu Jiemin ɻĭƠ Liu Qilin ƃǋŽ Wang Wenfeng ɟɲª (Head of the Inspection Commission) Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ Liu Ji ƃĆ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Guo Yongcai Üˤ2 Administrative leadership President Vice-Presidents

Hu Sheng ñȍ (In charge of general CASS affairs) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ (In charge of general CASS affairs, concurrently responsible for the history division) Teng Teng ɉɈ (responsible for the international division, theGraduate School and Foreign Affairs) Ru Xin ǰʡ (responsible for the daily affairs work,

316

Advisors Special Advisor Head-Secretary

appendix iv concurrently responsible for the literature division, and political and social science division) Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ (responsible for the economy division) Liu Ji ƃĆ (responsible for the philosophy division) Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ (responsible for Party policy logistics) Pu Shouchang ǅȦ> Qian Zhongshu ǎ̲ȩ Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Guo Yongcai Üˤ2(Worked in cooperation with the Vice-President, and was responsible for administrative logistic work) CASS leadership in 1994:

CASS Party Leading Group First Secretary Vice-Secretary

Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Teng Teng ɉɈ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Party Leading Group Hu Sheng ñȍ (day-to-day) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Ru Xin ǰʡ Teng Teng ɉɈ Zheng Bijian ̞!Ę Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ Liu Ji ƃĆ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Guo Yongcai Üˤ2 Li Yingtang Ŧ˞Ʉ (Head of the Inspection Commission)

Administrative leadership President Vice-Presidents

Hu Sheng ñȍ (in charge of general CASS affairs) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ (in charge of general CASS affairs, concurrently responsible for the history division) Teng Teng ɉɈ (responsible for the international division, the Graduate School and Foreign Affairs) Ru Xin ǰʡ (responsible for daily affairs; concurrently responsible for the literature division, and political and social science division) Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ (responsible for the economy division)

the history of the leadership system of cass

Special Advisor Head-Secretary

317

Liu Ji ƃĆ (responsible for the philosophy division) Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ (responsible for Party policy logistics) Qian Zhongshu ǎ̲ȩ Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Guo Yongcai Üˤ2(worked in cooperation with the Vice-President, and was responsible for administrative logistic work)

CASS leadership in 1996: CASS Party Leading Group First Secretary Vice-Secretary

Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Teng Teng ɉɈ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Party Leading Group Hu Sheng ñȍ (day-to-day) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Ru Xin ǰʡ Teng Teng ɉɈ Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ Liu Ji ƃĆ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Guo Yongcai Üˤ2 Li Yingtang Ŧ˞Ʉ (Head of the Inspection Commission) Administrative leadership President Vice-Presidents

Special Advisor Head-Secretary

Hu Sheng ñȍ (in charge of general CASS affairs) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ (in charge of general CASS affairs, concurrently responsible for the history division) Teng Teng ɉɈ (responsible for the international division, the Graduate School and Foreign Affairs) Ru Xin ǰʡ (responsible for daily affairs, and is concurrently responsible for the literature division, and political and social science division) Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ (responsible for the economy division and External Affairs Bureau) Liu Ji ƃĆ (responsible for the philosophy division) Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ (responsible for Party policy logistics) Qian Zhongshu ǎ̲ȩ Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Guo Yongcai Üˤ2(Works in cooperation with the Vice-President, and is responsible for administrative logistic work)

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appendix iv

CASS leadership in 1998: CASS Party Leading Group (September 1998) First Secretary Vice-Secretary

Li Tieying Ŧɑˢ Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Long Yongshu ƅˤȨ Party Leading Group Li Tieying Ŧɑˢ (day-to-day) Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ Jiang Lansheng Ĥşȋ Li Yingtang Ŧ˞Ʉ Li Shenming ŦȉƢ Chen Jiagui HĔÚ Guo Yongcai Üˤ2 Administrative leadership President Vice-Presidents

* Li Tieying Ŧɑˢ (Feb. 1998, in charge of CASS general affairs) * Wang Renzhi ɟǧ̢ (Dec. 1992) (from September 1998, assisted Li Tieying in dealing with CASS affairs, and was partly responsible for the Academic Affairs Committee) * Wang Luolin ɟƑŽ (July 1993) (from October 1998, assisted Li Tieying in dealing with CASS affairs, and was partly responsible for the Academic Affairs Committee, and the Foreign Affairs Bureau) * Li Shenming ŦȉƢ (Oct. 1998, person in charge of CASS Party Committee, Personnel Affairs, partly responsible for the Party Group Affairs Office, Organ Party Committees, the Personnel and Education Bureau, the Security Bureau, the CASS Graduate School and the CASS Party School) * Jiang Lansheng Ĥşȋ (Oct. 1998, person in charge of research into planning academic research and responsible for dealing with periodical, partly responsible for the Documentary Centre, the Computer Net Centre, the CASS Magazine Association, the CASS Publishers, and the Social Science and Document Publisher); * Chen Jiagui HĔÚ (Oct. 1998, responsible for the security of CASS materials, developed and arranged income earning activities and academic associations, was concurrently responsible for the Bureau for the Planning of Financial Construction, the Service Bureau (Service Centre), the Consultancy Company for Research into the Chinese Economic Technol-

the history of the leadership system of cass

319

ogy, the Company for the Development of China’s Humanities Head-Secretary * Guo Yongcai Üˤ2(October 1993) (from September 1998, assisted the Vice-President in dealing with day-to-day affairs, was responsible for administrative logistic work, was in charge of security and poverty relief, and partly in charge of the General Affairs Office and the Veteran Cadre Bureau) Special Advisor * Liu Guoguang ƃÝ× Head of the Central Committee’s Investigation Committee CASS Inspection Committee Group * Li Yingtang Ŧ˞Ʉ

appendix v SELECTION OF COMMEMORATIONS HELD AT CASS FROM 1992 TO 1997

Birth – The centennial of Guo Moruo (November 14, 1992);1 – Mao Zedong’s centennial celebrations by the Central Committee of the CCP, National Peoples Congress Standing Committee, State Council, etc. (December 26, 1993).2 – 90 years since the birth of the revolutionary leader and conservative economist Chen Yun (1995);3 – 80th birthday of famous Marxist historian Liu Danian (1995);4

1 The celebration was followed by an international conference on the cultural thought and character of Guo Moruo. Experts from Japan, Germany, Italy, America, China Mainland and its Region of Taiwan followed. In honour of Guo Moruo’s centennial, Lin Ganquan, Head of the Institute of History, edited Guo Moruo and Chinese History (Guo Moruo yu Zhonguo lixue ÜƨǴ˱̰Ýȗʳ), Beijing (1992): Zhonguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe. 2 Hu Sheng, Wang Renzhi, Ru Xin, and Liu Ji attended; well-known CASS economist Liu Guoguang was invited to a symposium on the theory of Mao Zedong Thought and Political Work; an editorial committee had been set up in preparation for the celebration of Mao’s centennial (July 4, 1993); Hu Sheng attended the discussion on the publication of the ‘Research Series in Mao Zedong Thought’ and the remembrance of Mao, convened by the Yan’an Spirit Association. 3 Chen Yun (1905–1995), after 1949, he became an important economic planner and helped China recover from the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward. During the Cultural Revolution he was demoted, but returned in the 1980s to the political stage as a conservative opponent against fast economic change (Spence 1999: A49). 4 The historian Liu Danian (1915) in the 1950s became of great inﬂuence after the publication of his Draft of China’s Modern History and History of U.S. Aggression in China. Liu propagated the use of more theory when historians started to feel threatened by the great emphasis put on political analysis in historical interpretation. During the 1980s and 1990s, he promoted the history of economics, and the history of the anti-Japanese Resistance War. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the victory over Japan he was the maineditor of ‘The Pivot of China’s Revival—Eight Years of Resistance War Against Japan’ (Zhongguo fuxing shuniu. Kangri zhanzheng de ba nian ̰Ý¶ʣȨƶŐǪ̍̚wƲ) (1995) (Jiaowuchu ed. 1998: 631–632).

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– Anniversary of revolutionary Leftist litterateur Mao Dun (1996);5 – 85th birthday of the deceased Hu Qiaomu (June 1, 1997).6

Death – Long Yongshu represented CASS in sending a wreath to Deng Tuo’s funeral (July 14, 1992);7 – The administrative leadership of CASS paid its last respects to Hu Qiaomu (October 4, 1992), who had passed away on September 28. His ashes were returned to the earth of the Yan’an base.8 – 60-year commemoration of the death of the literary writer (and revolutionary ﬁghter) Qu Qiubai (1995);9 – Deng Xiaoping passed away at the age of 93 (20 February 1997).10

5

The Leftist writer, Mao Dun (1896–1981), is the author of the novel Midnight, which depicts the corrupt capitalist society of Shanghai in the 1930s. After 1949, he served as the Minister of Culture (Spence 1999: A58). 6 Hu’s statue was unveiled at Yancheng library in Jiangsu. Cf.: www.CASS.net.cn, 12 April 2000. 7 The People’s Daily journalist Deng Tuo (1912–1966) in the 1960s took an independent stance within Party rule. Deng used Mao’s writing in 1960 to refute the radical historiography of the Great Leap. In 1963, the increasing power of the radicals curtailed Deng’s commentaries in the press. In the summer of 1964, the publication of his Evening Chats essays ceased when attacks on intellectuals began (Cheek 1986: 107–109) and Deng was denounced in the national press. In May the following year he committed suicide. Deng emphasized social hierarchy, and the self-discipline and culture of good scholars. He believed that a critical attitude was the same as a scientiﬁc, not an ideological attitude (Cheek 1986: 92–124). 8 On the ﬁfth, a memorial meeting for Hu Qiaomu took place: the Central Committee History Research Office, the Central Committee Documentary Research Office, and the Contemporary Chinese Research Institute. Hu Sheng called him an outstanding leader of Party theory and the propaganda front-line, a revolutionary politician, academic and encyclopaedic Marxist scholar. Cf: www. CASS.net.cn, 12 April 2000. 9 Qu Qiubai (1899–1935), executed by Guomindang forces in 1935, prior to the Cultural Revolution was honoured as a martyr. From 1927 to 1928 he headed the Communist Party, and bore the blame for a year of disastrous worker and peasant uprisings (Spence 1999: A61). During the Cultural Revolution, he was denounced as a traitor because his last political testament ‘Superﬂuous Words’ was found to pessimistic about the prospects of the Revolution. Qu was rehabilitated posthumously as Party ideologue, being the ﬁrst to make a comprehensive Marxist-Leninist analysis of the nature of Chinese society, its class relations, proletariat leadership and other theoretical problems of the Chinese Revolution (K.K. Shum 1987: 46–66). 10 CASS leaders participated in the Full Party Committee meeting. Afterwards, VicePresident Long Yongshu transmitted the spirit of the documents of the Central Committee, and Central Committees of State and Party organs and the concrete arrangements for organizing movements to mourn Deng Xiaoping to the Secretaries of every Institute Party Committee. The General Secretary of the CASS Party Committee called upon CASS members to study the works of Deng.

