The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (China Studies)

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)

China Studies Published for the Institute for Chinese Studies University of Oxford

Editors

Glen Dudbridge Frank Pieke

VOLUME 9

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Shaping the Reforms, Academia and China (1977–2003)

By

Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

on the cover: The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

This book was published with financial support from the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, the Netherlands, www.iias.nl.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISSN: 1570-1344 ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15323 3 ISBN-10: 90 04 15323 3 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

To my teachers

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes on the Spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xiii xv xvii xix

part i. introducing cass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Chapter One. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Aims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Questions, problems and methodological limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Collecting materials: politics, administrative organization and livelihood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Participant observation and the questions it raised . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Structure and contents of Shaping the Reforms, Academia and China . . 13 Chapter Two. Locating CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CASS and the political establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CASS as an organization under the State Council and Party supervision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CASS and the generation of ‘public discussion’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Internal and external organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Professional titles and ranking at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lateral relations and personnel exchange. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Three. The Establishment of CASS and the Process of PRC State-Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Academic institutes and China’s state building process since 1949 The precursor of CASS: the Xuebu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Establishing CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The formation of CASS: a vote for order and informed authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Building state institutions and regulating academic life . . . . . . . . . . .

17 17 19 23 30 30 32

35 36 37 40 44 49

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part ii. pre-1989 academic struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Chapter Four. Initial Reform (1977–1982)—Rehabilitations and Expectations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Leadership changes at CASS (1977–1982) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Chapter Five. Academic Democracy and Spiritual Pollution (1982–1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ups and downs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spiritual pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leadership changes at CASS (1982–1985) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Criticizing both Left and Right. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Six. Division among Intellectuals (1985–1988)—Socialist Modernization and the Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing the leadership of CASS (1985–1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relaxation and some major hiccups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tying down Bourgeois Liberalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Repercussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Compromising political reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Closing the first decade: intellectual dispute and co-option in a socialist nation-state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67 68 69 72 75

77 79 80 87 90 95 98

part iii. from critical to guided academic dispute (1988–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Chapter Seven. Increasing Open Conflict in the Ideological Sphere (1988–1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Revaluation of socialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Disillusionment among reformists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Proponents of neo-authoritarianism and of democracy . . . . . . . . 113 Increasingly open debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Around the June Fourth 1989 demonstrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Leadership changes (1988–1991). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Punitive measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

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Chapter Eight. Tightening Control and the Liberalization of Academic Research (1990–1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 The primacy of the CASS Party Committee and the ‘responsibility system’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 The implementation of the responsibility system and the ‘twenty-character guideline’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Yu Wen and the ‘Work Regulations for Academic Planning’ . . 136 Deng’s Southern Inspection Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Chapter Nine. Deepening the Reforms (1993–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Shaping the ‘Deepening of the Reforms’ and ‘Earning Money’ at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Change of leadership (1993–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 CASS leaders and state policy-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 State policy-making and research: spreading the message . . . . . . . . 155 The case of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Academic work under the aegis of Party Committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Chapter Ten. Who Works at CASS and Why? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Research and political requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Recruitment problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Working conditions at CASS (1989–1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Promotion, benefits and facilities at CASS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Rewards and benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Financial burdens of CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Financial incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Conducting research at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Part three: from critical to guided academic dispute (1988–1998) 182 Leaders and the led: patterns of institutional development . . . . 182 Patron dependency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Leadership adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Regulatory functions of the academic hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

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part iv. reforms at cass: symbolic knowledge, party guidance, and academic streamlining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Chapter Eleven. National, Rational, and Symbolic Understanding in Academic China and CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Reconceptualizing the nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Feudalism and the backward nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Party-state and dissidence: diverging concepts of national strength and authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Symbolic and cognitive aspects of knowledge production . . . . . . . . 202 An example: Jiang Zemin’s symbolism and the mission of patriotic intellectuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 National symbolism and the rationality of research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Chapter Twelve. The Transformation of Party Guidance in CASS 213 Transforming party guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Practice as the only criterion for truth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Modernizing Marxism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Dealing with the failure of the political reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Re-identification of Party loyalty with the nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Guidelines for academic writing under Socialism with Chinese Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 The Key Research Items and the Compass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 The changing role of Party guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Chapter Thirteen. Streamlining CASS—From Direct Control to Regulatory Information Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Deepening of the Reforms in the early 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 The ‘Views’ and the Deepening of Reforms at CASS . . . . . . . . . . 236 Personnel management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Academic exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 The re-organization of disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Applied research at CASS—Jiang Zemin’s ascendance . . . . . . . . . . 249 Democratic centralism and bi-directional elections . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Part IV: reforms at CASS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

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part v. shaping cass and the world under li tieying and after . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Chapter Fourteen. Li Tieying and the Role of CASS in State Policy-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 The reign of Li Tieying: appreciating CASS (1998–2003) . . . . . . . . 261 Role and leadership assignments to CASS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Li Tieying and the restructuring of CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 The information flow between CASS and the CC of the CCP . . . 265 Streamlining CASS research and the reorganization of major research items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Working conditions at CASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Reforms at CASS under Li Tieying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Chapter Fifteen. Changing the System from Within? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Financial and political ties since the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Academic reforms and monitored freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Criteria for grouping intellectuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Academic guidelines, ceremony and ritual. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Authority, dissidence and symbolism under Jiang Zemin . . . . . . 293 Changing academic life (and the world) from within . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Appendix I. CASS Research Institutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Appendix II. Chronology of the Founding of the Xuebu and CASS Institutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Appendix III. Economic Research Institutes and Their Research Divisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Appendix IV. The History of the Leadership System of CASS . . . . . . 311 Appendix V. Selection of commemorations held at CASS from 1992 to 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Appendix VI. Ritualized Occasions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Bibliography: Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Bibliography: European Languages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 Chinese Glossary of Recurrent Concepts and Key Phrases. . . . . . . . . . 359 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). In particular, I would like to thank the Institute of Philosophy (where I stayed from September 1997 to June 1998) for its friendly welcome and hospitality. I am especially indebted to the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR), whose generous support made possible this study, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for its financial assistance, and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) for giving me the opportunity to work on its revision and facilitate its editing. I also would like to thank the copy-editor, Robert Mory, for his dedication and precision. I would like to express my special thanks to Peter van der Veer, my Ph.D. supervisor, Sikko Visscher and Hans Sonneveld, who read and commented on the first version of the manuscript, and Frank Pieke, who encouraged me to publish it. I am very grateful to Sytse Strijbos for introducing me to Min Jiayin, whose support and friendship have been invaluable to the writing of this book. I would also like to express my thanks to Zhang Nan, and Tony Saich for the materials they introduced to me. And of course there are Fang Yuji and Sun Cuihua, who have played a special role during my fieldwork in Beijing. As always, I am thankful for the warmth I received from family and friends. And, finally, I would like to thank Alex Faulkner for his helpful comments on the manuscript, and his loving support.

