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

The Chinese version of The Unknown Story appeared eventually,
thanks to the Kaifang magazine in Hong Kong, one of those anticommunist
popular publications that constantly spread rumours
about mainland China. The book of course has to be published for its
usefulness in sustaining anti-communism.
Let me give one example of many of how Chang and Halliday can be
rather loose with the truth. In order to inform the reader about the evil of
the Chinese communist regime Chang (2006a) claims that when she was
sent by the Chinese government to study in the UK she had to be accompanied
by another student whenever she went out or else she would be
sent back to China. She also claims that she was probably the first student
from mainland China to enter a public bar and the first to go out alone.
In fact that the Chinese government sent students to study in the
UK as early as 1972. I myself went to the UK as student before Chang
in 1977, along with 17 others. The Chinese embassy did advise us that
we should go out at least in pairs for reasons of safety. But we were
never told that if we ventured out alone we would be sent back to
China. In the beginning we went in groups to classes and out to parties
or shopping. But after a while when we got used to our new environment,
we would go out alone whenever we wanted. We visited bars
and sometimes went alone to the red light district in Soho. I even dated
a local girl. Two of us even took a tour trip from the UK to the United
States. None of us was sent back to China.
Academic reception
MAO: THE KNOWN STORY
One would assume that by the commonly accepted standard of scholarship
The Unknown Story should be dismissed immediately. We all
know that if the methods are not sound the resulting conclusions
should be treated with suspicion. It is true that even in natural science
researchers tend to start with presumptions and assumptions. We all
tend to seek evidence to prove our conceptualizations or model of
explanation. However, we also know that if a scientist or a scholar or a
writer distorts evidence deliberately or knowingly the work should be
condemned as a fraud.
The academic community did launch a serious effort to review the
book in the China Journal. Benton and Tsang in their review criticized
Chang and Halliday’s ‘flawed assertions’, for the fact that they ‘misread
sources’, ‘use them selectively’ and ‘out of context’ (Benton and Tsang
2005: 95). Benton and Tsang have repudiated ten major claims made in
the book one by one. Timothy Cheek thinks the book is ‘a great waste of
effort’, and the book’s ‘TV soap opera-”Dallas” (with Mao as “JR”)’,
offers ‘very little that is new’. To Cheek, ‘It is propaganda’ (Cheek 2005:
110). As Barmé rightly points out, Chang and Halliday’s telling of history
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