selection of commemorations held at cass from 1992 to 1997 323 War – Second International Conference on a Century of Sino-Japanese Relations (January 4, 1993);11 – Commemoration of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident 60 year ago (7 July 1997).12

End of war – Commemoration of the end of the Resistance War against Japan (1995) and world opposition against fascism, ﬁfty years ago. Commemoration activities were held and cadres provided education on patriotic and revolutionary traditional;13 – The 50 year celebration of the victory of the Sino-North Korean Resistance War against Japan, and the 3 year celebration of the resumption of Sino-Korean official relations (22 August 1995).14

Speeches, conferences, and debates – Celebration of 50 years of academic debate since Mao Zedong’s publication of his ‘Talks at the Yan’an (Yenan) Forum on Literature and Art’ (7 May 1992);15 – Sixty years since the Zunyi conference of (1995);16 – Remembrance: one year since Jiang Zemin held his speech on ‘Continuing

11 The international conference was organized by the Institute of Modern History, the Chinese Resistance War History Association, and the American Research Society on the Japanese Invasion of China; Hu Sheng spoke on T.V. about the centennial of the Sino-Japanese War (June 15, 1994). 12 An international conference followed. 13 Other educational activities organized for the occasion were organized by the United front, Work Meetings, the Communist Youth League, and Women Work Committees for Patriotism, Collectivism and Socialism (YB97: 29). 14 A conference followed. The celebrations were held on the same day as the Fourth World Women’s Conference, which was attended by CASS President Wang Renzhi, and Vice-Presidents Teng Teng and Long Yongshu. 15 CASS Vice-President Jiang Liu presided over this meeting of the Institutes of Literature, Foreign Literature, and National Minority Literature. ‘Talks at the Yan’an (Yenan) Forum on Literature and Art’ (Zai Yan’an wenyi zuotanhui shang de jianghua ̄ʻɲ˒͔Ƀ Āǽwĥö). For a translation, see Mao Zedong 1967: 69–98. 16 At the Zunyi conference it was decided to name Mao a full member of the ruling Standing Committee of the Politburo, and the Chief-Assistant to Zhou Enlai for military planning. Bo Gu and Otto Braun lost their controlling role in military matters. At the same conference, the highest Communist Party leaders decided to blame the defensive attitude of the Jiangxi Soviet for its defeat and take a more resolute and active stance (Spence 1999: 400–401).

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the Struggle to Stimulate the Completion of the Great Enterprise of Uniting the Motherland’ (30 January 1996);17 – Announcement: four CASS members (Ru Xin, Wang Luolin, Zheng Chengsi, Zhou Hong) were elected (21–23 May 1997) to attend the CCP 15th NPC in September 1997;18 – Twenty years celebration of the Truth Criteria Conference (May 1998).19

Award-giving meetings – Ikeda Daisaku from the Soka Gakkai [ĖʳĀbecame Honorary Professor of CASS for his great part played in forging friendship between Japan and China. More than 200 foreign guests attended the ceremony;20 – The CCP Central Committee and State organs convened the award meeting for rewarding the 1993 efforts made in support of spiritual civilization, social order, environmental beautiﬁcation, birth-planning, patriotism and health, and traffic safety (April 8 1994);21 – Lu Xun Literature Award Meeting (December 3–5 1997).22

Establishing official political relations – Anniversary of the Twenty Year Official Sino-Japanese Relations, jointly celebrated with the Centenary of Guo Moruo (October 17, 1992); – Three years of official Sino-Korean relations (August 22, 1995); 17 ‘Continuing the Struggle to Stimulate the Completion of the Great Enterprise of Uniting the Motherland’ (Wei cujin zuguo tongyi daye de wancheng er jixu fendou ɨeĳ͏Ýɗ ˎiˍwɞJĒʯ¥). 18 In order to welcome the victory of the 15th National Party Congress in August, CASS invited some CASS experts to participate in study meetings (presided over by Long Yongshu) on Jiang’s Talk at the Party School (July 22, 1997)). 19 The truth criterion refers to the phrase ‘practice is the only criterion of truth’. It originally appeared in an article in Guangming Daily (Guangming Ribao) in April of 1978, written by Hu Fuming. By the time it was published again in Guangming Daily, after various editorial alterations, it had become the result of a collective effort, so that the article cannot be attributed to only one author. The phrase, however, became the adage of Hu Yaobang and was propagated by Deng Xiaoping (Ma Licheng & Ling Zhijun 1998: 49– 53). 20 Ikeda Daisaku, the leader of the Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist lay organization that claims to have 10 million members, visited China frequently. He met Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and Deng Tuo. He wrote on the role of the Chinese (Confucian) region in the 21st century, which would occupy an important position in the world, both economically and spiritually. According to Ikeda, the world will undergo a transition from hard power to soft power. The East Asian culture region, which embodies such soft power, emphasizes human feeling, spiritual thought and is characterized by a ‘symbiotic ethos’ (Ikeda Daisaku 1993). 21 CASS was elected an Advanced Beijing City Birth Planning Red Unit and the Greenery and Beautiﬁcation Unit of the Capital. 22 Zhang Jiong, head of the Institute of Literature, attended. Pan Jun’s ‘Knowing Lao She’, and Min Ze’s ‘Market Economy and the Theory of Literary Values’ were awarded.

selection of commemorations held at cass from 1992 to 1997 325 – Twenty-ﬁfth anniversary of the Shanghai Communique (Sino-American relations (26 February 1997).23

The establishment of institutes – Thirty year anniversary of the Institute of World Economy and Politics (IWEP) (26 May 1994); – Thirty year anniversary of the Institute of World Religion (1 December 1994);24 – Forty-ﬁve year celebration of the Institute of Language (1995); – Seventy-ﬁve year anniversary of the CCP (1 July 1996); – A bronze statue was awarded to one of the founders of the Institute of Law, Zhang Youyu (former Vice-President of CASS) (9 January 1997);25 – Twenty year celebration of CASS (May 20, 1977) (Li Tieying, Hu Sheng, Wang Renzhi spoke. Deng Liqun, Mei Yi, Yu Wen and Zheng Bijian attended).

The establishment of journals – – – – –

Forty year anniversary of History Research (Lishi Yanjiu Ūȗʺľ) (1994); Forty year Economy Research (Jingji Yanjiu Ĺďʺľ) (1995); Thirty-ﬁve year Economics Platform (Jingjixue Dongtai Ĺďʳɂ) (1995); Forty year Philosophy Research (Zhexue Yanjiu ̓ʳʺľ) (1995); Forty year Literary Commentary (Wenxue Pinglun ɲʳǂƏ) (1997).26

The end of an ideology – Fifty year anniversary of the end of fascism (1995)

23 The CASS Institute of American Studies and the Zhonghua (China) America Association held a celebratory meeting in Beijing, on which occasion Teng Teng delivered a speech, looking back at the development of Sino-American relations from hostility to normalization. Wang Jisi and Tao Wenzhao (Head and Vice-Head of Institute of American Studies) were present. 24 ‘Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and Taoism, all are rising in my Zhonghua’ (Ji Yi Fo Tian Dao. Ji xing wo Zhonghua Ăːɍtǉʣɷ̰ó). 25 Its motto was: ‘open up research into religion, enrich spiritual culture’, ‘Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and Heavenly Tao, all are rising in my Zhonghua (China)’. 26 Li Xianlin, Qi Gong, Wang Meng, Wei Wei, Zang Kejia, Li Zhun participated. This periodical started out in 1957as Literature Research (Wenxue Yanjiu ɲʳʺľ), but changed its name to Literary Commentary (Wenxue Pinglun ɲʳǂƏ) to emphasize its contemporary nature.

326

appendix v

Return of territory – Fifty years need for recovering Taiwan (October 24, 1995);27 – The hand-over of Hong Kong (July 1, 1997): hand-over celebration by the State Council in the Hall of the People.28

Heroic deeds – 157 years ago, Lin Zexu performed his heroic deed of burning opium (June 25, 1996) (organized by the Lin Zexu Fund). Discussions on drug trafficking followed; – Sixty years Victory of the Red Army, and the Xi’an Incident (1936).29

27

Attended by Ru Xin. The ceremony was attended by Wang Renzhi, Ru Xin, Teng Teng, Wang Luolin, Long Yongshu, Liu Guoguang, Li Jingwen, Chen Chunquan, Zhang Jiong, Liu Hainian, Zhang Yunling, Liu Shuyong). The hand-over was preceded by research and many publications on the issue of Hong Kong. One compilation of articles by the CASS Institute of World History entitled ‘How did England Let Go of its Colonies?’ caught the eye of President Jiang Zemin who praised it. E.g. ‘How did England Let Go of its Colonies?’ (Yingguo ruhe piechu zhimindi ˞ÝǯçǵV̦Ơ~), CASS Institute of World History. Also published by Hong Kong’s Wenhuibao in early February 1993. 29 Xi’an incident (1936) refers to the occasion on which Zhang Xueliang, former leader of Northeastern China, kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek. 28

appendix vi RITUALIZED OCCASIONS

(1) Passing exams – July 18, 1997: a ceremony was held for 30 cadres who had passed their extra training courses. They were told that ‘when you have passed your exams, you are ready to face Jiang Zemin’ and were all advised to study ‘Jiang Zemin’s Speech at the Party School’ (1992), which is regarded as a milestone in Jiang’s intellectual career.

(2) Celebrations of a great idea of a brilliant leader – The concept of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ expressing a nationalist meaning, that is celebrated even on occasions that are not associated with its ascribed inventor, Deng Xiaoping. As long as Taiwan is not willing to reunite with the PRC on its terms, this concept is celebrated on equal footing with China’s national sovereignty.

(3) Celebration of meetings – Annual work conferences held in CASS are ritualized in congratulatory telegrams, letters and telephone calls from leaders, such as Li Peng, Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji and Ding Guangen.