ABBREVIATIONS

CAC CAS CASS CC CCP CIS CND E FLP GATT GNP IWEP KMT NPC PCODC PLA PRC RMB SERI SEZ’s SOEs SSTC WTO YB

Central Advisory Commission Chinese Academy of Science Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Central Committee Chinese Communist Party State Council Centre for International Studies China News Digest English Foreign Language Press General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross National Product Institute of World Economy and Politics Kuo Min Tang [Guomindang], Nationalist Party National People’s Congress Party Committee for Organs Directly under the Centre People’s Liberation Army Peoples’ Republic of China Renminbi (Chinese currency, also denominated as yuan) Social and Economic Research Institute Special Economic Zones State Owned Enterprises State Science & Technology Commission World Trade Organization Yearbook

NOTES ON THE SPELLING

Chinese terms and names are written in Hanyu pinyin, with the exception of a few names that are better known in the Wade-Giles transcription, such as Sun Yat-sen [Sun Zhongshan] and Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi]. I stick to the Chinese convention of names, writing the surname first and personal name last.

TABLE OF FIGURES

Fig. 1 (p. 31) Fig. 2 (p. 167) Fig. 3 (p. 167) Fig. 4 (p. 174) Fig. 5 (p. 175) Fig. 6 (p. 176) Fig. 7 (p. 243)

Titles in the leadership hierarchy Numbers of personnel and professional staff (1977–1998) Increase in medical costs (1991–1993) Dwindling numbers of journals purchased (1986–1994) The increase in costs spent on literature (1991–1993) Housing Shortage (1993/4) Academic exchanges at CASS (1992–1998) (and the three fields with the highest numbers of academic exchanges) Fig. 8 (p. 267) The Rising Cost of Maintaining Academics

part i INTRODUCING CASS

chapter one INTRODUCTION

Aims This book is a socio-political history of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). It is an analysis of the role of CASS in national policymaking from the start of the reforms in 1978 and of the ways in which the reforms have shaped CASS. It is usually assumed that, since the start of the reforms, the role of politics in the social sciences has diminished. This study of CASS shows, however, that matters are not that simple: the study does this by revealing how changes in political pressures and guidelines have radically altered the set-up of the social sciences. These alterations were achieved gradually by the weaving of a complex net of regulatory devises for steering the organization and programmes of the social sciences. Furthermore, an evolutionary notion of the social sciences in China, confirmed by a considerable number of scholars, has promulgated the idea that social science will be characterized by a relative freedom of speech and unrestrained debate. I disagree with this notion, arguing that even though the past has shown a trend in this direction, it is not likely to continue into the near future. In support of this argument, I show how political direction is given in the development of social-science debate, and how the contents of the debate are steered by encouraging modes of thought that eschew radical political change. Guiding debate is not done secretly; it takes place in the open, and it assumes the forms of rules, regulations, celebrations, guidelines, ceremonies, formal meetings, recruitment strategies, topical academic activities and financial, material and social encouragement. Though much debate has concentrated on comparing and assessing differences between Chinese and Western academic institutions, I have no such ambition. I believe such contrasts to have little value as they easily lead to essentialist pronouncements and static views of complex processes of institutional development. Rather, I intend to provide an opportunity for the reader to think about how social science is steered

4

chapter one

and guided in various ways in various contexts, and how it is embedded in the institutional and political framework of nation-state formation. The analysis of the organizational structure of intellectual life and its link with the socio-political production of knowledge in a range of socialscience fields in China is relatively rare. This is probably so because, after the 1978-reforms, it became increasingly difficult to discern clear and simple ideological structures in the great diversity of academic papers and works published by CASS. Nevertheless, an institutional history of CASS produces useful insights into trends and functions of academic work. These insights could explain why, if it is true that the state has decreased its political interference in academic research, the state still pours money (and increasingly more since Li Tieying’s presidency) into some social-science research programmes and not into others? CASS is organized directly under the Ministry of Education, and it is advertised as China’s most prestigious institution of higher learning and academic advisory organ of all governmental bodies. Is it possible that CASS’s advisory function to the state is unrelated to its academic research programmes? A closer study of the link between the organizational structure of CASS and its research regulations, therefore, provides insights into how the so-called free competition among academic schools of thought is supported with political guidance. It also shows how political research in an academic environment is organized and how state policy-makers absorb a part of its research results. Another reason for studying CASS is related to the image of the strengths of academia. There is a tendency among observers of intellectuals outside and inside the educational system to ascribe to academia either the capacity for changing society at will or realist behaviour understood as a logical outcome of political strife. Both views ignore the relatively independent structural dynamics of institutes and the indirect role of pressures exerted by the decisions made about the structural organization of academic institutions. In the case of CASS, these indirect factors influence research planning and contribute to the lasting coherency of the institute. Finally, this book makes a distinction between the way in which intellectuals view their own role in the process of political and administrative change and the changes that actually took place, as illustrated by the reforms at CASS. Lip service is paid to an amalgam of ideologies that are easily subsumed under the encompassing concepts of Chinese ‘neonationalism’, ‘neo-conservatism’ and ‘post-modernism’. Those concepts,

introduction

5

however, indicate little more than the importance attached to notions of nationalism, Marxist conservatism, Chinese tradition, science and Western Enlightenment ideologies, and post-modernism in the work of Chinese intellectuals. What is actually done and the way that research themes are planned and developed are questions that remain unanswered. Additionally, a distinction between intellectuals in general (non-professional scholars) and academics at CASS provides us with insight into the motives for intellectuals to pursue an academic career, by looking at the circumstances of their employment and their alternatives. After all, it is as people that academics and administrators run institutes.

