The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution

Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Introduction......Page 14
Introduction: who is writing history and who are theChinese?......Page 26
The haojie discourse and the Cultural Revolution......Page 28
Violence, brutality and causes......Page 30
Constructive policies......Page 32
Destruction of Chinese culture and tradition......Page 33
Cultural Revolution and cultural creativity......Page 41
What is the Enlightenment?......Page 43
Introduction: speech act of identification......Page 44
From the wounded to the mentalité: the re-rehearsal of May Fourth......Page 45
Be American citizens in thinking......Page 50
Two whateverism......Page 51
The politics of joining the civilized world......Page 53
Media agenda and identification with the West......Page 54
Memoirs, values and identification......Page 55
Conclusion: memories, identity, knowledge and truth......Page 58
Introduction: scope and rationale......Page 61
Memoirs, autobiographies and biographies in Chinese: a literature survey......Page 62
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth......Page 66
Some common themes on Mao and the Cultural Revolution......Page 67
Memories as history......Page 74
Conclusion: discourse, narratives and memories......Page 76
Introduction hyper-promotion of a book......Page 78
Scholarship, what scholarship?......Page 79
Misleading claims and absurd explanations......Page 84
Further evidence of ‘scholarship’......Page 86
Further evidence of flaws and misleading claims......Page 87
Logical inconsistency within the text......Page 88
Mao, China’s Hitler and Stalin......Page 90
Fairy tale and how scholarship changes......Page 91
Does it matter?......Page 92
It does not matter so long as the politics is right......Page 93
Introduction: Mao the known story, a general outline......Page 94
Evidence of the known story......Page 95
So what was the problem?......Page 97
The famine death toll......Page 98
The economy in the Mao era......Page 100
The yardstick of Hitler: a favourite European comparison......Page 101
Mao’s personality: the known story......Page 102
The logic of denial of the known story......Page 103
Academic reception......Page 104
Revolution: from farewell to burial......Page 105
Furet and the French Revolution......Page 106
Is revolution inevitable?......Page 107
An alternative model of development......Page 108
Introduction; expatriate Chinese memories - a literary phenomenon......Page 110
Memories and the politics of knowledge production......Page 111
The book......Page 112
Knowledge gap......Page 113
The logic of the differences in two versions......Page 114
Who is to be fooled and why?......Page 115
Was Li Mao’s personal physician?......Page 116
How much did the doctor know?......Page 117
What did the medical doctor know about politics?......Page 118
The politics of sex......Page 119
History as doctored by the doctor and his US mentors: a critical analysis......Page 120
Conclusion: history what history?......Page 128
Introduction: emerging contrary narratives......Page 130
Media effect, public space and e-media......Page 131
Ma Yinchu, population control and elite attitudes......Page 133
The credibility of Li Rui......Page 134
Challenging the late-Mao thesis......Page 136
Challenging Jung Chang and Jon Halliday......Page 138
Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and the Great Leap Forward......Page 139
Disagreement between Mao and Liu Shaoqi: the two-line struggle thesis......Page 141
Other unofficial views of the Cultural Revolution......Page 145
Sea change of attitudes......Page 146
Kong Qingdong and the cowshed......Page 147
Challenging Wang Youqin......Page 148
Conclusion: the question of truth......Page 149
The state of the economy in the Mao era and during the Cultural Revolution......Page 150
Manufacturing truth......Page 160
Signs of a re-evaluation of Jiang Qing......Page 161
The issues of health care and education......Page 164
A re-evaluation of Kang Sheng?......Page 167
Manufacturing truth and e-media counter-action......Page 168
The legacy of Mao and the e-media......Page 169
Conclusion: voices from the bottom for a battle that has just begun......Page 170
The rise of China, but the risk of collapse......Page 172
The urban–rural divide......Page 173
Three stories of rural pain......Page 174
Rural Chinese: beasts of burden on whom modernity is built......Page 176
The rural–urban divide: values and attitudes......Page 178
Post-Mao reforms: myths versus reality......Page 180
Conclusion: the state and the countryside......Page 184
Introduction: a little incident......Page 186
Three questions about the post-Mao reforms......Page 187
Is China a capitalist country? And does it matter?......Page 190
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics?......Page 198
White cat, black cat: the argument of efficiency versus fairness......Page 202
Seeing the past from the present: a hole in the discursive hegemony......Page 203
Truth and belief values of a political discourse......Page 204
Do the values of socialism matter?......Page 205
Learning from past failures......Page 206
The socialist truth and belief value of land ownership......Page 207
The socialist truth and belief value of labour law......Page 209
The socialist truth and belief values of healthcare and education......Page 210
The battle of China’s history......Page 211
Notes......Page 213
Glossary of Chinese terms and names......Page 224
Bibliography......Page 235
Index......Page 279