(4) Official visits – The CASS cadres for disciplinary work, Liu Qinghua and Cheng Weicai, visited Xing Chongzhi, Laishui District’s (Hebei Province) Party Committee Secretary on July 16, 1992. On the occasion of their welcome celebration, Party Secretary Xing hailed the exercising CASS comrades, and opined that ‘the people’ ought to learn and listen more to the views of CASS comrades in the areas of emancipation and reforms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: CHINESE

Quoted journals and newpapers CASS Yanjiusheng Xuebao ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾ʺľȋ˾ (Journal of the CASS PostGraduate School) Faxue Yanjiu ʳʺľ (Research in Law): Guangming Ribao ×ƢǪ (Guangming Daily) Jiushi Niandai ŀȒƲk (The Nineties) Qiushi Ǚȕ (Seeking Truth) Renmin Ribao ǦƠǪ (People’s Daily) Shanghai Daojiao ǽÞtħ (Shanghai Taoism) Shehui Jingji Wenti Yanjiu ȁĀĹďɵɋʺľ (Research into Socio-economic Issues) Shehui Kexue Jikan ȁĀŒʳĉō (Compilation in Social Science Periodicals) Shehuixue Yanjiu ȁĀʳʺľ (Research in Sociology) Shijie Jingji ȚĬĹď (World Economy) Shijie Jingji Baodao ȚĬĹďr (World Economic Herald) Shijie Zongjiao Yanjiu ȚĬ͋ħʺľ (Research on World Religion) Wenlunbao ɲƏ (Journal of Literary Theory) Wenxue Pinglun ɲʳǂƏ (Literary Review) Yunnan Shehui Kexue ́ƯȁĀŒʳ (Yunnan Social Science) Zhanlüe yu Guanli ̍ƍ˱Õť (Strategy and Management) Zhengzhixue Yanjiu ̝̯ʳʺľ (Political Science Research) Zhenli de Zhuiqiu ̕ťẃǙ (Pursuit of Truth) Zhexue Yanjiu ̓ʳʺľ (Philosophical Research) Zhexue yu Ziran Kexue ̓ʳ˱͈ǣŒʳ (Philosophy and (Natural) Science) Zhongnan Minzu Xueyuan Xuebao ̰ƯƠ͎ʳ˾ʳ (Journal of the South Central Academy for Ethnology) Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Xuebao ̰ÝǦƠiʳʳ (Academic Journal of the Chinese Peoples University) Zhongguo Shehui Kexue ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ (Social Science in China) Zhongliu ̰Ƅ (Midstream) Ziran-Bianzhengfa Bao ͈ǣ%̟ (Paper of the Dialectics of Nature) Ziran Bianzhengfa Tongxun ͈ǣ%̟ɔȰ (Bulletin of the Dialectics of Nature) Ziran-Bianzhengfa Yanjiu ͈ǣ%̟ʺľ (Research in the Dialectics of Nature) Zongjiao ͋ħ (Religion) Cai Junsheng 4ŉȋ (1998) ɲõ=ƿǼƿõwĄć˔˕æʘć˔˕ Wenhua chanpin shangpinhua de jiji yiyi he xiaoji yiyi (The Positive Meaning and Negative Meaning of the Commodiﬁcation of Cultural Products), Zhexue Yanjiu, No. 3, pp. 25–31.

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CHINESE GLOSSARY OF RECURRENT CONCEPTS AND KEY PHRASES

Anwei jidu ɯć Bangongting Ìɒ Baogao wenxue Áɲʳ Baoshouzhuyi ȥ̺˕ Bianzheng weiwuzhuyi $̟ɧɾ Bubianlun -#Ə Buji Danwei 0Čnɮ Buzhang 0@

Comfort grade system General Office Reportage literature Conservatism Dialectical materialism No change theory Ministerial level Unit Leadership rank at the ministerial level Eating royal rice Chi huangliang MüŲ Chuangshou huodong [ȣā Earned Income Activities Chuantong zhuyi Xɗ̺˕ Traditionalism Chuzhang W@ Leadership rank at the level of head of office Dangwei ˾qɪ Party Committee Dangweizhi qɪ̬ Party Committee System Dangxiao qʚ Central CCP School (short for Zhongyang Dangxiao) Dangzu q͐ Party Group Party Group System Dangzuzhi q̬͐ Danwei nɮ Work Unit Fubuzhang ´0@ Leadership rank at the level of ViceMinister Gaogan Àº High Cadre (abbreviation of gaoji ganbu ÀČº0) Guan Benwei Óɮ State Departments Guanxi Òʅ Connections (usually, instrumental relations of mutual favours) Gundong zhongdian keti Û̴Ŗɋ ‘Rolling’ key subjects Guofei yiliao Ý£ˏŸ State medical provision The State, Country Guojia Ýĕ Guojia Baomi Ju ÝĕƞŃ National Secret Bureau Guomindang ÝƠq Nationalist Party (lit. National People’s Party) Guoqing ÝǗ National situation State Education Commission Guowu Jiaowei Ýɿħɪ

360 chinese glossary of recurrent concepts and key phrases Guowuyuan Xuewei Weiyuanhui Guoxue re Ýʳǥ Haixia Liangan Þʆŵ Heping jinhua æǁĳõ Heshang éͥ Houxiandai zhuyi ðʋk̺˕ Houzhimin zhuyi ð̦Ơ̺˕ Huaxia óʉ Huibao-Tigang þɊ½ Hukou òŘ Huzi gongcheng ñ͇ÊK Jiancha Weiyuanhui ě<ɪ˼Ā Jiaoshou ħȧ Jinqu ĵǛ Juzhang Ń@Ŗɋ£ Ketifei Ŗɋ£ Neibu cankao ziliao ư05őͅź Neibu cailiao ư01ź Keyan guanli bumen ŒʺÕť0Ƙ Keyanju ŒʺŃ Kuaibao ś Liang Ge Fanshi ŵÅȝ Liang Ge Wenming ŵÅɲƢ Lingdao xiaozu ƀrʙ͐ Minzhu Ơ̺ Minzu xuwuzhuyi Ơ͎ʬɹ̺ Neidang ư q Pinweihui ǀɪĀ Qingbao Yanjiushi Ǘʺľȡ Renmin benwei ǦƠɮ Renshi Jiaoyu Ju Ǧțħ˸Ń Renwen gongsi ǦɲÌȴ Shenru gaige ȅǱ¸Ã Shishi-qiushi țȕǙȝ Sixiang jiefang ȳʓī¡ Tongxun ɔȰ Wei Renmin Fuwu ɨǦƠ²ɿ Weihongbing ɰî( Weiyuanhui ɪ˼Ā Wenhuare ɲõǥ Wenxue Yanjiusuo ɲʳʺľȿ

State Council Academic Degree Committee Ýɿ˾ʳɮɪ˼Ā National study fever Both Sides of the Taiwan Straight (China and Taiwan) Peaceful evolution River Elegy, Death Song Postmodernism Postcolonialism Chinese Reporting the outline Registered permanent residence Beard-growing projects (prolonged projects that never seem to ﬁnish) Investigation Committee, Supervisory Committee Professor Forbidden Zones Leadership rank at the level of head of a Department Research-task fee Internal Reference Materials Internal Materials Science Supervision Office Scientiﬁc Research Bureau Bulletin Two What-Evers Two Civilizations (Material and Spiritual Civilization) Leading (small) group Democracy National/ethnic nihilism Internal Party (matters) Appointment committee Information Research Office The people as the central/main unit Personnel and Education Bureau Humanities companies Deepening the Reforms Seeking Truth from Facts Emancipation of Thought Newsletter To Serve the People Red Guards Committee, Commission Cultural Fever Institute of Literature

chinese glossary of recurrent concepts and key phrases Woguo ɷÝ Xiahai ʇÞ Xiti Zhongyong ʁɌ̰˦ Xin quanweizhuyi ʟǞɤ̺˕ Xin Rujiao ʟǮħ Xiuzhengzhuyi ʩ̜̺˕ Xuanchuan ʰX Xuanchuanbu ʰX0 Xuebu ʳ0 Xueshu Dongtai ʳȫɂ Xueshu weiyuanhui ʳȫɪ˼Ā Yaobao ˉ Yan’an ʻ Yangqi ˃Ǌ Yanjiushi ʺľȡ Yanjiusuo ʺľȿ Yanjiuyuan ʺľ˼ Yanjiu zhongxin ʺľ̰ʠ Yige guojia, liang zhong zhidu

361

Lit. My Country, China Change Occupation to Enter Market Economy Western Substance and Chinese Application Neo-authoritarianism Neo-Confucianism Revisionism Propaganda Propaganda Department Short for Zhexue Shehui Kexue Xuebu ̓ʳȁĀŒʳʳ0 Academic Trends Academic board Important Report Yan’an in Sha’anxi Province Sublation, transcendence, aufhebung Research office Research institute Research fellow Research centre One Country, Two Systems

ˎÅÝĕŵ̲̬

Yihua ˙õ Yuanwu Weiyuanhui ˾ɾɪ˼Ā Yulun ˮƏ Yuanbao ˾ Zhengfeng ̛ª Zhenli de biaozhun ̕ťw&͂ Zhexue Shehui Kexue Xuebu ̓ʳȁĀŒʳʳ0

Zhicheng jinsheng ̤IĴȌ Zhong Ban ̰ Zhongda keti ̴iŖɋ Zhongguo Kexueyuan ̰ÝŒʳ˾ Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾

Zhongguo You Tese Shehuizhuyi ̰Ý˩ɇǷȁĀ̺˕

Zhonghua Minzu ̰óƠ͎ Zhonglianbu ̰Ů0 Zhongnanhai ̰ƯÞ

Alienation Academy Affairs Committee of Cass (1982) Public discussion CASS Newsletter Rectiﬁcation Truth criteria Academic Division for Philosophy and the Social Sciences Professional Titles and Promotion CCP Central Committee Office Major research tasks Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Socialism with Chinese Characteristics The Chinese nation/race/people International Liaison Department of the CC of the CCP Residential compound in Beijing housing top Party leaders

362 chinese glossary of recurrent concepts and key phrases Zhongxue wei ti, Xixue wei yong

Chinese Learning for Essential Principles and Western Learning for Practical Use Zhongyang Dangxiao ̰ˁqʚ ‘Dangxiao’: Central Communist Party School Zhongyang jiaoban keti ̰ˁĦŖɋ Central Committee research tasks Zhongyang Weiyuanhui ̰ˁɪ˼ Central Committee (of the CCP) Zhuguanzhuyi ̺Ô̺˕ Subjectivism Zichanjieji ziyouhua ͅ=ĨČ͈˨̺˕ Bourgeois liberalism Ziwo piping ͈ɷƽǂ Conduct self-criticism Ziqiang buxi ͈ǐ-ʂ Constant self-strengthening Zonghe ͌è Comprehensive Zuguo ͏Ý Motherland (Lit. land of the ancestors); China; homeland ̰ʳɨɌʁʳɨ˦