Questions, problems and methodological limitations The role played by CASS as an academic research institute in policymaking can be partly understood in the light of the way it is organized and supervised. Only a part of its staff is directly involved in advisory research, but all of its research projects are expected to make a contribution to the goals of China’s modernization. For instance, in the late 1990s, key projects formulated by the leadership enjoyed priority, and scholars who were engaged in other research projects had to work within the constraints of official ideological stipulations. This study can only make a rough estimation of such constraints on intellectual endeavour, as information about internal directives and decrees is limited, and as it is difficult to check which of the numerous possible pressures on researchers actually affect their work. Collecting materials: politics, administrative organization and livelihood The study of the interaction between politics, administrative organization and the practical livelihood of intellectuals in an academic community requires more than data on the activities of separate intellectuals and politics.1 Whether in China or in Holland, not many academics are 1 Some very useful works as a general orientation on intellectuals and leadership decision-making in China are Wolfgang Bartke, Who’s Who in the People’s Republic of China (Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1981); Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1994); M. Goldman, T. Cheek, and C.H. Hamrin, eds., China’s Intellectuals and the State: In Search of a New Relationship (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press/The Council on East Asian Studies, 1987); Carol Lee Hamrin and Timothy Cheek, China’s

6

chapter one

aware, or like to admit, that the contents and forms of professional views are subject to social pressures, incentives and influences from the community that provides them with a living and an audience. It is not possible, I believe, to separate professional views from the academic and social contexts they exist in. One of the reasons for the suspicion of links between academic views and their environment is that, to scientists, it is a challenge to say new and relevant things about society that are not reducible to the situation and environment they are in. Not doing so would leave the way open for political and social reductionism. This is why ad hominem arguments are usually, and rightly so, regarded as ‘unfair’. I do not think one should muddle up an author’s theoretical argument by discussing the possible motives he or she may have had in constructing it. That is, it is not permissible unless one is making a study of the way the two are related. And although I subscribe to the view that intellectuals should ideally try to transcend the limitations of their environment as much as they can, this challenge can only be met by becoming aware of these limitations and the way they help to shape one’s intellectual production. This study therefore illustrates the intertwining of political, social and cultural factors that shape part of academic life. The issue of intertwinement is very complex, by definition. In CASS the discussion of how academic knowledge is produced is in itself subject to political debate and relevant to the allocation of financial and material sources. For this study, I listened to and observed countless academic meetings, while gathering information about existing views on political affinities, working facilities, and academic organizations separately, and, later, cross-checked the accounts of individual researchers on their experience in the academic community. I set out by studying the history and the evolution of the organizational structure of CASS: the ways in which CASS has changed over the last decades, CASS policies on employment and promotion, and guidelines Establishment Intellectuals (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1986); Carol Lee Hamrin and Zhao Suisheng, eds., Decision-making in Deng’s China (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995); Lee Chinchuan, ed., Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism (New York: Guilgord Press, 1990); Lee Chin-chuan, ed., China’s Media, Media’s China (Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994); Kenneth G. Lieberthal and David M. Lampton, eds., Bureaucracy, Politics, and Decision Making in Post-Mao China (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1992); H. Lyman Miller, Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1996); Denis Fred Simon and Merle Goldman, eds., Science and Technology in Post-Mao China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1989); Who’s Who Editorial Board, Who’s Who in China Current Leaders (Beijing: FLP, 1994).

introduction

7

for conducting research and teaching. I was interested in the official aims and policies of the separate institutes and the connections between them, since they could tell me how established research policies are legitimized. I also checked out the reputations of well-known CASS academics with colleagues, in bookshops, newspapers, and periodicals. I examined the development of working conditions at CASS, current and past research projects, research aims, and the promulgation of regulations found in official documents and reports in the Yearbooks of CASS.2 The yearbooks of CASS also provided me with useful overviews of changes in higherlevel personnel, since they list important works written by CASS staff. I also tried to locate the position of CASS institutionally, with regard to the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter: Party), state and other higher institutions of research and education; and I looked into the procedures for deciding the research curriculum. Additionally, I collected estimations of the financial situation of CASS, and its prospects, especially as a recipient of the distribution of financial and material resources. Works important to discussions on the management of social science research and its regulation in this study include ‘Thinking on Management in Studies of Modern Social Sciences’ by Yang Zhi and Fang Yiming (1991), and ‘The State of Research and Developmental Trends in Each Discipline of Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (1996), edited by the National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office.3 I formed an idea about the kind of research done by PhD students and researchers by perusing the Academic Yearbooks, compilations by the CASS Scientific Research Bureau of ‘Abstracts of (the Work of) CASS Academic Theorist’ (1991–1993),4 and collections of Ph.D. theses from 1993 to 2 CASS Yearbook Editorial Committee (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Nianjian Bianji Weiyuanhui), ed., (199–) Yearbook of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1993–2002) (Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Nianjian ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾ƲĞ), (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 199–). Other useful overviews are those by Ru Xin and Yi Kexin, eds., ‘Handbook for Contemporary Chinese Social Science’ (Dangdai Zhongguo shehui kexue shouce pk̰ÝȁĀŒʳȤ8) and Zhang Zhuo’s ‘An Overview of China’s Social Science in the Nineties’ (Jiushi niandai Zhongguo shehui kexue yaolan ŀȒƲk̰ÝȁĀŒʳˉš). 3 National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office (Quanguo Zhexue Shehui Kexue Guihua Bangongshi), ed., ‘The State of Research and Developmental Trends in Each Discipline of Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (Zhexue shehui kexue ge xueke yanjiu zhuangkuang yu fazhan qushi ̓ʳȁĀŒʳÆʳŒʺľ̀Ŝ˱š̌ǚȜ), (Beijing: Xueri Chubanshe. Yang Zhi and Fang Yiming, ‘Thinking on Management in Studies of Modern Social Sciences’ (Guanli silu: xiandai shehui kexue yanjiu ÕťȳƇ ʋkȁĀŒʳʺľ), (Hefei: Anhui People’s Publishing House, 1996). 4 CASS Scientific Research Bureau, ed., Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Keyanju ed., 1993–1995.

