1. See. for example: Barnett, A. Doak, China's Economy in Global Perspective (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1981Google Scholar): Schram, Stuart R., “‘Economics in command?’ Ideology and policy since the Third Plenum, 1978–84,” The China Quarterly (CQ), No. 99 (09 1984). pp. 417–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Baum, Richard (ed.), China's Four Modernizations (Boulder. Colorado: Westview Press, 1980Google Scholar): Oksenberg, Michel and Bush, Richard, “China's political evolution: 1972–82.” Problems of Communism (09–10 1982). pp. 1–19Google Scholar.

2. Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretations of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973Google Scholar).

3. One does not have to join the more extreme school of ethnomethodologists to recognize the significance of cultural and subjective factors in biasing objectivity. Our position on the limits of objectivity is much the same as that of the eminent economist who once observed, “Just because it is impossible to have a perfectly sterile environment does not mean that doctors should operate in sewers.” For a penetrating and balanced analysis of the philosophical problem of objectivity see: Tilley, Nicholas, “Popper, positivism and ethnomethodology,” British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 31, No. 1 (03 1980), pp. 28–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For ethnomethodological critiques of objective social science, see: Giddens, A., Essays in Social and Political Theory (London: Hutchinson, 1977Google Scholar); Filmer, P. et al. , New Directions in Sociological Theory (London: Macmillan, 1972Google Scholar); Zimmerman, Don H., “Ethnomethodology,” American Sociologist, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1978), pp. 6–15Google Scholar; and Taylor, Charles, “Neutrality in political science,” in Laslett, Peter and Runciman, W. G. (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and Society, 3rd series (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), pp. 25–57Google Scholar.

4. In the early years of the People's Republic attempts at relating Chinese culture and communist practices often failed because they treated culture and values in much too literal a form. For example, it was argued that the two were incompatible because Marxism-Leninism stressed “class conflict” while Confucianism emphasized “harmony.” [See, for example, Wright, Arthur F., “Struggle vs. harmony: symbols of competing values in modern China,” World Politics, Vol. VI, No. 1 (10 1983), pp. 31–44]Google Scholar. The point that was missed was that the tradition of harmony persisted and helped to reinforce the demands for conformity and consensus.

5. The fact that in Great Britain and China pragmatism is so manifestly the opposite of ideology tends to obscure the more fundamental dimension of their separate versions of pragmatism. In contrast, in American political culture pragmatism has an ambiguous character, for it involves not just being practical in getting the job done but it must also serve to reconcile the congeries of values in what Samuel Huntington has called the “American creed.” Since American politics lacks a coherent ideological basis for giving priorities to the diverse, and generally conflicting, values of the creed, and since the creed itself contains a peculiar anti-power ethic which serves to “delegitimate” all hierarchical authority, pragmatism is called upon to cope with the often unsavory task of reconciling the inevitable tensions in an unsystematic creed. [See Huntington, Samuel P., American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981Google Scholar).] Although Americans will pay lip-service to pragmatism, there is something patently absurd about upholding the value of practicality and efficiency in a political system that is designed to check and balance authority but works to produce paralysis – it is no wonder that any American politician who shows signs of achieving results will instantly arouse more than the normal paranoia among his competitors.

6. George, Alexander, “The operational code: a neglected approach to the study of political leaders and decision-making,” International Studies Quarterly, No. 13 (1969), pp. 109–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Delfs, Robert, “China's changing image: ideology, reports of a death greatly exaggerated.” Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 03 1985, pp. 88–92Google Scholar.

8. Among the numerous Chinese articles discussing the concept of a “commodity economy,” typical are: Guoliang, Hong, “Socialism is not the highest stage of a commodity economy,” Guangming ribao (Guangming Daily), 10 02 1985Google Scholar, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), 22 February 1985, p. K. 11; Zhichao, Lu, “Deepening a scientific understanding of socialism,” 4 February 1985, FBIS, 27 02 1985, pp. K 14–19Google Scholar; Yangyan, Song, “The key lies in the existence of collective ownership,” Guangming ribao, 23 12 1984Google Scholar, FBIS 16 January 1985, pp. K 24–25; Tianzhong, He, “Distribution according to work and the law of value,” Guangming ribao. 10 02 1985Google Scholar, FBIS, 25 February 1985, pp. K 17–19.

9. Hsu, Francis L.K., Under the Ancestors’ Shadow (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948Google Scholar); and Americans and Chinese: Two Ways of Life (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1953Google Scholar).

10. Weber, Max, The Religion of China, translated and edited by Gerth, Hans H. (Glencoe, II: The Free Press, 1951Google Scholar).

11. Wolf, Arthur P. (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974Google Scholar); Thompson, Laurence G., Chinese Religion: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Encino, Ca: Dickenson Publishing Co., 1975Google Scholar); Yang, C. K., Religion in Chinese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970Google Scholar).

12. The phenomenal ease with which Chinese can change attitudes with changed circumstances was dramatically demonstrated by the behaviour of prisoners in the Korean War. See George, Alexander L., The Chinese Communist Army in Action (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967Google Scholar) and for examples during the Emergency in Malaya see: Pye, Lucian W., Guerrilla Communism in Malaya (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956Google Scholar).

13. A typical example of such reifying of judgments about world politics is Junhui, Jin, “Reagan's diplomacy: an overview,” Beijing Review, Vol. 28, No. 24 (17 06 1985), pp. 21–25Google Scholar.

