[双语阅读]20年来中国知识分子的变化

Evolution of Chinese intellectuals' thought over two decades
Source: The Global Times
[23:54 May 31 2009]
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By Xie Ying and Lin Jiasi

Photo: Abdul Saeed Ala Atik
Working at a top political think tank of the government, the author of the patriotic Chinese tome Paradoxes of American Hegemony today delights in contrasting Western economic failures with the successes of China’s chosen economic path.
Back in the 1980s Ding Yifan had idealistically believed in Western models as offering solutions to all kinds of problems. But today as a full-time employee at the Institute of World Development in the Development Research Center of the State Council, Ding laughs off as naïve The Development of Sociology, a Chinese book of translated Western thoughts that he edited two decades ago.
As a teacher in the late 1980s, Ding like many had experienced the sudden jolt of embarrassment at China’s global backwardness and ascribed those feelings to a failure of “national ideology”.
“We were feeling insecure about China’s future, and we were expecting the West to help China in economic reform,” said Liu Jiangyong, a professor at the Institute of International Studies, Tsinghua University.
Reform and opening-up
While the launch of reform and opening-up in 1978 kickstarted a socialist planned economy into transforming itself into a more vibrant State-controlled market economy, the Chinese government during the first 10 years of this transformation found itself groping to resolve the endemic intellectual, political and economic contradictions of its new and controversial policy.
Ordinary people’s life failed to fully improve, partly because bureaucrat profiteering and some other negative sides of the society made the way obscure, said Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University.
The concept of a socialist market economy was not “finalized” and Chinese society was “in transition”, according to Jin Canrong, deputy director of School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China.
People were less confident about China’s future in the 1980s, explained Zhang Yiwu, a Peking University literature professor.
Irritated by China’s pathetic economy and the ultra-left thinking left over from the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), many Chinese intellectuals shared a common pursuit of freedom and democracy in the 1980s, “an era of enlightenment on democracy for intellectuals”, Xiao Gongqin, a major spokesman for cultural nationalism and a history professor at Shanghai Normal University, wrote in his Chinese book Thoughts Differentiation among Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Its Political Influence.
“The youth in universities were all drinking in a variety of knowledge and reading various books,” Zhang Liping, researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Global Times.
At that time, information on different societies and lectures on new concepts filled every corner of campus noticeboards. Books and debates circulated among students. Especially popular were arguments over “isms” including existentialism, humanitarianism, liberalism, capitalism and Marxism.
“Uncertainty was the most obvious characteristic of that period,” said Zhang Yiwu. He noted that the intellectuals at that time chose Western thoughts “at random”.
“It [the ’80s] was the age of enlightenment and almost a turning point for China’s political transition,” said Chen Zhigang, former Washington bureau chief of Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily.
June 4 Incident broke out in 1989 and after that intellectuals in China “switched to silence”, according to Zhang Liping.
“Intellectuals no longer discussed ‘isms’ publicly, and shifted their focus to academic issues,” she said. “Some people worried that China might slip backward.”
Deng’s trip to South China
Such worries were dispelled three years later in 1992 by Deng Xiaoping’s visit to South China.
“Deng’s speech reignited people’s hope and restored their confidence,” said Zhang Liping. In his speech, Deng emphasized the importance of economic reform and open-mindedness.
In 1990s, “economic development” was no longer a slogan. People witnessed their living standards improve day by day. “The Chinese market economy gave individuals, especially those at the grass roots, an opportunity to change their life,” said Zhang Yiwu, author of Xin Xin Zhongguo de Xingxiang (Image of “New New China”).
Zhang’s uncle became wealthy, whereas before the policy, he had often sought financial help from Zhang’s family. Zhang himself also benefited. He no longer had to line up for three hours in the cold just to buy five pieces of tofu to entertain a guest.
Disintegration of the Soviet Union and political changes in Eastern Europe shocked Zhang Yiwu. After reading some French theoreticians, Zhang turned to what he called a more “rational” way of thinking. He began to gain a clearer idea of China’s development in the early 1990s and no longer considered Western models as total solutions.
After 1989, intellectuals became “more moderate and rational,” Zhang Liping said. “People realized that China would not change overnight.”
He “knew” the student movement would not change China, said Ding Yifan, “even with the lure of Western cultural influence in the 1980s.”
China changed fast after 1992, making some intellectuals anxious. Along with increasing wealth, the socialist market economy also brought utilitarian benefit and mammonism to China.
Many focused on wealth creation. Intellectuals found their elite culture replaced by secular culture and felt pushed to the margins of society from being at the center of thought in the 1980s.