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1997.5 I found a history of academic degrees in China in Wu Benxia’s ‘Discussing China’s Academic Graduation and the Education of Research Students’ (1993),6 and in the State Council’s National Registration of Schools of Higher Education and Academic Institutions That Confer the Titles of BA and MA’ (1987).7 Other useful works pertinent to academic policy-making at CASS and in general included reports and documents that gave me an impression of: – How academics become well-known, such are found in ‘A Gathering of Famous Teachers’, produced by the Education Affairs Office (1998), and ‘Confessions of a New Generation of Thinkers’ by Wenlin Haitao (1998);8 – How researchers are recruited and what kind of research is expected from scholars, such as are found in the ‘Subject Compass of the 1998 State Plan for Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (1997);9 – The latest developments on interdisciplinary research, such as is discussed in Jin Wulun’s ‘A Guiding Theory of Interdisciplinary Scientific Research’ (1997);10 and, – Official evaluations of the development of the social sciences since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These include ‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1999)’, edited by Li Tieying, et al. (main editor); ‘Looking Back and onto the New Era of Social Science and Future Prospects’, (1998), edited by the CASS General Office/Scientific Research Bureau; ‘China Philosophical Development Report 1999’, (2000), edited by the CASS ‘Philosophy Research’ Editorial Office; and,

5 CASS Graduate School Academic Degree Office (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Yanjiusheng Yuan Xuewei Bangongshi, 1994, 1997, 1998). 6 Wu Benxia, 1993. 7 State Council Academic Degree Committee, ed., (Guowuyuan Xuewei Weiyuanhui), 1987. 8 Education Affairs Office, ed. (Jiaowuchu ħɿW), ‘A Gathering of Famous Teachers’ (Mingshi Huicui Ƥȏ͙͚), (Beijing: Zhongguo Jingji Chubanshe, 1998; Wenlin Haitao, ‘Confessions of a New Generation of Thinkers,’ (Zhongguo xin yidai sixiangjia zibai ̰Ýʟ ˎkȳʓĕ͈), (Beijing: Jiuzhou Tushu Chubanshe, 1998). 9 National Philosophy and Social Science Planning Office, ed. (Quanguo Zhexue Shehui Kexue Guihua Bangongshi Ýĕ̓ʳȁĀŒʳʺľÙô 1998 ƲŖɋ̨Ư), 1997. 10 Jin Wulun et al., eds., ‘A Guiding Theory of Interdisciplinary Scientific Research’, ŚʳŒʺľ˝Ə Kuaxueke yanjiu yinlun, (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyi Chubanshe, 1997).

introduction

9

‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1998)’, edited by the CASS Scientific Research Bureau.11 In short, I set out to gather written data on the following aspects of the structure of CASS’ academic policy-making: – The organizational structure and history of CASS since its founding in 1978, with a special focus on disciplines involved with creating national identities; – The dynamics of discussions and debates held by academics that put into perspective their conceptualizations of the nation and of the Party; – The special status of philosophy in the Academy and its role in policy formulations; and, – The influence of international academic discussions on redefinitions of Chineseness in relation to the West, Japan and East Asia, and the ex-communist countries. Participant observation and the questions it raised I met a scholar involved in research on the evaluation system of socialscience research in China, who was using CASS as his research territory. He concluded that evaluation criteria were based on ‘peer review’, that is, on criteria prevalent in the social-science community, rather than on immediate political or economic considerations. The difficulty, we agreed, was that on an abstract level (other) subjective factors play a role in the evaluation of research results, while on a concrete level referees incline to conservatism as they tend to value highly the work of 11 Li Tieying et al., eds., ‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1999)’ (Zhongguo renwen shehui kexue qianyan baogao (1999) ̰ÝǦɲȁĀŒʳǏʼ Á), (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 1999); CASS General Office/Scientific Research Bureau (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Bangongting/Keyanju) ʟȔLJȁĀŒʳwþÑ˱ Ǐ̋ (Xin shiqi shehui kexue de huigu yu qianzhan) Looking Back and onto the New Era of Social Science and Future Prospects (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 1998); CASS ‘Philosophy Research’ Editorial Office (Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan ‘Zhexue Yanjiu’ Bianjibu), ̰Ý 1999 ̓ʳš̌Á Zhongguo 1999 zhexue fazhan baogao (translated as ‘China Philosophical Development Report 1999’), Kunming: Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe; Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Yuan Keyanju (CASS Scientific Research Bureau) (ed.), 1998, ̰ÝǦɲȁ ĀŒʳǏʼÁ (1998) Zhongguo renwen shehui kexue qianyan baogao (1998) (translated as ‘The Advanced Report on Humanities and Social Sciences in China (1998)’), Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe; and, 2000, ʟ̰ÝȁĀŒʳɽȒƲ Xin Zhongguo shehui kexue wushi nian (New China Fifty Years of Social Science), (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe).

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researchers who are famous already. To remedy the problem of familiarity, the methods of blind evaluation and the publication of evaluation results are employed in an attempt to prevent such biases from slipping into the procedures. At CASS considerable effort is made to ensure evaluation methods are as neutral, consistent and precise as possible. This is accomplished by introducing various systems that judge research on its social, scientific and academic value, and by means of direct criteria (based on the aims set by the research itself) and indirect criteria (in comparison with existing research). Effort is put into making sure that evaluation criteria are suited to the discipline and methodology involved. This effort can be ascribed, partly, to the great importance academics attach to academic promotion, which has come to depend on the results of evaluation. The problem of subjective factors interfering with the evaluation of academic work remains unsolved on a higher, abstract level. Subjective factors lie in several indeterminate areas, and derive from the great variety of considerations involved when social scientists select research topics, approaches, methods, and hypotheses: the researcher takes into account the political sensitivity of research topics, and considers whether obtaining data on sensitive topics is politically desirable, whether certain terminology matches generally accepted formulations of similar research, and whether the research in question does not clash with the plans of superiors. Research plans, therefore, proceed from assumptions that researchers make about the expectations of other researchers and politicians. In order to understand these ‘subjective factors’ better, I attended lectures, conferences, tutorials, and research meetings. I found that explicit academic policies on academic research are sometimes difficult to distinguish from implicit ones. It seems therefore hard to say whether and to what extent academics write under the influence of explicit political steering, on the basis of pressures through indirect social, political, and psychological factors, or on the basis of scientific conjectures and refutations. According to some academics, punitive measures and rewards may occasionally and under certain circumstances seem to stimulate conscientious work and creative thinking. But, according to others, when political and financial considerations come to lie at the basis of the academic’s motivation, sloppy work, corruption, and cunning manipulation may get the better of academics. When they perceive constant pressures as a threat to their integrity, a few political concessions in some areas may be a small price to pay for gains in others. For instance, if, by conducting politically safe, ‘conventional’ research one stands a better chance of pro-

