Volume 43, Number 16 · October 17, 1996
The Hope for China
By Fang Lizhi, Perry Link
Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge
by H. Lyman Miller
University of Washington Press, 370 pp., $18.95 (paper)
'Some people,' declared Mao Zedong in 1959, 'say that we have become isolated from the masses.'[1] By 'some people' Mao meant Peng Dehuai, a subordinate who had dared to criticize Mao's 'Great Leap Forward,' which was just then creating in China the largest famine in world history. Throughout the Communist movement in China, 'some people' has always been code for 'people up to no good politically.' During the military exercises in the Taiwan straits last March, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned that 'some people'—meaning Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui and his associates—are 'attempting to make use of foreign forces for Taiwan independence,' while 'some people'—meaning the US—are making 'a show of force…that will be futile.'[2]
Review, 4709 words
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