INDEX Academic Affairs Committee (CASS), 72, 147, 225, 237, 246, 268 academic disciplines expansion of, 138–139, 233 grouped into clusters, 47, 147, 237–238 reorganized (1994), 173, 245–249 state protection of, 35–53 academic discourse, Party control of, 213, 222–230, 232, 250–251, 275–277 academic grading system, and politics, 164–165 academic management, reforms, 281–282 Academic Trends, 27 academics at CASS compared with intellectuals in general, 5, 12 autonomy, 14, 57–58, 101, 117, 184–185, 299 costs of maintaining (1998–2001), 267 falling standards, 179–180 ﬁnancial and political ties since the 1980s, 278–299 freedom and guidance, 11, 13– 14, 48, 55–102, 182–189, 255, 280–285, 291–293, 295–296 from critical to guided dispute (1988–1998), 103–189 hierarchic privileges, 170 lateral relations and personnel exchange, 32–34 motivations at CASS, 14, 15, 107–108, 163–189, 277 pre-1989 struggle, 55–102 pressures, 10–11

professional titles and ranking at CASS, 30–32 promotion and evaluation, 10, 30–32, 169, 240–241 refuge abroad, 127, 279 regulatory functions of the hierarchy, 187–189 reputations, 7, 8 see also intellectuals; researchers activism, 115–119, 297 aesthetics, 74 agriculture, commercial reform in, 68 Ai Siqi, 214 alienation, 70, 74, 75, 76, 84, 98, 219, 286 All-China Federation of Trade Unions, 83, 116, 126 Anti-Corruption Campaign (1986), 90 Anti-Rightist Campaign, 36, 42, 60, 65, 215 Appeal Commission of Academic Affairs, 166 area-studies institutes, 47 Army, 36, 71, 78, 117, 120 arts, 126 CCP Directive (1981), 64–65 creative freedom in, 71, 72, 84, 110 Asian Development Bank, 116, 118 Asian economic miracles, 79, 113, 201, 265, 288 Asian ﬁnancial crisis, 228 Bai Hua, 64, 90, 128 Bao Tong, 96, 117–118, 127 Bao Zunxin, 117, 127 Bei Dao, 115, 288 Beijing, 39, 100 cost of living, 273

364

index

Beijing Daily, 126 Beijing Intellectuals Autonomous Federation, 117 Beijing University, 45, 115, 166, 168, 169, 179, 262, 270, 271, 273, 298 student demonstrations, 81–82, 89, 126–127 Bell, Daniel, 218 Berlin, Isaiah, 287 Big Dictionary for the Study of Public Opinion Propaganda, 23, 24 Bo Yibo, 90, 91, 197 Bogart, Leo, 25 book prices, 175 Border Region History Centre, 153 border-region issues, 152–153 Bourgeois Liberalization, Campaign against (1987), 19, 58, 75, 80, 87– 90, 91, 93, 95–96, 100, 110, 125, 128, 135, 139, 161, 187, 229 repercussions, 90–95 “brain trusts”, 18, 19 see also think-tanks “bridge schools”, 45 Bulletins, 27 Bureau of Information and Publication, 22 Cadre Schools, 39 Cao Siyuan, 109, 111, 114, 118, 127, 200 capitalism, 68, 76, 100, 135, 140–143, 218–219 and democracy, 295 and socialism, 51–52, 225 CASS (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) applied research under Jiang Zemin, 249–254, 261–264 Army based in unit, 120 Board, 241–242 brain-drain, 270–271 changes in, 6, 261–274 changing the system from within, 275–301 commercial activities, 138, 139,

146–149, 168, 177, 181–182, 236, 270, 278 disciplining of, 120–125, 139, 186– 189, 220–221, 253, 254–255, 283, 295, 299 establishment of, 40–44 and the generation of “public discussion”, 23–29 government and Party relations, 19–23 internal and external organization, 30–34, 235–249 numbers of personnel and professional staff (1977–1998), 167, 168, 173–174, 177, 220, 233, 240–241 for order and informed authority, 44–48 organizational structure, 4, 14, 20, 30–34, 72, 181 Party Group system, 20, 21, 51, 53, 62, 72, 119, 130 Party members, 29 personnel and motives, 163–189 policy advisory function to the state, 3, 4, 5, 8–9, 13, 21–22, 135–136, 151–155, 259–260, 261–274, 299–301 and the political establishment, 17–19, 70 president, 160–161 reforms, 4–5, 13, 191–255, 272–274 reputation, 262–263, 269 residential facilities, 47–48 role in national policy-making, 3–5, 8–9, 101–102, 135–136, 259, 261–274 steering in, 3–4, 11, 12, 43–44, 139 streamlining research, 233–255, 266–272 transformation of Party guidance in, 213–232 twentieth anniversary, 283 under Li Tieying, 4, 15, 172, 221, 254, 257–301, 292 working conditions at, 7, 12, 14, 15, 163, 166–168, 269–272

index CASS Journal of the Graduate School, 95 CASS Newsletter, 27, 264, 265 Cassirer, Ernst, 287 censorship of academic discourse, 222–225 of petitions, 115 of plays, 110 self- 223–225, 250 Central Advisory Commission (CAC), 50, 90, 98 Central Asian Studies Institute, 47 Central Commission of Political Structural Reform, 87 Central Cultural Revolution Groups, 39 Central Directive No 7, on the arts, 64–65 Central Discipline Inspection Commission, 91 Central Document No, 2 141 Central Document No, 3 90 Central Document No, 4 95–96, 142, 172 Central Document No, 5 149 Central Document No, 8 90 Central Document No, 13 96 Central News, 82 Central Organization Department, 20, 21 Central Party School, 21, 59, 70, 83, 85, 127, 142, 148, 294 compared with CASS, 32–33 ceremonies, 106–107, 193, 202–207, 284, 291–293, 294 attendance at, 203–206 Chen Boda, 40, 62, 214 Chen Duxiu, 145 Chen Kuide, 287 Chen Kuiyuan, 274 Chen Xiaoming, 270 Chen Yi, 63 Chen Yizhi, 127, 279 Chen Yong, 82, 87 Chen Yu, 81, 97 Chen Yun, 60, 63, 65, 72, 82, 98, 118 Chen Ziming, 278–279 Chi Qun, 40

365

China Poverty Relief Fund Association, 154 China Social Science Publishers, 47 China Youth, 126 Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), 262 Academic Division for Philosophy and the Social Sciences see Xuebu CASS as a division of, 13, 44 evaluation in, 292 research institutes, 36–37, 213 Science Foundation, 48 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences see CASS Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 36 accountability of, 109 CASS’s position re, 7, 19–23, 85–86, 265–266 Central Committee, 18, 19–20, 21, 27, 41, 50, 68, 77, 91, 98 Commission for Propaganda, 234 on feudal ideology, 198–199 General Office, 233 International Liaison Department, 47 Leading Groups, 18, 49 Organization Department, 59 research tasks (Zhongyang jiaoban keti), 265 changes after 1978, 50–53 Constitution (1982), Article 5, 51 Core Group system, 50, 52 eightieth anniversary (2001), 293, 294 image of the, 9, 64–65, 154–155 National Party Congress, 19 official history, 62, 65, 215–217 Party Group system, 50 recruitment of intellectuals, 29 Regional Party Committees, 49 rehabilitation of intellectuals, 40–42, 57, 59–65 relations with government and CASS, 18–21, 50–53

366

index

Supervisory Committees, 49 see also Party; Politburo; Secretariat Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, democratic parties in, 221 Chinese Social Science Periodicals Society, 47 Chinese Society of Economics, 36 Chinese Society of History, 36 Chinese Society of Philosophy, 36 Chinese tradition, 5, 29, 51–52, 53, 74–75, 79, 91, 112 criticism of, 197, 282 and culture, 195–196, 201–202, 207–208, 222, 232 Chinese Writers Association, 84–85, 90 Christianity, 95 Chuang Yiping, 62 CITIC International Research Centre, 127 civil rights, 84, 97–98, 115, 296 civil servants, wages (1998), 263–264, 273 “class struggle”, 141, 210, 298 coastal development, 21, 112 collectivism, 131 collectivization, 49, 152 commemorations at CASS (1992–1997), 203–207, 254, 284, 321–326 official meetings and, 13, 83–84, 191–255 Commercial Publishers, 295 communism, 44–45, 67, 74, 140 disillusionment with, 78 communist movement (1940s), 24 Communist Revolution, celebration of, 203 Compass, and Key Item Research, 213, 225–230, 231 competition economizing through, 176–177, 188–189 principle of, 15, 168, 179–182, 221, 231, 259, 274, 281

conferences, 153–158, 188, 254, 255 Confucianism, 29, 88, 113, 145, 207, 289 connections, personal networks (guanxi), 26, 29, 171, 180, 182, 188, 202 conservatism, 5, 82, 90, 123, 196, 197–198, 288, 289 and reformists, 52, 60, 64, 68, 112 consultancy services, 71, 149, 179– 180, 278 Contemporary Trends of Thought, 140 corruption, 90, 113–114, 140, 154, 157, 160, 161, 180, 234–235, 243 cultural capital, 180–182, 279 Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) criticism of the, 60, 64, 65, 67, 71, 114, 116, 198, 215–217, 290 effects, 35, 38–40, 42, 49, 78, 87, 88, 230, 301 culture comparative research on Chinese and Western, 95 role in economic development, 86–87 and tradition, 195–196 Culture Fever, 196–197, 209–212, 231–232 cybernetics, 218, 286 Dai Qing, 115, 117, 288 Dangdai Sichao, 124 debate, 12, 59, 86–87 on the “criteria of truth”, 41, 285–286 effects of political regulation on academic, 12, 13, 254–255, 290 freedom of, 15, 43, 46, 133, 193 increasing openness of, 115, 284 Deepening the Reforms policy, 14, 33, 106, 141, 144, 145–161, 178, 235–249, 281–282, 289 defence, 21 democracy academic and spiritual pollution (1982–1985), 67–76, 98

index advocates of, 60–61, 83, 85, 89, 100, 109, 113–114, 117, 194, 219 authoritarian rule as precondition for, 113–114 and capitalism, 295 and Chinese tradition, 51–52 and humanism, 76 and patriotism, 107, 210 socialist, 61, 76, 97–98, 101–102, 135, 261, 276–277, 300 use of the concept of, 13, 276–277, 289, 291, 297 democracy salons, 115 Democracy Wall Movement, 60–61, 64–65 democratic centralism, 67, 154–155 and bi-directional elections, 251–254 democratic parties, 221, 249, 277 demonstrations (1977), 116 (1986), 88–90 (1989), 14, 28, 98, 129, 279 (late 1980s), 13, 78–79, 100–102 repercussions in late 1980s, 90–95, 123–128 Deng Liqun, 19, 22, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 81, 87, 92, 98, 102, 123, 124, 289 group, 82, 90, 91, 96–97, 140, 144, 294 Deng Tuo, 202, 204, 205, 206, 214 Deng Xiaoping, 48, 75–76, 84, 90, 91, 97, 116, 117, 204, 301 biographical details, 40–41, 233 economic reforms, 186–187 mourning ritual for (1997), 159, 206 “no change theory”, 46, 220 One Country, Two Systems, 153, 227, 228 Party Plenary speech (1983), 69 on practice as the only criterion for truth, 215–219, 231 reforms, 50, 51–52, 57, 59–65, 71, 82, 94, 98, 147, 220–221