introduction

11

motion, why not close one’s eyes to more ‘daring’ points of view? And, if, by becoming a Party member you can enhance your overall chances for a future promotion to the post of office leader, then why not prove the correctness of Deng Xiaoping Thought or Jiang Zemin’s Three Representations? Participating in such debates gave me much to think about. However, I never felt entirely at ease asking questions about academic standards and policies. Though I was encouraged to join meetings and ask questions, the formal interview did not seem the right forum to promote a confidential atmosphere. I was happy to just find people to talk with and be part of ‘the scene’. I only sometimes asked questions regarding difficult issues, such as ‘the freedom of research’. With great regularity, I was told that anything could be said and researched in China, as long as it was not made formal. I was also often told that, depending on the situation, it was possible to express any criticism of the government. The issue of ‘speaking openly’ raised an important question. While everyone I spoke with claimed that the contemporary academic atmosphere in China is characterized by ‘plurality of thought’, the same people were only willing to speak to me ‘off the record’. Informal discussions shed considerable light on the practical consequences of academic policy-making. I realized that even more important to understanding academic steering (or control) than the matter of ‘speaking openly’ was the extent to which professional thinkers are stimulated to limit their imagination to the elaboration of a prearranged set of templates. It became clear that the policy of stimulating ‘the plurality of thought’ in CASS severely restricts the freedom to select social-science problems and methods. Here, I had the opportunity to examine if and how such limitations are applied systematically and, possibly, are politically planned. In other words, if such limitations are not just the unintended result of processes of planning, but also the outcome of a conscious act of steering, then I faced a planning process in which political planners and leaders engage in the planned manipulation of the academic community. Such ‘experiments’ would weigh the effects of allowing initiative and various freedoms against the effects of applying guidelines and assorted straightjackets. I had been accepted by the Institute of Philosophy to explore the history of systems philosophy in China. Accordingly, I read up on the subject and attended tutorial sessions. Apart from studying systems theory, I looked for opportunities to listen to people and talk with them on research possi-

12

chapter one

bilities. Many researchers and students enjoy talking about their research, especially to a foreigner who is usually assumed to be quite ignorant about the ‘Chinese way’ of thinking and experience. The most fruitful experience, however, I found to be just listening to debates. I followed lectures at the Institute of Philosophy, and joined research meetings and conferences. I was allowed to record formal meetings, but in informal meetings I did not want to create an intimidating atmosphere by using a recording device. After all, I only wanted to be sensitized to the ways in which researchers and students experience the academic community. I asked researchers about scholars they admire, and why; I wanted to know how they hoped to contribute to academic debate, and what kind of impact they thought their research would have on society. I also asked researchers questions about working conditions at CASS, about alternative career opportunities and, in the case of PhD students, about their career plans. Since I concentrate on the relations between CASS scholars, academic leaders, and political leaders, this study does not attempt to present individuals as ‘whole’ persons. I do not pretend to provide insights into the extracurricular activities and private thoughts of persons. Instead, I focus on the institutional aspects of CASS and academic organization, which, naturally, do not capture the whole picture of the individual. By focusing on institutional developments and the overt aspects of academic work, I try to answer the following questions: how could the increasingly influential role of political regulation result in a greater diversity of academic debate? What role do the nation-state and the Party play in the formulation and implementation of research policies? In an intellectual atmosphere advertised as open, one would expect to find open resistance to political interference: intellectuals are required to do their job ‘scientifically’, but they are hampered in their work through the effects of political steering. Looking back on the fierce criticism of Party influence at CASS during the 1980s, one would expect open criticism of an increasingly elaborate system of academic regulation in the 1990s. Why did scholars celebrate the freedom of debate when they dared to speak about ‘sensitive topics’ only off the record?

introduction

13

Structure and contents of Shaping the Reforms, Academia and China Structurally, this book is divided into five parts, which are built around the various themes that highlight the socio-political history of CASS from different angles. In Chapter 1 I discuss the main questions raised in this book, and the research methods and sources used for this book. Chapter 2 describes the organizational structure of CASS, and defines its position vis-à-vis the state and the CCP. In Chapter 3, I briefly outline the institutional history of CASS as a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, known otherwise as the Xuebu, and discuss changing relations between the state and academic work since 1949, and developments that led to establishing CASS. The themes of Part Two and Part Three of this book concern a historical overview of the pre-1989 political reforms and academic reforms at CASS (Part Two) and of the political changes and institutional relationship between academic leadership and researchers at CASS (1988–1989) (Part Three). Part Four discusses the structural link between official meetings and memorialization, Party ideology and the reform of academic research and organization (Part Four). Each chapter is built up around a historical, political or sociological theme and links up with the other chapters at the same time. In each of the chapters I ask questions that concern the increasingly close relationship between the role of politics and the bodies that regulate the social sciences. In the concluding fifth part, I discuss institutional changes in CASS under the Presidency of Li Tieying (1998–2003) in relation to changing concepts of democracy and freedom of research. In Part Two, I consider the relationship between academic freedom and academic guidance by outlining the history of academic policy from 1977 until 1988. I show how the tension between freedom of research and the function of policy-advisor to the state alters over time, and argue that it is exactly the freedom of research that made extensive regulation a necessity in the eyes of policy-makers. In this account the demonstrations and academic struggles of the late 1980s were to come to be of paramount importance to the direction of the academic reforms. Chapter 4 shows how the initial support for intellectuals was complicated by conflicting views on China’s reform policies outside the academy. Although CASS leaders were regarded as reformers, CASS in its first period could not be viewed as particularly radical in terms of support for democracy or freedom of research. From the beginning of the 1980s, debates on the eco-

