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

THE BATTLE OF CHINA’ S HISTORY
ills annually cause 300,000 deaths and cost $200 billion – equivalent to
10 per cent of the gross domestic product – due to loss of work, medical
expenses and government outlays’ (Kwong 2006).
Some policies result in environmental degradation even when their
ostensible goal is the exact opposite. Take the case of Yunnan, where 94
per cent of the land area is mountainous, as an example. In 1981, the
CCP and the State Council issued a policy document 5 known as San
ding or the ‘The three fixed’: fixed mountain rights, fixed forestry rights
and fixed responsibility. The policy was designed to copy the so-called
success of the responsibility system in agriculture by producing a kind
of forestry responsibility system. It was assumed that giving individual
households the right to manage sections of forestry would
ensure that the same households would look after the forest in a
responsible fashion. What happened instead was that the locals used
their rights to chop down the trees and sell them. Within three years,
the once thickly forested mountains were chopped bare. Any forest
that was left was due to the impossibility of access. Now the locals
have nothing to rely on for their livelihood and are dependent on
government handouts (Zhang Deyuan 2005).
White cat, black cat: the argument of efficiency versus fairness
From the late 1970s until his death, Deng Xiaoping was adamant that
there should be no debate on whether China was a socialist or capitalist
country, because he believed the debate would pose an obstacle
to development. He proposed a deliberate strategy of ambiguity so
that capitalist elements could creep into the system. This pragmatic
approach was ideologically legitimized by the philosophy that
‘practicum is the sole criterion of truth’, which was summarized by the
post-Mao Deng-led authorities as one of the essential elements of Mao
Zedong Thought. 6
What was clear to China’s political and intellectual elite policy
makers was that the Western style of life and material abundance was
to be desired, and if a way could be found to achieve that goal, it did
not matter what ‘ism’ it took. It does not matter whether the cat is
white or black so long as it catches mice. This strategy of development
eventually rendered the debate about the colour of the cat seemingly a
non-issue. Since then, even though there has been a split between the
so-called New Left and Liberals among the intellectual elite (Gao 2004,
Kipnis 2003, Zhang Xudong 2001 and Hu 2004), the dominant voice in
China’s intellectual discourse has been economic rationalism, which
argues that efficiency should take priority over fairness. The underlying
assumption is that if and when efficiency leads to greater wealth
in the country, everyone will be better off.
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