14. Zhonqiu's, Zhou “Base socialism on a reality” (Guangming ribao, 20 05 1985Google Scholar, FBIS, 6 June 1985, p. K 11–13) is an excellent example of the Chinese practice of extolling the need to base all “actions on reality” without giving the slightest hint as to what the realities of current Chinese politics are, beyond praising reality. The author, of course, is not so foolish as to try to spell out what constitutes reality in today's China, for he knows that all that is now called for is to signal that everyone should praise the idea of “facing reality” and “opposing idealism.”

15. Jacobs, Bruce, “A preliminary model of particularistic ties in Chinese political alliances: kan-ch'ing and kuan-hsi in a rural Taiwanese township,” CQ, No. 78 (06 1979), pp. 237–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the concept of kanqing see: Fried, Morton, Fabric of Chinese Society (New York: Praeger, 1953Google Scholar; reprinted New York: Octagon Books, 1969, pp. 103–104).

16. Pillsbury, Barbara L.K., “Factionalism observed: behind the face of harmony in a Chinese community,” CQ, No. 74 (06 1978), pp. 241–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. For a comparison of the various Asian systems of patron-client relationships, see: Pye, Lucian W.Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985Google Scholar).

18. Jacobs. “A preliminary model.”

19. Hiniker, Paul, “Chinese reactions to forced compliance: dissonance reduction and national character,” Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 77 (1969), pp. 157–76CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

20. Psychopolitical Analysis: Selected Writings of Nathan Leites, edited by Marvick, Elizabeth Wirth (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1977), p. 214Google Scholar.

21. Kao, George (ed.), Chinese Wit and Humor (New York: Coward-McCann, 1946), p. 275Google Scholar.

22. Schram, Stuart R., “‘Economics in command?’”, p. 427Google Scholar. Chinese leaders are, of course, not the only politicians given to contradictions in terms: Senator Edward M. Kennedy recently denounced a Republican action as “a transparent cover-up.” (Safire, William, “Whose oxymoron is gored,” New York Times Magazine, 2 06 1985, p. 16Google Scholar.)

23. Personal communications.

24. I have examined in greater detail the relationship of thought to action and the low level of procrastination in Chinese political culture in The Spirit of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1968), pp. 135–48Google Scholar.

25. Guangming ribao, 6 April 1985, p. 1, FBIS, 12 April 1985, p. K 17.

26. James, William, Pragmatism and the Meaning of Truth, introduction by Ayer, A. J. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975Google Scholar), Introd. and Ch. l; and Dewey, John, The Quest for Certainty (New York: Perigee Books, 1980Google Scholar, first printed in 1929).

27. “Economic reforms will continue despite mistakes,” Asian Wall Street Journal, 22 July 1985, p. 8. It should be observed that American scholars of contemporary China regularly exhibit a strange xenophilia because even though they live in a country where government learning is minuscule they preserve an almost unquestioned faith that the Chinese Government is successfully learning from experience, as though it were a collectivity of experimental scientists.

28. For an exceptionally vivid account of the psychological trauma experienced by the victims of the Cultural Revolution, based on prolonged and skilful interviews, see Thurston's, Anne two-part article, “Victims of China's Cultural Revolution: the invisible wounds,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter 1984–1985), pp. 599–620CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Vol. 58, No. 1 (Spring 1985), pp. 5–27. By way of conclusion she cites an interviewee who displays a need for optimism by professing his faith in Deng and the Party, showing even some respect for Mao, and bowing to the dictates of Chinese patriotism a most paralysing constraint on Chinese pragmatism which we shall come to below.

29. Yaobang, Hu, “On the Party's journalism work,” Meeting of the CPC Central Committee Secretariat, Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 14 04 1985. p. 3Google Scholar, FBIS. April 1985, p. K9.

30. Wilson, Richard W., Learning To Be Chinese (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1970), Ch. 1Google Scholar.

31. Shipler, David K., Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams (New York: Times Books, 1983), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

32. Isaacs, Harold R., Re-Encounters in China (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1985Google Scholar).

33. “Lu Keng's interview with Hu Yaobang,” Pai hsing, Hong Kong, No. 92 (1 06 1985), pp. 3–16Google Scholar, FBIS, 3 June 1985, pp. W 2–3.

34. On the Chinese hope to skip over the initial industrial revolution and move directly to the electronic and biotech age as described by Toffler, see: Simon, Denis F. and Finger, Thomas, “An overview,” special issue on science and technology in China, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 40, No. 8 (10 1984), pp. 1–15Google Scholar.

35. Elvin, Mark, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973Google Scholar).

36. Levenson, Joseph, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958Google Scholar).

37. Rosen, Stanley, “Prosperity, privatization, and China's youth,” Problems of Communism, 03–04 1985, pp. 1–28Google Scholar.

38. For a detailed, first hand account of the limits set on the development of political science see: Morrison, Kent and Thompson, Robert, “Teaching political science in China,” News for Teachers of Political Science, a publication of the American Political Science Association, No. 45 (Spring 1985), pp. 1–3Google Scholar.

39. For a more detailed discussion of the problems patriotism has created for Chinese intellectuals and which limited their political effectiveness in modern,, times – countering the traditional Confucian interpretation of the scholar as the key authority figure – see my Asian Power and Politics: Cultural Dimensions of Authority.