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nomic and political reforms were variously couched in terms of images of the Chinese nation as socialist, liberal, democratic and traditional. Chapter 5 argues that, despite the experimentation with democratic and organizational forms at CASS, the ideological form dominated the contents of debate and at the same time limited the scope of its development. The increasing diversity of views held by intellectuals in the latter half of the 1980s was accompanied by an increase in political conflict. Chapter 6 reveals how, in this restless period, the intellectual autonomy sought by academics was dearly paid for by support owed to political leaders and their networks. It was also the last period in which intellectuals openly declared to be motivated by their wish to serve ‘the People’ and a genuine belief in the act of remonstration and an appeal to the conscience of the ideological leadership. Part Three deals with the changes in academic leadership in the 1980s and 1990s, and shows how the distinction between leadership and being led is a relative one. The relative nature of this distinction draws attention to the fallacy of automatically attributing an active leadership role to leaders and a passive role to researchers, and any generalizations about their political colour. My analysis of the academic leadership in the context of institutional change in the 1980s and 1990s draws attention to the importance of vertical cooperation in the organizational hierarchy regarding academic and political disputes. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 discuss leadership changes from 1988 to 1989, from 1990 to 1992, and from 1993 to 1998, respectively, while Chapter 10 discusses the changes in the working conditions and political climate in which academics conduct research, and their motivations for working at CASS. Chapter 7 shows how the increasing divergence of views on society in the academic world culminated in open political conflict. For CASS, a direct result of the clampdown on the demonstrations on June Fourth 1989 was the reorganization of the structure of its leadership, in which greater authority was allocated to the Party. The resultant primacy of the CASS Party Committee meant the introduction of the so-called responsibility system, which initiated largescale reorganization of the institutional structure of CASS. Chapter 8 shows how these reforms were combined with the trend of liberalization after Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Inspection Tour in January 1992. In CASS this led to the introduction of a policy called Deepening the Reforms. The examination of Party history and academia in Chapter 9 indicates that the increasingly tolerant Party Committee at the same time re-established itself on a stronger footing. It called for and oversaw the re-establishment of the Party in the various institutes, and it reorganized

introduction

15

election systems, resource allocation for academic research, and it introduced the concept of financial autonomy. Chapter 10, then, closes with an investigation of the motives of intellectuals to stay on at CASS, by discussing both material and intellectual working conditions at CASS. Part Four follows the academic reforms at CASS and shows how a wide range of conceptualizations of the nation served as a framework for research and a platform for discussions on the reforms instituted by the Party and its leadership. For this, extensive free debate and a wide range of expression of opinion was required. At the same time, the reforms linked contending schools in a research paradigm tolerated by the leadership. In Chapter 11, I show how the integration between symbolic and rational knowledge plays an important role in steering academic research and the reform of Party ideology. In Chapter 12, I discuss why Party ideology had to reform and how the power struggles that moved it forward were dependent on the articulation of foreign ideas within the official ideology, that is, through the Sinification of foreign ideas. Chapter 13, in turn, examines how the reform of Party ideology was accompanied by the internal administrative and research organization. I show how the realization of these reforms was built partly on the efforts of the so-called Enlightenment intellectuals of the 1980s, whose idealism had created a basis for the rationalization of the research curriculum and administrative organization, an increased freedom of debate (within limits), and the decentralization of academic policy-making through indirect control mechanisms. Part Five, which comprises the two concluding chapters, deals with the changes introduced to CASS under the reign of CASS President Li Tieying from 1998 to 2003, and is linked to observations made in preceding chapters. Chapter 14 connects developments in CASS during the 1980s and 1990s to the introduction of the organizational overhaul under Li Tieying, including the reorganization of personnel, housing, welfare facilities, and the research curriculum. At the same time, it discusses the role of the principles of competition, which leads up to the discussion, dealt with in Chapter 15, of what is known as the freedom of research and its implication for academic research in and outside CASS in the twentyfirst century. I show how symbolic meaning is important in understanding academic and political taboos, which directly influence the work and identity of intellectuals. Finally, I explain why symbolic ritual and official meetings are of paramount importance to political and Party leaders in the process of shaping the reforms, academia, and China.

chapter two LOCATING CASS

Since the post-1978 reforms, state policies have increasingly emphasized knowledge as the basis of policy-making, which has led to fierce competition for claims on academic knowledge. This competition also affected CASS’s ability to produce officially valued knowledge. In this chapter, before discussing the historical background of CASS (which I do in Chapter 3), I briefly describe some of the interdependencies between political and academic leaders and their institutions, and point out some of the consequences of this relationship to show how the role of knowledge in policy-making has changed in the reform period. Additionally, by sketching some of the paths along which information and academic works circulate, I illustrate the ways in which the absence of autonomy from political supervision and the threat of intervention affect academic research and writing.

CASS and the political establishment After 1978, Deng Xiaoping’s mottos of ‘emancipating the mind’ and that of ‘seeking truth from facts’ were intended to harness intellectual resources on behalf of the regime. Accompanying this shift that favoured the production of knowledge, the attitude of the regime toward the management of knowledge and information underwent considerable change. Old-style propaganda had depended on limiting sources of information and modes of thought to those endorsed by the Party, i.e., it was a rigid public propaganda system composed of official elites and characterized by a belief in conspiratorial international information. The recognition of the need for policy coordination between various political and academic research fields led to bureaucratic restructuring and altered the formal authority of policy-making and research institutions in a way more conducive to the style of bureaucratic propaganda. In the early 1980s, an important step toward political reform was accomplished when the research effort was moved away from the Party’s propaganda system to its economic system under the control of newly appointed Pre-

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mier Zhao Ziyang.1 Under Premier Zhao Ziyang in the State Council several ‘brain trusts’ gained unprecedented influence.2 Academic institutions, such as CASS and its graduate school, provided these organizations with newly trained scholars. Shanghai’s Academy of Social Sciences, the Institute of International Studies, and the World Economic Herald comprised adjunct think-tanks, connected to Zhao Ziyang through international affairs advisers and other prominent academics such as CASS Vice-President Huan Xiang.3 At the same time, parallel research groups in Party organs were formulating general Party directives and policy leads. The Central Committee of the CCP has its own influential policy-making Party Leading Groups, composed of central commissions (weiyuanhui ɪ˼Ā) and Central Leading Small Groups (lingdao xiaozu ƀrʙ͐). These high-level organs, each led by a member of the Politburo or its Standing Committee, include senior Party, state, and military officials. Such cadres are chosen for their expertise and responsibility in a given functional field. Their primary task is the formation of major policy goals and guidelines. Lower level organs, including the State Council Leading Groups, mentioned above, work out concrete policies and oversee policy co-ordination and administration. But under Premier Zhao, these research centres on the lower level were only under minimal supervision of the Party Leading Groups. They operated largely as general research bodies without administrative responsibilities, and were consulted by the Premier’s Office and the State Council.4