367

Southern Inspection Tour (1992), 14, 106, 107, 129, 139–144, 156, 178, 188, 236, 281 speech against bourgeois liberalization (1986), 87–88 speech on concentration of power (1980), 85, 118 support for CASS, 44–46, 99, 138, 159, 185 Deng Xiaoping Selected Works, 249 Deng Xiaoping Theory, 28, 143, 159, 186–187, 226–227 Deng Xiaoping Thought, 11, 17, 34, 153 Dewey, John, 289 Di Taifeng, 155 dialectical materialism, 214, 231 Dialectics of Nature Society, 63, 85, 110 Ding Guangen, 238 Ding Shisun, 126 Ding Weizhi, 112, 119–120, 186, 204 directives, 25–26, 64–65, 215 Directory on the Selection of Subjects Covered by the National Social Science Foundation, 45 dissidence, 106, 199–202, 208, 219– 221, 223, 276, 278–279, 293–299 change in meaning, 299 Dittmer, Lowell, 24 documents, rule by, 25–26, 188 Double-Hundred policy (1956), 43, 48, 69, 94, 133, 235, 245, 284 commemoration meeting, 84–85 dragon boat festival, 86 dragon symbol, 109, 113–114, 201 Dule Bookstore, 115 Earning Income Small Group, 149 East Asia, 9 East China, inequalities re West China, 21 East European Studies Institute, 47 Eastern Europe, 85, 96, 113, 116, 118, 133, 140 economic development, role of culture in, 86–87

368

index

economic problems, 49, 112, 152 economic reforms, 34, 52, 61, 62, 70, 75, 88, 96, 106, 140–143, 161, 186–187, 201, 219, 226–228, 272–273 Economic Research Institutes, and research divisions, 309–310 Economic Weekly, 126 economics, 37, 42, 47, 132–133, 237 education, 81, 113, 123 policies, 46, 77, 78, 79 private, 179 reform, 79, 146–147 teaching ideology in, 131, 214, 222 Education Affairs Office, 8 Education Bureau, Reporting Office, 242 Eighth Five-Year Period (1992–1997), 132–133, 135, 238 Eighth Party Congress (1956), 50 elections bi-directional and democratic centralism, 15, 251–254, 275 call for democratic, 112 emancipation, human and economic liberation, 69, 84 empiricism, 230 Engels, Friedrich, 37 Enlightenment, Western ideologies, 5, 145, 194 Enlightenment intellectuals (1980s), 15, 285–286, 288 epistemology, 287 evaluation criteria, 9–12, 48, 292– 293 for key research items, 269 and promotion, 10, 30–32, 169, 240–241 ex-communist countries, 9 Falungong, 279, 280, 296 family advantages, 181–182 Fan Gangan, 295 Fang Lizhi, 75, 88, 89, 90, 91–92, 100, 115, 128, 279, 288 Fang Yiming, 7

Federation of Economics Organization, 85 Feng Lanrui, 27, 97 feudalism, debate on, 64, 196–199, 209, 217 Fifteenth National Party Conference (1997), 159–160, 233 ﬁnance allocation, 6, 7, 43, 71, 135, 137, 175, 223, 236, 263–264 incentives, 178–180 and political ties, 5–9, 278–299 problems at CASS, 163, 173–177, 270–272 research funding, 259, 264, 268– 269, 273 situation (CASS), 7, 43, 71, 223 ﬁnancial autonomy concept, 15 Financial Department, 175 Five Research Cores, 283–284, 293 Flying Tiger motorcycle brigade, 116 “focus item research”, 147 foreign inﬂuence, 9, 15, 70, 80, 81, 88, 94, 98, 100, 135, 197, 207, 209, 223, 282, 297 foreign investment, 141, 143, 154 foreign visit regulations, 132, 244– 245 Forney, Matt, 250 Foucault, Michel, 287 foundations, 44 Four Basic Principles, 284 Four Cardinal Principles, 48, 64, 89, 90, 91, 94, 114, 125, 133, 140, 164, 292 Four Clean-Ups movement (1963– 1964), 42 Four Modernizations, 35, 44, 64, 218 Fourteenth National Party Conference (1992), 156–157, 178, 236, 238, 239, 249 freedom, political and philosophical, 87, 135 freedom of the press, 71–72, 109, 112, 296 freedom of research, 11, 13–14, 15, 48, 259

index Freud, Sigmund, 288 Fudan University, 270 funeral rites, 115–116 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 287 Galikowski, Maria, 286, 288–289, 291 Gan Yang, 145, 200, 287 Gang of Four, 40, 41, 60, 65 Gao Di, 126 Gao Gao, 92 Gao Shan, 96 Ge Yang, 127 Geertz, Clifford, 200 General Office (CASS), 153 Gong Yuzhi, 34 Gorbachev, Mikhail, visit (1989), 116, 183 government, 19–21, 86 CASS and Party relations, 18–21, 49–53 dialogue with students plea, 118, 120, 121 “rule by document”, 25–26, 188 separation from Party, 35–36, 82, 97, 109 Graduate School (CASS), 35, 47–48, 95, 146, 147, 165, 241, 262 graduation regulations, 8, 164–165 grant system, 259, 266, 293 Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), 49, 60, 110, 198 “Great Way of Thinking, the Great Principles and the Great Framework of the Socialist Economy, On the”, 151 Gu Zhun, 202 Guan Feng, 39, 40 Guan Weiyuan, 91 Guangming Daily, 59, 82, 96, 110, 115, 126 guanxi see connections, personal networks (guanxi) Guo Moruo, 38, 203–204, 204 Guo Moruo Society, 47 Guo Yongcai, 155, 156, 158, 172, 205, 266

369

Hayek, Friedrich August von, 289 He Bingmeng, 159 He Guanghu, 270 He Xin, 124, 201, 288, 289 Hebei Province, 39 Hefei, University of Science and Technology, 89, 91 Heidegger, Martin, 287 higher education institutes, 262 historical materialism, 70, 146, 214, 297 history, 38, 145, 203–204 revolutionary, 42–43, 44 History Research Institute (CCP), 110 Hong Kong, 65, 116, 134, 152, 154, 155 Hong Qi, 63 Hongqi Chubanshe, 178 Hou Wailu, 42 housing, 166, 170, 171–172, 176, 177, 246, 259, 270–271, 272–273 Hu Angang, 201, 294 Hu Jintao, 262, 296 Hu Jiwei, 59, 69, 112, 114, 118 Hu Ping, 288 Hu Qiaomu, 62, 63, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 79, 81, 87, 90, 92, 98, 102, 112, 123, 183, 214, 215, 289 anniversary, 203, 204, 205–206 as CASS President, 19, 59–60, 65, 263, 281 Central Party School speech (1984), 70, 75 group, 82, 96–97 speech to Cultural Departments Conference (1984), 185 Hu Qili, 71, 72, 82, 84, 86, 90, 92, 112, 168 Hu Sheng, 59, 129, 130, 136, 150, 161, 206, 211, 237 as CASS President, 79, 93–95, 112, 117, 119, 121, 122, 125, 131–136, 153, 186, 187, 208, 229–230, 263 rationalization of research institutes, 239, 245

370

index

Report to the Work Meeting (1991), 132 speech on twenty-character guideline (1991), 132–133 Hu Shi, 145 Hu Shigen, 296 Hu Xinghe, 270 Hu Yaobang, 19, 41, 50, 52, 59, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 75, 81–82, 87, 96, 100, 112, 124 death (1989), 115, 183 forced resignation, 90–91, 101 network, 60, 80, 82–83, 92, 99, 109, 127, 140, 185 speech on freedom of the press (1985), 71–72, 84 Hua Guofeng, 40, 41, 44, 59, 60 Huan Xiang, 18, 62, 65, 83 Huang Buping, 140 human rights, 29, 112, 132, 135, 296 humanism, 70, 73–74, 81, 98, 183, 286 and democracy, 76 socialist, 62, 76, 238, 283 humanitarianism, 70, 76 humanities, 237 Hundred Flowers movement, 36 Thirtieth Anniversary (1986), 93 Huntington, Samuel, 113, 201 idealism, 185–186, 194, 286–287, 299 identity, national and political, 9, 37, 207, 260 ideology, 4–5, 22, 57, 85 Central Communist Party School compared with CASS, 32–33 debate (1984–1985), 71, 75 double-talk and, 28, 48 feudal, 198–199 hegemonic of state apparatus, 115 open conﬂict (1988–1989), 109– 128 Party, 15, 36, 51, 254, 261, 275, 276 reform under Cultural Revolution, 38–40 and the sciences, 74–75

socialist, 51–52, 61–62, 81, 160– 161, 194 see also official ideology Ikeda Daisaku, 24, 204 Important Reports, 27 “indigenisation”, 282 industrial production, decentralization, 49 information, ﬂow between CASS and CCP, 26–27, 265–266 Information Centre, 174–175 Information Research Office, 36, 38 information revolution, 68 Information Small Group, 250 information society, and socialism, 218–219, 231 information theory, 218 Inspection Committee (CASS), 22 Institute of Asia-Paciﬁc Studies, 47 Institute for China’s Contemporary Problems, 265 Institute of Economic Structural Reform, 127 Institute of Economics, 47, 117, 224 Institute for Financing/Banking, 265–266 Institute of Foreign Literature, 158 Institute of History, 38, 158 Institute of the History of Natural Science, 110 Institute of International Studies, 18 Institute of Journalism, 81 Institute of Law, 152, 234, 278 Institute of Literature, 80, 82, 130, 158, 239 Institute of Marxism-Leninism, 22, 38, 67, 69, 81, 84, 85, 97, 126, 130, 158, 213–214 Institute of Modern History, 126 Institute of Philosophy, 11–12, 40, 74, 126, 158, 167, 169, 247, 269, 270 Institute of Political Sciences, 44, 80, 85, 109, 126, 130 Institute of Politics, 47, 152 Institute for the Reform of the Political Structure, 127 Institute of Taiwan Studies, 47

index Institute of World Economy, 152 Institute of World History, 126 Institute of World Religion, 126, 158, 225 intellectuals “as part of the socialist working class”, 44–45 career motives, 5, 10–11, 99–102 co-option, 98–102 commercial activities, 71, 179–182 competition among, 105–107 disillusionment, 78, 111–113 dissidence, 11, 106, 199–202, 208, 219–221, 223, 276, 278–279 dissidence under Jiang Zemin, 293–299 division among (1985–1988), 77–102 during the Cultural Revolution, 38–40, 49 Enlightenment intellectuals (1980s), 15, 285–286, 288 experience abroad, 29, 132 ﬁnancial and political ties, 5–9, 10–11, 278–299 free-lance, 278 in general compared with academics at CASS, 5, 12 generational experiences, 77–78, 106, 301 grouping criteria, 108, 285–291 Party loyalty, 216–219 Party membership, 11, 29, 42, 235, 284, 300 political steering of, 3–4, 11, 12, 43–44, 101–102, 139, 145–161 purging of, 38–40, 67 rehabilitation, 40–42, 57, 59–65 role as patriotic educators, 193– 194, 207–209, 280 and state, 4–5, 145–161, 178 status in Chinese society, 31–32, 42, 45–46, 187–188 support/resistance, 28–29, 88–89, 107 working at home, 122 see also academics; researchers

