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Foreign Policy
Winter 1998–99
Jiaofeng Sanci Sixiang Jiefang Shilu
Crossed Swords: A True Account of the Three Periods of Ideological
Liberation
By Ma Licheng & Ling Zhijun
Reviewed by Joseph Fewsmith *
Detailed accounts of political infighting in China normally emerge only several years after the fact, when one side has been decisively defeated, and the victors can safely explain how they won. Such was the case with the “criterion of truth” debate that roiled China 20 years ago, when Deng Xiaoping and his pragmatic doctrine of “seek truth from facts” triumphed against then–party chairman Hua Guofeng and his policy of the “two whatevers” (the idea that China’s leaders should act in rigid conformity with whatever Mao Zedong had said or done)—a victory that helped cement Deng’s ascendancy over Hua at the watershed Third Plenum in 1978. Although stories of that struggle have been published over the years, increasingly detailed accounts have appeared in recent months to coincide with the plenum’s anniversary in December 1998.
Similarly, published Chinese accounts of policy disagreements during the 1989 student demonstrations remain scarce, reflecting the subject’s extreme sensitivity. Indeed, details from this period are more readily available overseas, with the publication of leaked speeches by Premier Li Peng and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang at the Fourth Plenum, when Zhao was ousted by hardliners and Jiang Zemin took his place. In China, tales of such political fisticuffs travel readily if not always accurately through xiaodao xiaoxi (back-alley news) but rarely make it to the printed page.
The appearance of Crossed Swords in Beijing bookstores was therefore not only notable but in some ways unprecedented. The book begins by retelling the 20-year-old struggles of Deng against Hua. A bit more daringly, it also recounts the infighting that led to and accompanied Deng’s crucial journey to the south of China in 1992, when his remarks in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone breathed new life into the economic reforms stalled by conservative opposition. But what really set readers talking was the book’s 200-page insider account of political battles from 1995 to 1997. During this period, old party cadres intensified their attacks on Deng’s reforms, repeatedly arguing that such measures would endanger socialism, threaten the party, lead to social turmoil, and undermine the country’s security. These warnings were embodied in a series of “10,000 character manifestoes” sent to the Central Committee and distributed anonymously in political circles. According to these “old leftists” (as they are known in China), the only way forward is back.
It may seem unlikely that the obscurantist rhetoric still generated by the Left could have any impact in current-day China. After all, the old Left has offered no solutions to the problems it decries (which has always been its weakness in Chinese politics). Nevertheless, the Left possesses at least three forms of leverage that compel those in power to take its leaders seriously: First, the old guard draws much of its strength from people who have spent their careers in the propaganda system. In a political universe that still bases its legitimacy, at least formally, on Marxism-Leninism, few can wield the symbolic language of that universe as well as the old Left. Second, because many of these people are first-generation revolutionaries—old cadres who have devoted their lives to “building socialism”—they have credentials that are hard to dismiss. Finally, despite the tiredness of the old guard’s rhetoric, their protests against income inequality, corruption, the decline of moral values, privatization (often seen as connected with corruption), and the influx of foreign capital have stirred a sympathetic response among the Chinese public, whose members resent corruption, fear for their jobs, and romanticize the “good old days” before reform, when people were said to have had ideals and cared for one another.
By laying bare the extent of leftist resistance to change in unflattering terms, Crossed Swords achieved a notoriety that quickly made it a bestseller in China. And by making the debate between leftists and reformers a matter of public record, it also implicitly placed Jiang in the mainstream of reform as the leader responsible for carrying out the reformist legacy of his predecessor, Deng. Outraged leftists convened a meeting last April to denounce the book, even inviting communist ideologues from Russia to participate (provoking reformers to ridicule the meeting as one of the Communist Internationale). Reformers counterattacked with equal vigor. Jiang remained silent, muting discussion of the book in the press but nevertheless allowing it to continue to circulate.
The authors of Crossed Swords are in an ideal position to tell their story. Both Ma Licheng and Ling Zhijun are on the staff of the People’s Daily, the official paper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Although they retell some tales familiar to political cognoscenti in Beijing and elsewhere, they do so with acute insight and lively writing. Despite pulling a few punches, the end result reads with the verve of a good political potboiler. The authors’ ties to the People’s Daily should not be taken as constituting official endorsement. Although most of the book was previously serialized in one of Beijing’s smaller newspapers, no publisher would touch it until the authors approached Liu Ji, a vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the government’s premiere think tank, and the sponsor in recent years of a series of works that have pushed the bounds of public discourse and provoked conservative anger. And although Liu is an intimate of Jiang, by no means were all of Jiang’s advisers pleased by the book, and Jiang himself may have not been all that happy about it either.
Crossed Swords is one of several controversial, important books and articles to be published in China in recent months. Discussion of many sensitive issues, including political reform, is no longer taboo. Witness Beijing University’s Tradition and Modern China, a compilation of articles on political liberalism from the twentieth century; Fire and Ice, which reflects on the state of politics and culture in contemporary China; Political China, which brings together a number of recent liberal essays on politics and political reform; He Qinglian’s controversial condemnation of corruption, Pitfalls of Modernization; and a second book by Crossed Swords coauthor Ling, Turbulence: A Memoir of China’s Economic Reforms (1989–1997). The publication of these and other works demonstrates a clear effort to enlarge the scope of public discourse even while repressing open dissent.
Although many reform-minded intellectuals welcomed the publication of Crossed Swords for its assault on the Left, the book’s depiction of China’s policy debates in Left-Right terms seems dated, a vestige of China’s tradition of “struggle politics” that no longer fits a period when most Chinese see policy options in far more nuanced terms. As Ling notes in Turbulence, Mao ruled by concentrating power and Deng by decentralizing it; Jiang must wend his way carefully between these extremes. From this perspective, the sort of dogmatic “line thinking” embedded in Crossed Swordsand in those it attacks—may be a thing of the past. In that sense, Crossed Swords is not only unprecedented in its publication but also may prove a harbinger of a new era.
Endnotes
*: Joseph Fewsmith is associate professor of international relations at Boston University and author of Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1994). Back.