The Opening of the Chinese Mind: Democratic Changes in China Since 1978 (review)

490 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Jing Lin. The Opening ofthe Chinese Mind: Democratic Changes in China Since 1978. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994. xv, 186 pp. Hardcover $49·95> isbn 0-275-94594-4. Those looking for a liberal-democratic interpretation of recent Chinese history would be interested in Jing Lin's The Opening ofthe Chinese Mind. Professor Lin outlines the oppression of "Communist China" and then discusses the monumental economic, political, and cultural changes that occurred between 1978 and 1989. Her conclusion is that "Setting up a democratic system in China is going to be a slow process but will likely proceed, for the people are no longer passive and obedient citizens but are becoming increasingly more critical thinkers and effective participants in processes that affect their own lives." This emergence of a new "critical thinking," which is echoed throughout the volume, leads to the major criticism of the project. Though Lin is stressing openmindedness and criticism, she does not exercise much of it herself. The book is peppered with stereotypes ofboth China and "the West" that romanticize the oppression /freedom opposition that liberal analysis sets up. In this way, Lin is actually reproducing much of the power relationships that she and others criticize so vehemently: it is "out with the old and in with new" all over again. This time it is out with "communism" and in with "capitalism," out with "politics" and in with "economics." Rather than look at the new dynamic of political-economics now that relations have been commodified, Lin leaves us with the impression that now everyone is free, when actually now everythingis very expensive . Lin actually points these things out—but as a celebratory note rather than an analysis. Still, politics is not gone; it has merely shifted to a new terrain. Perhaps the problem here is that Lin is trying to cover too large an area in too small a space and with too few resources: the author bases her research into "the Chinese Mind" on twenty questionnaires. Many of the details in the book are nonetheless fascinating, but before the reader can get a critical view, Lin has moved on to the next topic. In other words, the analysis is quite thin, and sometimes very sloppy. For example, the opening lines state that Mao Zedong ruled China for twenty-seven years—completely rolling over the internal struggles of the Communist Party. This actually reinscribes an official view ofhistory: jiefangqian /hou, before/after liberation, where liberation is now in 1976 rather than 1949. Though it may be convenient, postulating such a clean break tends to lead one© 1996 fry University away from a critical view ofboth the past and the present. ofHawai'i PressJjn ^50 misspells the romanization ofone ofher main sources: it should be Liu Binyan, not Liu Binyian. Likewise, she translates Heshangas "River Eulogy" rather than "River Elegy" or "Deathsong of a River." There is quite a difference Reviews 491 between a "Eulogy," which is characteristically full ofpraise, and an "Elegy," which is more mournful. IfLin thinks that "Eulogy" is more appropriate for shang (grief), then she should argue her case. William A. Callahan University of Durham, United Kingdom William A. Callahan is a lecturer in EastAsian International Relations in the Politics Department, and is workingon a book titled Confucian Ideology and Greater China. Liu Sola. Chaos and AU That. Translated by Richard King. Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press, 1994. 134 pp. Hardcover $19.95, ISBN 0-8248-1617-x. Paperback $11.95, isbn 0-8248-1651-x. Freshness is a good thing, but freshness must soon fade. It often happens that a new work is welcomed because it speaks in a fresh voice, talks ofthings formerly suppressed, and represents characters that the reader has never met in print before and outlooks that have changed because the times have changed. But when the novel has become familiar, it may suffer the fate ofan old newspaper, to be consigned to the library archives, having had its day. Liu Sola's novelette Chaos and All Thathad all the qualities of freshness just mentioned when it was published in Hong Kong in 1991. It spoke for a generation ofChinese...