In the 1990s, fewer people cared about what intellectuals had to say, and many intellectuals left academic circles and threw themselves into business instead.
Worrying about this new materialism in the ’90s, some intellectuals represented by Wang Xiaoming, a professor of modern Chinese literature and now a director of the Center for Contemporary Culture Studies at Shanghai University, published “Ruins on the Open Field” in 1993, an article which sparked heated discussion about “humanistic spirit”.
Intellectuals reflected upon themselves and discussed how to adjust their sense of worth in the new decade and regain their lost “humanistic spirit”.
“If the ideology of culture in the 1980s was radical or idealistically aiming to achieve reform, then there had to follow a social phenomena called ‘constructive criticism’ to reflect on humanity and the reality of society in China in the 1990s,” said Xu Youyu, a former researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
Fast changes
China was experiencing drastic and rapid changes at that time, said Zhang Yiwu. “The difficulties were what we paid for that transition. An absolutely ideal mode could never appear.
“Chinese were so poor in the past that they had a strong desire to change their life and make the country powerful and this spirit turned into a strong power to drive economic development.”
As a young teacher in the 1990s, Zhang found students attended classes just for credits and often slept no matter how interesting the lesson was. Outside class, they discussed real-life issues and problems with Zhang.
For example, they discussed the popular TV drama Desire with Zhang. In Zhang’s eyes, this show embodied the changes of 1990s mass culture.
“At that time, I felt that the Chinese had found their spiritual sustenance and they started to believe they could change their life,” said Zhang.
Facing advantages and disadvantages brought about by the market economy, Chinese intellectuals began to split into “liberalism” and “the New Left”, Xu Youyu wrote in his blog. They disagreed on the root of social evils in that period: the former believed the old power system obstructed healthy development of a market economy in China while the latter criticized the market economy and insisted on resistance.
Entering the 21st century, with no specific ideology dominating the Chinese people, the rapid development of the Internet provided intellectuals with space to express their ideas.
In the 1980s, Zhang Yiwu kept himself away from sensitive topics like human rights.
“To choose such a topic means to deny and break from society in the 1980s,” Zhang said.
He said “we have more space” nowadays.
Such changes also appeared in philosophy. Fang Jun at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote in his article “Basic Trend of China’s Philosophy Studies at the Turn of the Century” that at the initial phase of China’s reform, philosophy studies focused on the criteria for truth to assist reform in ridding it of ideological barriers.
As reform went deeper, focus shifted to fundamental subjects of the world philosophy community, such as how to overcome or prevent a “culture crisis” after industrialization.
China rises
Increasing globalization and China's enhanced international status also altered international studies.
Nuclear proliferation was a focus of Sino-US issues in the 1990s, according to Shen Dingli, an international relations expert.
“In the 1990s, China had few opportunities to express what it thought and wanted, but was pressed to follow the US,” Shen said. But in the 21st century, the pattern has been changing.
Nuclear proliferation is no longer a centric problem between China and the US. On the contrary, the two countries are seeking strategic cooperation, according to Shen.
“After entering the 21st century, China experienced drastic changes every year,” said Zhang Liping. When she visited the US as a visiting scholar at the end of 1990s, she was surprised at numerous vehicles parked along the streets, varieties of fruits and advanced technology.
But when she came back to China two years later, she was amazed at China’s rapid changes. She found China had almost everything in daily life that the US has.
“In the past, Chinese wanted to know more about the US, but now Americans wanted to know more about China,” said Zhang Liping. When she visited the US again in 2005, she found many seminars discussing China’s rise almost simultaneously.
It was once hard for Zhang to make an appointment with American analysts working at think tanks in the 1990s, but today she can “easily meet the same well-known analysts by merely sending them an e-mail beforehand”.
Two issues lag behind economic development, said Zhang Liping: political reform and environmental protection.
Shen Dingli worries that China’s growing wealth gap and severe corruption might impair people’s confidence in the government and the ruling party.
“Intellectuals should not blindly cater to a specific group, no matter majority or minority, but view society in a rational way and help China find a road that fits with the actual situation,” Zhang Yiwu said.
The influence of China’s intellectuals can be seen in exemptions from agricultural tax, investment in village health care, education and infrastructure systems, education reform and social security system reform, said Wang Hui, an intellectual historian and Tsinghua University professor at an academic forum in Geneva.
“People are more mature now,” said Zhang Yiwu. “They no longer think Western thoughts are China’s ultimate goal.”
Several times during her interview, Zhang Liping emphasized that “radical reform or revolution is extremely insecure and does not work in China.”
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