My interests in Chinese politics started in 1973–5 when I was receiving “reeducation” in a remote mountain village in Yunnan Province. In addition to heavy manual labor in the field, all the readings available to me there were the four-volume Selected Works of Mao Zedong, and the Yunnan Daily and People's Daily, which always arrived a week late. A tennager hungry for everything, material and spiritual, I virtually devoured every word in these publications. What fostered my interests in CCP politics, however, were the many questions I had in reading Mao's works and the gap between the newspaper propaganda and reality. I soon indulged myself in frequent correspondences with my friends in which we exchanged our ideas, knowledge, and opinions drawn from questions in Mao's works and the constantly changing situation during those turbulent years. Although such exchanges would continue for years, I actually tried to suppress my interests in CCP politics after I entered college, where I majored in English literature and later earned an M. A. degree in history. An essential reason was that the study of CCP politics was seen as a dangerous activity in China, for any steps outside the official line could result in a purge. Yet I could not really give up my interests in Chinese politics because my life experiences in the CCP political system made my desire for the answers insuppressible.

I was fortunate to sit in Roderick MacFarqhuar's class at Harvard University in 1987.