371

interest groups, right of representation, 111, 118 Internal Promulgation Department of Party History, 214 international exchange, 36, 188, 210, 243–245 international publicity, 116 international relations, 237 see also foreign inﬂuence Japan, 9, 88 commemoration of Resistance War against, 203 visit of Premier, 81–82, 89, 100 Jiang Liu, 33, 119, 120, 130, 135, 150, 186, 237 Jiang Qing, 40, 215 Jiang Zemin, 131, 142, 151, 152, 153, 154, 161, 227 applied research at CASS under, 233, 249–254, 262 authority, dissidence and symbolism under, 293–299 report for the 15th National Party Congress, 33–34 speech at the Central Party School (1991), 147–148, 156, 159, 188 speech on patriotism (1990), 134, 193, 208, 211 speech on socialism (1992), 143 symbolism and patriotic intellectuals, 207–209 on “talking politics”, 234, 250– 251, 255 Three Represents, 11, 284, 293, 294 visit to CASS (1991), 193, 208 Jin Guantao, 127, 285, 286 Jin Wulun, 8 joint-ventures, 142 journals, 26–27, 64–65, 79, 83, 96, 124, 126, 140, 188, 294 of academic institutes, 38, 39, 41 anniversary of, 205 costs, 175

372

index

foreign, 174–175 number purchased (1986–1994), 174 privately funded, 110 social sciences, 37 judiciary, 91, 112 June Fourth movement, 14, 28, 80, 106, 107, 115–119, 118, 186 see also Tianenmen student demonstrations Kafka, Franz, 288 Kang Sheng, 40 Key Item Research, 107, 132–133, 137, 146–147, 156, 161, 173, 176– 177, 245–246 Key Research Item Programme (KRIP) and the Compass, 213, 225–230, 231 evaluation, 269 state and CASS, 225, 238, 240, 243–247, 267–268 Key Research Tasks (Yuan Zhong Keti), 265, 267–268, 269 knowledge as capital, 180–182 “cultural”, 33 symbolic, 183, 191–255, 275, 276 “through labour”, 39 knowledge production function of national symbols in, 193–194, 195–212 officially valued, 17–19 socio-political, 4–5, 6–9, 43–44, 46, 59–60 symbolic and cognitive aspects, 15, 76, 202–207 Korea, 88 labour market, 180–182 labour tasks, 39, 126 language reform, 37 leadership academic, CASS and political, 12, 50–51, 235–249

communication ﬂow between CASS and CCP, 26–27, 265– 266 criticism of left and right political, 70, 75–76 Huangpu Yiji concept, 48 legitimization of Party, 29 Maoist approach to, 64 Party, 24, 49, 85–86, 228 political mobilization of intellectuals, 57, 59–65, 197 research resources for political, 19–21 shifting between academic, political and administrative, 67, 182–184 leadership (CASS) accountability to Party leadership, 129–144, 160–161, 275 administrative, 50–51, 53, 72–75, 182–184 assignments under Li Tieying, 262–263 changes (1977–1982), 61–65 changes (1982–1985), 72–75 changes (1985–1988), 79–80 changes (1988–1991), 119–123 changes (1993–1998), 107, 150–151, 281 election system, 79–80, 101 history of system, 14, 311–319 offences by, 22, 124–125 and state policy-making, 151–157, 186–187, 187–188 titles in the hierarchy, 31 Leftists, 39, 71, 75–76, 140, 142, 290 see also Ultra-Leftists legal system, 152, 200, 237 Lei Feng, 72, 111, 124 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 37, 68 Leninism, 67, 68 Li Chongfu, 294 Li Dazhao, 145 Li Denghui, 280 Li Honglin, 59, 83, 92, 101, 112, 117, 127 Li Huiguo, 126

index Li Peng, 52, 82, 98, 118, 152, 208, 235 Li Ruihuan, 155, 222 Li Shenzhi, 79, 119–120, 186, 263, 295 Li Shu, 42, 59 Li Shuxian, 128 Li Tieying, 8, 92, 136, 139, 266, 277, 280 applied research reform plans (1998), 261–264, 272–274 as CASS president, 4, 15, 172, 221, 254, 257–301, 292 Li Xiannian, 97 Li Xingmin, 286 Li Zehou, 117, 200–201, 202, 285, 286 Li Zhenming, 266 Liang Zhiping, 287 liberalism, Western, 52, 78, 100 liberalization, 14, 36, 49, 107, 141, 158, 218, 236, 276 see also Bourgeois Liberalization liberals, 145, 219, 296 liberation (1st June 1955), 37 Liberation Army Daily, 45, 70, 91, 126, 140 library and information resources, 174–175, 177, 264 Lin Biao, 40, 48, 65, 215 Lin Min, 286, 288–289, 291 Lin Yushi, 39 Literary Commentary, 92 literature, 74, 82, 110, 175 Literature and Art Theory and Comment, 96 Liu Binyan, 75, 88, 91, 100, 112, 128, 145, 198, 200, 279, 285 Liu Danian, 42, 117 Liu Di, 296 Liu Guoguang, 73, 75, 79, 119, 130, 135, 150, 154, 156, 237 Liu Huaqing, 152 Liu Ji, 34, 150, 151, 153, 158, 159, 234, 237 Liu Junning, 295, 296 Liu Qilin, 119, 130 Liu Qingfeng, 285, 286

373

Liu Shaoqi, 63 Liu Xiaobo, 200, 279, 288, 296 Liu Xiaofeng, 287 Liu Yangqiao, 62 Liu Zaifu, 80, 82, 86–87, 92, 96, 101, 117, 124, 127, 285, 286 Long Yongshu, 149, 150, 151, 155, 159, 167, 205 Lu Xueyi, 297–298 Lu Xun, 42, 80 Luo Ergang, 42 Ma Ding (Song Longxiang), 81, 82 Ma Hong, 62–63, 65, 70, 72, 73, 75, 218 major research tasks (zhongda keti), 265, 266–268, 283–284 Mao Yushi, 295 Mao Zedong, 23, 32, 36, 37, 64, 117, 153, 204, 300, 301 centennial, 205 death (1976), 40, 41 May Directive (1966), 38 personality cult, 74 policies, 49 Red Book, 46 revaluation of place in history, 110, 114, 215–217 Mao Zedong Thought, 41, 48, 62, 205, 214, 215–217, 225, 226–227, 301 Maoism, 60, 73, 91, 99, 185 market economy, 92, 110, 113–114, 140–143, 154, 157, 165 socialist, 178–180, 201, 239, 286 martial law (1989), 52, 118, 119–120, 186 Marx, Karl, 24, 37, 70, 84, 286 Centennial (1983), 68, 73–74 Marxism, 5, 29, 37, 42, 43, 63, 93, 133, 136–137 Chinese, 68–69 creative approach to, 68, 78, 80, 84, 87 and humanism, 73–74, 286 modernization of, 213–214, 218– 219, 231

374

index

rejection of, 279 and science, 85–86 Marxism in Contemporary China, 124 Marxism-Leninism, 34, 36, 48, 62, 99, 114, 129, 185, 205, 215, 225, 226–227 materialist determinism, 76 May Fourth movement, 44, 76, 117 May Seventh Movement Schools, 39, 40 media, 23, 59, 109–110, 123, 126 non-official, 115 medical provision, 166, 167, 171, 172, 176, 177, 259, 270, 271–272 meetings and conferences, 12, 153–155, 188, 193, 254 official and memorialization, 13, 15, 191–255 study-meetings, 156, 255 Mei Yi, 62, 73 Mencius, 86 Mengxing de Shike, 112 Merton, R.K., 286 middle class, 113, 187, 221, 296 Midstream, 124, 140, 294 Military Affairs Commission, 90 military training, 126 Min Jiayin, 268 Ministry of Broadcasting, Television and Movies, 22 Ministry of Culture, 22, 126 Ministry of Education, 4, 79, 180 Ministry of Finance, 264 Ministry of Justice, abolished, 49 minorities protection for political, 112 studies of histories and languages, 37 modernization, 5, 43–45, 48, 51, 77–102, 113, 201, 219, 222, 228, 231–232, 287, 289, 293, 301 morality, 131, 143, 233 Communist, 67 and political attitude, 164–166 Naisbitt, John, 218

Nakasone, Yasuhiro, visit (1985), 81–82, 100, 183 nation, conceptualizations of the, 9, 14, 15, 57, 105, 193–196, 210–212 nation-state formation and CASS, 3–4, 35–53 role of academic theory in, 29 National People’s Congress, 19, 91, 97, 109, 112, 115 democratic parties in, 221 Standing Committee, 52, 118 National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office, 7 National Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Leading Group, 45 National Study Fever, 204 nationalism, 5, 195–212 neo-authoritarianism, 113–114, 128, 201, 210, 219, 231, 288 neo-Confucianism, 114, 201, 202, 288 neo-conservatism, 4–5, 288, 289, 291 neo-Maoism, 139, 187, 288 neo-Marxism, 113, 209 neo-nationalism, 4–5, 201 New China News Agency (Xinhua), 22, 184 New Enlightenment, 115 New Observer, 126 Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), 289 newspapers, national, 26, 71–72 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 287, 288 Ninth Five-Year Plan, 226, 246 official ideology, 5, 13, 22, 120, 124– 125, 131, 186, 191–255, 288 and anti-establishment ideology, 28, 220–221 grouping of intellectuals, 290–291 Old People’s Research Item Fund, 272 Olympics (2000), denial of China’s bid to host, 29 One Basis, 293 Opening Up policy, 33, 43, 46, 106,

index 141–142, 144, 198, 221, 282, 286, 289 Orientalism, 223 participant observation, 9–12 Party authority in research institutes, 247–254 threats to, 100–102, 118–119, 131, 147, 161, 296 Party Committee for Organs Directly under the Centre (PCODC), 20, 21 Party Committees (CASS), 14–15, 20, 62, 107, 119–120, 122, 129–131, 137, 146, 147, 150, 160–161, 173, 186–187, 238, 246, 251, 261 duties, 134 “Party Construction”, 131–136, 146, 161, 187 Party Disciplinary Commission, 50, 91 Party guidance symbolic knowledge and academic streamlining, 191– 255 transformation in CASS, 213–232 Party loyalty, and patriotism, 210– 211, 213, 221–222, 231–232, 234 Party membership, 11, 29, 42, 235, 284, 300 Party Rectiﬁcation Campaign, 69, 71, 215 patriotism, 67, 72, 91, 107, 115, 131, 132, 134, 153, 187, 201–202, 207, 275, 293 deﬁned as socialist, 208–209, 282 and Party loyalty, 210–211, 213, 221–222, 231–232, 234 patron dependency, 184–186, 188, 279 “peaceful evolution”, 131, 140, 141, 142, 143, 187, 202, 208, 211 peasants “learn from the”, 39 rights to political power, 83 peer review, 9 Peking University, 70

