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

THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’ S PAST
comprehend how he bested all his rivals to lead China and emerge as
one of the most worshipped figures in history’. Nevertheless, Kristof
still declares ‘this is a magisterial work’ (Kristof 2005). Professor Perry
Link of Princeton and one of the editors of the Tiananmen Papers, while
feeling compelled to say something about the book’s methodology, has
a largely positive review of it (Link 2005b).
The academic community in general seems critical of the book, as
seen in a special issue of the China Journal (2006), whereas the media
seems to be generally positive. The function of the media is discussed
further in later chapters, but it suffices to say here that it will take
years, if ever, to deconstruct the Chang and Halliday ‘truth’ promoted
by the media. I totally agree with Thomas Bernstein (2005) who thinks
that ‘the book is a major disaster for the contemporary China field.’
‘Because of its stupendous research apparatus, its claims will be
accepted widely.’
It does not matter so long as the politics is right
To demonize Mao is the right politics of course. When someone pasted
some criticism of the Chang and Halliday book on the Amazon sales
website, it was immediately attacked as ‘ugly Chinese propaganda’
(Jin Xiaoding 2005). On the other hand, Jin’s critique of the book was
met with absolute silence by the Western media (no Western media
outlet was ready to publish the 17 questions raised by Jin). When the
Chinese version of Jin’s critique appeared on the Chinese language
website duowei (http://blog.chinesenewsnet.com), there was a lively
debate. Jung Chang had to admit, when asked, that Jin’s 17 questions
are good questions but refused to provide convincing replies to them.
For the Western media it does not matter as long as the politics is right,
and the right politics is that Mao must be discredited. In the next
chapter I will consider why.
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