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Political Generations in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Michael Yahuda
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Extract

The rapid changes in China of the past few years have quite properly focused much attention on the problems of political succession at the top levels of Chinese politics. In part this is recognized as a generational issue because of the advanced age of the first set of leaders of the People's Republic. Indeed, this is still a question of contemporary significance. Teng Hsiao-p'ing, for example, is alleged to have said that he turned down the premiership in favour of Hua Kuo-feng because he was in his 70s whereas Hua was in his 50s. Therefore, unlike Teng, the latter could expect to guide the modernization programme through to the year 2000. One of the major problems overshadowing the current Chinese leadership (both at the levels of the Political Bureau and even the Central Committee) is that soon a new generation of leaders will replace the old. It is perhaps because of this that the current leadership has been so concerned to consolidate the new order and to set the new modernization programme upon what is hoped will be an irreversible course. At the same time one of the reasons for the reluctance of many officials at all levels of China's bureaucracies to implement the new policies with the enthusiasm and initiative expected in Peking is precisely the fear that the new policies may be reversed by a new set of leaders whose succession in the nature of things cannot be long delayed.

Type
Three Years After Mao
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 80 , December 1979 , pp. 793 - 805
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1979

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References

1. Rintala, Marvin, “Generations: political generations” in The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan and Free Press, 1968), p. 92Google Scholar.

2. See in particular Whitson, William W., “The concept of military generation: the Chinese Communist case,” Asian Survey, Vol. VIII, No. 11 (11 1978)Google Scholar. The literature on Chinese elites is too extensive to be cited here, but a useful collection of articles may be found in Scalapino, Robert A. (ed.), Elites in the People's Republic of China (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

3. See the collection of stories in Tuan-pien hsiao-shuo hsuan 1977–1978/9 (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsueh chu-pan-she, 1978)Google Scholar. See also, Xinhua, Lu, Xinwu, Liu et al. , The Wounded: New Stories of the Cultural Revolution. Trans, by Barmé, Geremie and Lee, Bennett (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., 1979)Google Scholar.

4. For a scholarly account see Shirk, Susan L., “Going against the tide: political dissent in China,” Survey, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter 1979)Google Scholar.

5. Rintala, , “Generations,” p. 93Google Scholar.

6. Barnett, Doak A., Cadres Bureaucracy and Political Power in Communist China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967) has a brief discussion of this pp. 43–45Google Scholar.

7. By Joseph R. Levenson, in three vols (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958–60).

8. See for example, Chun, Hsiang, “A complete reversal of the relations between ourselves and the enemy – criticizing the ‘gang of four’ for distorting Chairman Mao's directive on the bourgeoisie being ‘right in the Communist Party’,” Peking Review, No. 14 (1 04 1977), pp. 6–12Google Scholar.

9. Scalapino, Robert A., “Transition in Chinese party leadership” in his edited Elites in the People's Republic of China, p. 126Google Scholar, calculates their average age in 1956 as 53·4.

10. In addition to the Scalapino volume see the massive Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921–1965 by Klein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B. (Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar.

11. Whitson, , “The concept of military generation,” p. 943Google Scholar.

12. Middleton, Drew, The Duel of the Giants (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978), pp. 170–71 and p. 16Google Scholar.

13. Scalapino, , “Transition,” p. 70Google Scholar: “‘Petty intellectual’ shall refer to students of middle school level and above, together with school teachers at the primary and secondary levels, and individuals of similar occupation. ‘Intellectual’ shall be used to designate journalists, writers, and professors at higher levels.”

14. Chou's speech can be found in Bowie, Robert R. and Fairbank, John K., Communist China 1955–1959: Policy Documents With Analysis (Cambridge Mass and London: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 128–44Google Scholar. For a western figure see Orleans, Leo A., Professional Manpower and Education in Communist China (Washington: National Science Foundation, 1960), p. 6Google Scholar.

15. Chou's speech was in fact directed solely to the purpose of encouraging better use to be made of their skills. For their own complaints in this regard see MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals (New York, Washington and London: Praeger, 1960)Google Scholar.

16. See Howe, Christopher, China's Economy: A Basic Guide (London: Paul Elek, 1978), pp. 24–29Google Scholar.

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18. Whitson, , “The concept of military generation,” pp. 945–46Google Scholar.

19. For a comprehensive analysis of the changes in China's education see Pepper, Suzanne, “Education and revolution: the ‘Chinese model’ revisited,” Asian Survey, Vol. XVIII, No. 9 (09 1978)Google Scholar.

20. For the best account of Hua's career see Oksenberg, Michel and Yeung, Sai-Cheung, “Hua Kuo-feng's pre-Cultural Revolution years, 1949–66: the making of a political generalist,” The China Quarterly, No. 69 (03 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. See supra note 3 and also Bonavia, David, “The Chinese Solzhenitsyns,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 17 08 1979, pp. 20–21Google Scholar.

22. For an eye witness account of the publication of April 5 Forum see Opletal, Helmut, “In search of a better tomorrow,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 09 1979, pp. 28–29Google Scholar.

23. The minister's percentage figure is in the British Broadcasting Corporation, Summary of World Broadcasts, Part III: The Far East, FE/6179. The other figures are from Tientsin Daily in FE/6161. Pepper, Suzanne, “Education and revolution” p. 884Google Scholar, quotes the following figures for 1977: of the 5·7 million young people who sat for the college entrance examinations 278,000 were admitted.