375

Peng Dazhang, 62 Peng Rongchong, 279 Peng Zhen, 60, 90, 97 pensions, 167 People interest of the, 99–100, 140–141, 185–186, 203–204 opinion of the masses, 24–25 people’s communes, 49 People’s Daily, 23, 26, 45, 59, 69, 70, 72, 74, 77, 81, 82, 91, 96, 109, 110, 116, 126, 143, 294 People’s Normal University, 270, 273 People’s Republic of China (PRC) establishment (1949), 8, 36 ﬁftieth birthday, 295 image, 96, 105 official history, 59 redeﬁnition of position in the world, 61–62 time periods, 57 People’s University, 70 Personnel Bureau (CASS), 241–242 Personnel and Education Bureau, 156 personnel exchange, 32–34, 172 Personnel Exchange Centre, 172 personnel management, 240–242, 252, 270–272, 281–282 petitions, 115, 116, 117, 120, 121, 127 PH.D. students, career plans, 12, 147, 165–166 PH.D. theses (1993–1997), 7–8 philosophy, 29, 74, 143, 237, 247 status of, 9, 42 see also systems philosophy Philosophy Research Editorial Office (CASS), 8 Piaget, Jean, 286 plagiarism, 137, 268 pluralism, theoretical, 11, 193, 207– 210, 213, 221–222, 281, 287 policy-making administrative organization and CASS, 259–260, 299–301 process for directives, 25–26 and research, 33–34, 155–157

376

index

role of CASS in, 3, 5, 8–9, 21–22, 151–155, 259–260, 261–274 Politburo, 20, 26, 49, 67, 90, 115, 118, 160 political correctness, 10, 284, 291, 298 “political re-education”, 38–39, 90 political reform (1978 on), 3, 4 (1985–1988), 77–102 (1988–1998), 103–189 dealing with the failure of, 219– 221 (pre-1989), 13, 17–19 politics and academic grading system, 164–165 ﬁnancial and political ties, 5–9, 278–299 role in social sciences, 3, 13, 254–255 and symbolic meaning, 211–212 “talking about”, 234, 250–251, 255 Popper, Karl, 289 post-industrialism, 68 post-modernism, 4–5, 202, 209 poverty relief, 154–155 practice, as criterion for truth, 215– 219, 231 Premier’s Office, 18 President’s Advisory Council, 89 press, official, 117 press freedom, 71–72, 109, 112, 296 prisoners, political, 115, 128, 279, 296, 297 professional organizations, 83, 188 professional titles, and ranking at CASS, 30–32 professors, 30, 32, 242, 271, 272 “proletarian”, redeﬁned as democratic, 76 promotion beneﬁts and facilities, 168–172, 181–182 and evaluation criteria, 10, 30–32, 169, 240–241

“exceptional”, 169–170 and Party membership, 29 policies (CASS), 6, 163, 284 propaganda bureaucratic, 17, 23–29, 155–157 CASS role in, 22–23, 206–207, 223–225 channels and institutes employed by the system, 22–23, 232, 276 deﬁned, 23 “ideal”, 24 as political legitimization, 23–24, 45–46 Three Basic Rules (Unities), 23–24 Propaganda Department, 21, 22, 33, 46, 59, 67, 69, 74, 81, 150, 155, 158, 188, 298 Information Department, 250 property, collective system, 152 “public discussion”, 23–29, 85–86 deﬁned, 25 publishing abroad, 296 blacklists, 292, 294–295, 298 commercial, 179 critical books, 281 Publishing Company (CASS), 248 Pursuit of Truth, 140 Qi Benyu, 40 Qian Liren, 126 Qian Xuesen, 80 Qian Zhongshu, 40, 73, 75, 79, 117, 119, 263 Qin Benli, 83 Qin Chuan, 74 Qinghua University, 45, 166, 168, 179, 262, 270, 271, 273 Qiushi see Seeking Truth Qu Weizhen, 119, 122–123, 125, 130, 150 Qu Yuan, 86–87 radicals, 145, 196, 278, 283 rationalism, Western, 289 reason, 145, 286

index recruitment CCP of intellectuals, 29 policies (CASS), 6, 8, 146, 246 problems, 163, 165–166 Rectiﬁcation Campaign Directives (1957), 215 Red Flag, 42, 45, 70, 92, 93, 96, 178 Red Guards, 78, 117 reference material, 26–27 Reform debates (1980s), 59 reformists, 59, 68, 185, 219, 277, 284–285, 286 and conservatists, 52, 60, 64, 68, 98–99, 112 disillusionment, 111–113 regional studies, 47, 247 regulation (political) of academic life and building state institutions, 49–53, 136–139, 147 effects on academic debate, 12, 13, 254–255, 290 rules for interpreting, 28 Regulations on Issues of Leading Cadres Going Abroad, 132 religion, 95, 296 Renmin Ribao see People’s Daily Renmin University, 126, 127, 169, 223, 270 Report 2000, 73 Requirement List of Information and Materials in the System of Propaganda, 155 research bidding system for projects, 181 commercialization of, 138, 139, 146–149, 178–180, 187 during the Cultural Revolution, 39–40 evaluation criteria, 9–12, 48, 269, 292–293 foreign, 27, 43 interdisciplinary, 8, 137–138, 181, 282 legitimization of policies, 7 liberalization and control (1990– 1992), 129–144

377

major research tasks (zhongda keti), 265, 266–268, 283–284 measuring in quantitative terms, 174 national symbolism and the rationality of, 209–212 new ﬁelds, 41, 70 parallel Party and government groups, 18 planning, 259, 261–274 planning regulations, 136–139, 147 political control over, 4, 7, 233– 255 political requirements, 10–11, 164–165 political sensitivity of topics see sensitive issues politically relevant, 43–44, 233 Six Key Research Themes, 135 in the soft sciences, 83, 94 and the state, 4–5, 12, 49–53 and state policy-making, 155–157 streamlining CASS, 233–255, 266–272 trend of armchair, 277 “urgent”, 44 see also freedom of research; Key Item Research Research Centre for Chinese Borderland History and Geography, 47, 153 Research Centre for the Reform of the Political Structure, 117 Research Centre for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, 157–158, 159, 234 research centres, 44, 248–249, 266 research curriculum, 7, 15, 81, 107, 129, 147, 209, 211, 254, 275 research institutes chronology of founding of CASS, 305–307 ﬁnancial situation, 81, 157, 278 Hu Sheng’s reorganization, 239 introductions in Yearbooks of CASS, 224–225 list of CASS, 303

378 number of CASS, 173 Party authority in, 247–254 Party Committees, 238–239 personnel affairs, 241–242 research offices, 241–242, 253 social sciences, 36–37 and state-building process since 1949, 36–37 Work Regulations, 247–249, 251–254 researchers career opportunities, 12, 31 elderly, 240, 272 experiences of, 12, 180–182 protection by law, 83 recruitment, 8 scouting for official reports, 25, 27–28 socialist reconstruction effort, 43–44 resistance to political interference, 12, 28–29, 88–89, 107, 117, 122– 123, 183–184 Resolution on CCP History (1981), 65, 215–217 resource allocation, 6, 7, 15, 172, 266–272 responsibility system, 14, 107, 121– 122, 130–131, 160–161, 187, 275 implementation, 131–136, 137, 139, 146, 158, 233, 238–239, 240, 242, 249, 252 retirement age, 52, 242, 252, 272 Revisionism, 229, 294 Revolution (1911), 43 rich class, 178 Rightists, 42, 69, 75–76, 142, 290 see also Ultra-Rightists ritualized occasions, 15, 202–207, 212, 254, 291–293 list, 327 “River Elegy”, 115, 127, 196, 197– 198, 207 Rong Jian, 114 Ru Xin, 73, 74–75, 79, 92, 119, 124, 130, 135, 150, 154, 157–158, 159, 174, 175, 183, 237, 263

index speech to the Work Conference of CASS (1994), 173 Ruan Chongwu, 90, 92 rule by law, 35–36, 84, 109, 152, 234–235 Rural Development Research Institute, 127 Russell, Bertrand, 289 Russia Research Centre, 154 Russian Studies Institute, 47 salaries academic, 165–166, 171–172, 177, 259, 263–264, 266, 269, 271, 273 reforms in China, 21 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 287, 288 scholarship, double-edged, 28–30, 48 science belief in salvation through, 43, 69–70, 110, 199 freedom in, 73, 101 and ideology, 5, 74–75 and Marxism, 85–86 research in soft, 83, 94 separation from social sciences, 46, 48 and the socialist state, 44–45, 209, 225 and technology propaganda, 233 theories of management, 80–81 Scientiﬁc Research Bureau (CASS), 7, 8, 9, 156 Secrecy Commission (CASS), 245 Secretariat, 20, 26, 49, 50, 67, 81 Policy-Research Office, 67, 91 Seeking Truth, 23, 33, 124, 140, 294 self-criticism, 69, 74, 76, 92, 112, 125, 133, 295 sensitive issues (politically), 10, 12, 21, 107, 117, 188, 223–224, 245, 292, 295 see also taboos Seventh Five-Year Plan, 73 Sha’anxi Province, 62, 126, 155, 214 Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 18

index freedom-of-expression march, 128 stock market, 142 Shanghai Communications University, 168 Shen Tong, 115 Shenzhen, 141 Shishi Qiushi, 118 Siniﬁcation of foreign ideas, 15 Sixth Plenum of the Twelfth (1986), 87–88, 93 Social and Economic Research Institute (SERI), 278 social order, 23–24, 25, 36, 160 Social Science Fund Programme, 137 social sciences after 1978, 49–53, 57 application of concepts, 298–299 bourgeois abolished (1952), 36 different attitudes to policymaking, 77–102 ﬁnancial support for, 43–44 freedom in the, 73 new trends (1985–1988), 80–87, 94 official evaluations of development, 8–9 official rehabilitation, 197 political legitimization, 43–44 relationship with the state, 4–5, 12, 49–53, 187 research institutes, 36–37 role in building socialism, 35–53, 80, 98–102, 133–134, 211–212, 237, 239, 247 role in policy-making, 73, 151–155 role of politics in, 3–4, 13, 254–255 state policies towards, 226–227, 231 theories, 80–87 socialism and capitalism, 51–52, 225 and Chinese tradition, 51–52, 53, 195–196, 207 citizen, 111, 200 and cultural nationalism, 203–204 and democracy, 61, 76, 97–98, 101–102, 135, 261, 276–277, 300