1

Hamrin, 1994, 60–61. The newly created permanent research centres included: the Rural Development Research Centre, which was abolished, reportedly, as a result of changed policies after the June Fourth Movement of 1989; the Science Commission’s National Research Centre for Science & Technology Development (est. in the mid-1980s); the Economic System Reform Institute; and, the Economic, Technical, and Social Development Research Centre, which was run by CASS President Ma Hong [1983–1985], and which was still thriving in the 1990s. Additionally, the (short-lived) Centre for International Studies [CIS] was jointly set up under the State Council with CASS (Halpern, 1992, 132, 148; Halpern, 1989, 162). 3 Hamrin, 1994, 64. CASS Vice-President Huan Xiang, a foreign affairs expert, was regarded as Deng Xiaoping’s senior foreign policy adviser and an associate of Yu Guangyuan. Until his death in 1989, he headed the State Council Centre for International Studies [CIS] (founded in 1982), which was one of Premier Zhao Ziyang’s [1980– 1987] advisory organs. 4 Halpern, 1992, 132. 2

locating cass

19

By channelling information from various fields concerned with policymaking to the government and encouraging communication between the ministries, brain trusts have somewhat redirected the political balance of power, which had favoured Party leadership over the ministerial government. Conversely, research groups and commissions have also contributed to the centralization of authority, as their modern research methods have facilitated political analysis and the coordination of interministerial communication. As a result, a broad spectrum of research sources became available to top political leaders, in their formulation of policies and the drawing up of authoritative political documents. This made the control of the various Leading Groups and research commissions an important element in power struggles among Party and government leaders. For example, in the 1980s, conservatives led by Propaganda Chief Deng Liqun and CASS President Hu Qiaomu were engaged in several Campaigns—against Spiritual Pollution (1983) and against Bourgeois Liberalization (1987)—to slow down or even reverse the policies of reform and to open up to the outside world policies advocated by Premier Zhao Ziyang and Party Secretary Hu Yaobang. Research institutes under Deng Liqun (The Research Institute of the Central Secretariat) and under Hu Yaobang (The Office of the Central Secretariat, which several times changed names and structure), and research centres under the State Council organized by Premier Zhao Ziyang were fencing with each other for policies of economic and political reform.5 CASS as an organization under the State Council and Party supervision CASS is a national research organ situated under the control of the State Council. Due to its ministerial rank, its presidents and vice-presidents must be appointed by the State Council and approved by the National People’s Congress. At the same time, the CCP has considerable influence over CASS. The nature of its influence, however, varies over time, the implications of which I will discuss in the following chapters. The State Council is the highest organ of state administration; it is the executive organ of the National People’s Congress. Constitutionally, the National People’s Congress is the highest level of state power. With its Standing Committee, it forms the government of China.6 The top of the Party power hierarchy is the National Party Congress or its Central Commit5 6

Cf. Wu Guoguang, 1995; Goldman, 1994. Cf. Saich, 1995; Christiansen & Rai, 1996, Chapter 5.

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tee. In practice, however, political power lies with the Politburo, its Standing Committee and, to a lesser extent, with the Secretariat.7 The organizational structure of CASS has changed several times since 1977/78, when it was set up. But since the reorganization of 1992, the internal organization of CASS has kept its dual organizational structure, consisting of the CASS Party Group (dangzu q͐), which belongs to the realm of CASS’ academic leadership, and the CASS Party Committee (dangwei qɪ), which belongs to the CCP administration.8 The CASS Party Group is subordinate to the Party Group of the State Council, formally headed by the premier (see fig. 1).9 The CASS Party Committee is subordinate to the Party Committee for Organs Directly Subordinate to the CCP Central Committee. At lower levels the Party organization is differentiated into Party branches and cells. This form of Party organization is repeated in the institutional structure of the research institutes of CASS. Thus, most institutes are led by a Party Group, subordinate to a state organ, and a Party Committee, subordinate to a Party organ. Often, the head of a Party Group is also the head of the corresponding institute and secretary of the Party Committee, although there are many exceptions. The secretary of the Party Committee is responsible for daily affairs and issues of Party discipline. In this arrangement, the head of the CASS Party Group is held responsible for both administrative and Party affairs to the State Council Party Group, organized directly above it. In the 1990s, the head of a Party Group in an institute was appointed by the CASS Party Group and required approval from the Central Organization Department (COD), which mediates between the government and the Party. Changes in Party Committee leadership, however, are reported by the CASS Party Committee to the Party Committee for Organs Directly under the Centre (PCODC) (Party Central Committee). The PCODC has authority to reject decisions on Party Committee leadership and passes them on to the Central Organization Department.10

7

Ibid. CASS Party Group: dangzu (Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan dangzu); CASS Party Committee: dangwei (Zhongguo Shehui kexueyuan dangwei). 9 Su Shaozhi, E1995, 111–113. 10 Su Shaozhi, E1995, 111–117. 8

locating cass

21

Fig. 1. Party and administrative relations between CASS, government, and Party11

Since CASS as a subministerial organ has close relations with the Party and with the state, several functions of CASS are naturally aligned with state policies. The Central Committee of the CCP and Central Government hand over important issues to research committees put together from leading researchers at research organs residing under the State Council, such as CASS, the Propaganda Department and the Central Party School. Delegated academic research problems constitute ideologically urgent or sensitive issues, such as the collapse of the CCP in the Soviet Union, salary reforms in China, unequal distribution of resources over prosperous East China and poor West China, and matters of coastal development and defence strategies. Several other tasks tie CASS lead-

11

Su Shaozhi, E1995, 112.