379

and economics, 42 meaning of, 69, 141, 153, 158, 201–202 revaluation of, 110–111 role of social sciences in building, 35–53, 80, 98–102, 133–134, 211–212, 237, 239, 247 stage of underdeveloped, 227–228 subversive elements of, 78 theory of China at a ﬁrst stage of, 28, 61, 63, 97–98, 110, 283 Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, 131–136, 138, 141–143, 146, 153, 154, 157–161, 186–187, 193– 194, 196, 206, 210–212, 218–219, 220–222, 228, 231, 237–249, 291, 297 guidance for academic writing under, 222–225 “socialist construction”, 36, 48, 137, 140–141, 217 Society of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, 84 Society of Political Science, 85 Song Jian, 80 Song Ping, 136 South Asia Studies Institute, 47 Soviet Union, 96, 118, 133, 135, 154 collapse of the CCP, 21, 143, 265 learning from the, 214, 288 translated materials from, 46, 214 speeches, 106–107, 193 drafting, 184–185 spiritual civilization, 88, 94, 137, 158, 233, 234–238, 293 Spiritual Pollution Campaign against (1983), 19, 58, 69–72, 74, 76, 80, 90, 93–94, 98, 183, 184, 218 deﬁned, 69 example, 198 Stalin, Joseph, 37, 117, 300 state decentralization of power, 49 dependency and ﬁnancial constraints, 278–299

380

index

hegemonic ideology of apparatus, 115 institutions and regulating academic life, 7–8, 49–53 and intellectuals, 145–161, 178, 291 Leninist view of the, 68 limiting power, 113 Marxist withering away, 36 one-party, 111 relationship between Party and, 35–36, 50–53, 194 and social science research, 4–5, 12, 49–53 State Commission for the Restructuring of the Economic System, 92 State Council, 8, 18, 19, 50, 52, 91 Academic Degree Committee, 164 CASS’s position re, 19–23, 30, 33 Leading Groups, 18, 19 Party Group, 20, 21 Political Research Office, 59 State Education Commission, 146, 151, 164 State Programme, 137 State Science and Technology Commission (SSTC), 83 State Social Science Foundation, 45, 269 State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), 166, 227 liberalization of, 141, 158 stock market, 142 Stone Group, 116 Stranahan, Jennifer, 24 Strategy and Management, 295 students democracy salons, 115 demonstrations, 81–82, 89–90, 100–102, 115–119, 126–127, 210 employment priorities for graduates, 166, 171 foreign at CASS, 168 political re-education, 90 recruitment, 147, 165–166

Studies in Marxism, 124 Su Guoxun, 287, 288 Su Shaozhi, 22, 27, 46, 59, 67, 80, 81, 83, 92, 97, 101, 109, 110, 111, 112, 117, 127, 200, 285, 286 on Chinese Marxism, 68–69 Su Wei, 115, 279 Su Xiaokang, 117, 127, 198, 279 Subject Compass of the State Plan for Philosophy and the Social Sciences see Compass Subjectivism, 229–230 Sun Jingchao, 160 Sun Yat-sen, 23 Sun Yefang, 42 symbolism authority and dissidence under Jiang Zemin, 293–299 national, 195–212, 259–260, 292 Party guidance and academic streamlining, 183, 191–255, 275, 276 symbols classiﬁcations, 199–200 deﬁned, 195 interpretation of, 207 use of, 76, 260, 294–299 syntheses, 146, 288 systems philosophy, 11–12, 29, 218, 286 taboos, academic and political, 15, 141–142, 222–225, 295–296 Tai Qiming, 155–156 Taiwan, 29, 47, 88, 96, 134, 155, 227, 228, 300 Teng Teng, 33, 83, 150–151, 153, 154, 158, 205, 235, 237, 244 terrorism, international, 265 tertiary education, 77, 165, 287 Theory Conference (1979), 59, 67, 112 think-tanks, 18, 59, 65, 68, 71, 80, 83, 99, 101, 117, 127, 185, 209, 219, 262 Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, anniversary (1978), 112

index Thirteenth Party Congress (1987), 28, 52, 97–98, 109 thought emancipation, 73 pluralism, 11, 193, 207–210, 213, 221–222, 281, 287 reform, 39 Three Five One Engineering (CASS), 293 three ﬁxed-policies, 176–177 Three Relations, 284 Three Represents, 11, 284, 293, 294 Three Talks, 284 Three Target Groups, 293 Tiananmen student demonstrations (1989), 115–119, 129 punitive measures after, 123– 128 Tibet, 29, 300 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 287 Toffler, Alvin, 209, 218 Toynbee, Arnold, 24 trade unions, 296 translation, 46, 214, 268 truth debates on criterion of, 41, 285– 286 practice as criterion for, 215–219, 231 seeking from facts, 17, 43 Truth Criteria, First Congress on (1978), 41 Twelfth National Party Conference (1982), 51, 67 “twenty-character guideline”, 131– 136 Two Civilizations, 206, 211, 226 Two Whatevers, 41, 116, 143 Ultra-Leftists, 40, 45, 110 Ultra-Rightists, 151 unemployed, the, 279, 298 United Front Work Meeting (CASS), 249 United States, 128, 198 propaganda against, 29, 280

381

universities, 89–90, 99, 138, 169, 185, 262 urban reform, 68, 71, 86 “Views Concerning Our Academy’s Deepening of the Reforms” (1992), 236–240 wages (1985–1993), 175, 177 civil servants (1998), 263–264, 273 reforms, 135, 175 Wan Li, 81, 83, 89, 92, 94, 118 Wang Dan, 115, 127 Wang Fang, 92 Wang Jiafu, 152 Wang Juntao, 278–279 Wang Li, 40 Wang Luolin, 34, 150, 151, 152, 154, 159, 237 Wang Luxiang, 198 Wang Meng, 92, 110, 124, 145 Wang Renzhi, 92, 98, 112, 123, 136, 150, 154, 157–158, 159, 236, 237, 238, 244, 250, 283 Wang Renzhong, 22 Wang Ruoshui, 28, 59, 69, 74, 75, 81, 84, 92, 100, 111, 112, 145, 200, 219, 285, 286 Wang Ruowang, 75, 88, 90, 100, 128, 145, 288 Wang Su, 179 Wang Wenfeng, 130 Wang Yizhou, 113 Wang Youwei, 214 Wang Zhen, 90, 91, 197 Weber, Max, 287 Wei Jingsheng, 61, 115, 279 Wen Jiabao, 152 Wen Yuankai, 128 Weng Jieming, 26 Wenlin Haitao, 8 West China, inequalities re East China, 21 West, the, 9, 76 dangers from, 125, 210–211, 232

382

index

images of the, 28–29, 198 learning from the, 46, 52, 79, 85 Western thought, 5, 29, 80, 81, 82, 88, 91, 111, 145, 194, 286, 287, 289 Westernization, 120, 202, 289, 295, 301 “Work Regulations for Academic Planning”, 136–139 Work Requirements (1991), 132 Work Unit, 149, 173, 180, 182 Worker’s Daily, 70, 126 Workers and Liberation Army Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team, 38 World Bank, 147 World Economic Herald, 18, 83, 111, 112, 126 World Fourth Women’s Conference, 205 World Trade Organization (WTO), refusal to admit China to, 28–29 writers, 72, 96 writing guidance under Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, 222– 225, 277 popularization of academic, 179 Wu Benxia, 8 Wu Chuanqi, 39, 40 Wu Guang, 62 Wu Guoguang, 25, 96 Wu Jian, 279 Wu Jianguo, 87 Wu Jiaxiang, 113, 128, 288 Wu Jiemin, 125, 130, 156 Wu Shuqing, 127 Xia Nai, 42, 73 Xia period, 44 Xiao Gongqin, 113, 201, 288, 289 Xing Bensi, 33, 34, 65, 75, 92, 124 Xinjiang, 300 Xu Liangying, 42, 110, 114, 115, 117, 127 Xuan Zhiming, 279 xuanchuan, 24

Xue Muqiao, 68 Xuebu, 13, 37–40 chronology of the founding of, 305–307 militants at, 39 upgrading into CASS, 45–47 Xueshu Dongtai, 265 Yan Huai, 22 Yan Jiaqi, 59, 80, 85, 87, 92, 97, 100, 101, 109, 112, 114, 115, 117, 127, 200, 279, 285, 286 Yan’an, 36, 62, 78, 110 Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Academy, 31–32, 63, 214 Yan’an Rectiﬁcation Campaigns (1942–1944), 64 Yang Baibing, 124 Yang Xianzhen, 42 Yang Xiguang, 59 Yang Zhi, 7 Yao Wenyuan, 40 Yasukuni Shrine, 82 Yearbooks of CASS, 7, 213, 224–225 Youth Federation, 83 Youth League, 126 Youth Scientiﬁc Research Fund (CASS), 240 Yu Guangyuan, 28, 59, 60, 62, 65, 67, 68, 73, 80, 82, 83, 86, 88, 92, 97, 101, 110, 111, 112, 114, 126, 127, 200, 214, 285, 286 on Marxism, 63 Yu Haocheng, 59, 84, 87, 92, 112, 114, 117, 127 Yu Wen, 119, 120, 121, 125, 129, 130, 135, 147–149, 156, 161, 186, 187, 281 Report to the Work Meeting (1991), 136 “Work Regulations for Academic Planning”, 136–139 Yu Yuanyang, 152 Yuan Zhiming, 115, 288 Yuanbao (CASS newsletter), 264, 265 Zha Ruqiang, 74

index Zhang Xianyang, 59, 67, 81, 92, 101, 112, 114–115, 127 Zhao Fusan, 79, 95, 119, 263 Zhao Ziyang, 19, 28, 41, 50, 52, 73, 82, 83, 87, 90, 91, 98, 114, 116, 124, 140, 185, 218, 222 call for “transparency”, 109, 198 economic reforms, 113 October speech on research, 70 political reform, 95–98, 101, 102 on religion, 95 self-criticism, 112 Seventh Five-Year Plan, 73 speech (May 13th 1987), 96, 111 speech to Asian Development Bank, 116, 118 think-tanks, 18, 65, 68, 71, 80, 83, 99, 117, 127, 219 Zheng Bijian, 33, 34, 119, 120, 130, 135, 186

383

Zheng Chengsi, 156, 159 Zheng Jiadong, 29 Zhenli de Zhuiqiu see Seeking Truth Zhishi Qiushi, 294 Zhong Bao, 81 Zhong Liu see Midstream Zhonghua Minzu (Chinese nation), 238 Zhongnanhai, 39, 152, 188 Zhou Duo, 279 Zhou Enlai, 32, 40, 41, 48, 116 Zhou Guoping, 287 Zhou Hong, 159 Zhou Yang, 59, 63–64, 65, 67, 69, 73–74, 75, 285, 286 Zhu Houze, 22, 81, 82, 85, 86, 92, 112 Zhu Jiamu, 265 Zhu Rongji, 264 Zhuozhuo Conference (1987), 95, 96

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