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ership and official policy lines closely together: research staff perform various tasks that support burdened decision-makers; planning committees are expected to come up with new ideas and future plans that conform to official guidelines; the CASS Inspection Committee inspects and checks on discipline and the ideological and organizational environment of cadres. Ideologically, CASS is supervised by the Central Department of Propaganda, even though the two organs are of the same rank. For instance, the Central Propaganda Department can pass its criticism of CASS journals onto the CASS leadership, which in turn traces ‘mistakes’ back to the author through the leadership of the institute. Depending on the seriousness of the offence and the leniency of the times, the author may be disciplined with greater or lesser severity. The Central Propaganda Department, too, has the authority to cancel research projects proposed by CASS institutes on a yearly basis. The possibility of personal interference also made important the choice of who was to be placed in charge of the Propaganda Department.12 According to Su Shaozhi, who led the Marxism-Leninism Institute from 1982 to 1987, the conservative Wang Renzhong maintained good relations with the institute, but when Deng Liqun was in charge, relations were antagonistic. When Zhu Houze took over as head of Propaganda, it became possible to openly discuss the ways in which the Party line should be studied. According to Su, one of the functions of CASS lies in the realm of propaganda. Yan Huai, the former section chief of the Young Cadre Bureau in the Central Organization Department (1982–1986) and former Director of the Beijing Institute of Organizational and Personnel Studies (1986–1988), sums up the channels and institutes employed by the propaganda system:13 – – – – – 12

The Ministry of Culture; The Ministry of Broadcasting, Television, and Movies; The Bureau of Information and Publication; CASS; New China News Agency (Xinhua) (under the State Council);

Su Shaozhi, E1995, 115. Yan Huai, Understanding the Political System of Contemporary China (Occasional paper), Princeton Centre for Modern China (1991). Cited in Su Shaozhi (E1994), ‘Chinese Communist Ideology and Media Control’, in Lee Chin-chuan (ed.) China’s Media, Media’s China. Pp. 75–88. See also Yan Huai, ‘Organizational Hierarchy and the Cadre Management System’, in Hamrin and Zhao Suisheng, eds., Decision-Making in Deng’s China. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995, pp. 39–50. 13

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– The People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao); – 1. Qiushi (Seeking Truth) the official Party journal; – 2. Other mass media and cultural establishments. CASS and the generation of ‘public discussion’ The concept of propaganda in this context should not be interpreted in the narrow sense of spreading fabricated lies or deceptive information. The manner in which the flow of information is shaped into authoritative guidelines is better captured by the broader concept of bureaucratic propaganda. The specific historical and local context in which the production of propaganda is embedded is crucial in promoting certain kinds of information. In other words, one has to take into account the form propaganda takes as political legitimization, and the functions it serves in a state bureaucracy, formal organizations, and policies of modernization.14 According to the Chinese Big Dictionary for the Study of Public Opinion Propaganda (1993):15 Propaganda (xuanchuan ʰX) is the use of all kinds of thought by a certain social organization for spreading information and views with the purpose of leading and controlling the process by which the People’s thinking is given direction. The target of propaganda is to alter the opinions and attitude of people. Propaganda is an ancient concept. In ancient Chinese documents, its meaning refers to the political decrees of the feudal ruling class and military orders to ministers and officials in order to control all levels of the bureaucracy and to solidify central political power…. Sun Yat-sen considered the policy of inducing change by persuasion also as propaganda, while Mao considered educators, journalists, artists and communist cadres all as propagandists (Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, 849).

To Mao spreading propaganda had a much less sinister connotation than had the practice of ‘order-ism’ (minglingzhuyi ƥƁ̺˕), since he thought it was correct for the communist leadership to persuade the masses by means of propaganda, and not by military decree.16 Thus socialist propaganda here finds its legitimization supported by history in the ideal of a benevolent and wise leadership. Precisely in this vein, the Big Dictionary lays down the ‘Three Basic Rules for Propaganda’: first, the basic interest of the target of propaganda and the masses must be identical; second, the content of propaganda and the direction of knowledge of the People 14 15 16

Ibid.: 2. Liu Jianming, 1993, 64. Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. I, 1965, 118.

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are unified; and third, the mode of propaganda and the People’s capacity for accepting it are unified.17 Therefore, in order to provide propaganda according to these ‘Three Unities of Propaganda’, the propagandist must stand above the People and decide what is in the interest of the People, how they think and what they are capable of. In the view of some observers, the concept of xuanchuan, which is commonly translated as propaganda, is better explained as ‘to publicize’ and ‘to make known’, and does more justice to the Chinese context than does, for example, ‘to manipulate for a specific purpose’. Stranahan, for instance, argues that propaganda in the communist movement of the 1940s was vital in communicating information to all levels of the Party hierarchy, from the Standing Committee down to the district and branch Propaganda Committees. Because it was a means to educate and to mobilize the masses in carrying out Party programmes, simple and direct language and the ability to reach targeted groups were vital.18 Nevertheless, in view of the current awareness among Chinese scholars of the ‘undemocratic’ nature of propaganda, the concept of propaganda cannot be regarded as only denoting some neutral, innocuous meaning such as ‘to make known’. The Big Dictionary for the Study of Public Discussion and Propaganda would certainly disagree with Stranahan. It regards the thesis submitted by Ikeda Daisaku and Arnold Toynbee that ‘ideal propaganda’ is a ‘neutral form of mass communication’ as one of the world’s impossibilities. This, the Big Dictionary argues, is illustrated by the different biases of press broadcastings on the behaviour of students and the police during public demonstrations on the streets.19 The concept of propaganda is usually related to political forms of governance and public opinion, illustrated by the Big Dictionary. As Lowell Dittmer argues, Marx denied the existence of public interest, conceding sociological authenticity only to classes.20 Similarly, with regard to Chinese propaganda, the CCP only refers to two categories, ‘leadership’ and ‘the masses of the People’, while discussions on public communica17 The Dictionary also makes a distinction between seven categories of propaganda: political propaganda, economic propaganda, theoretical propaganda, legal propaganda, military propaganda, civil propaganda, and science and technology propaganda. Additionally, the dictionary lists ten modes of propaganda: social propaganda, material propaganda, propaganda for meetings, news propaganda, advertisement propaganda, oral propaganda, written propaganda, direct propaganda, indirect propaganda, and wallposter propaganda (Liu Jianming, 1993, 64). 18 Stranahan, 1994, 31. 19 Liu Jianming, 1993, 65. 20 Lowell Dittmer, 1994, 89–112.

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tion use only two terms that both indicate consensus from above: ‘public discussion (yulun ˮƏ)’ refers to leadership views as reflected in the official media, which the masses are expected to share, and ‘the opinion of the masses (of the People)’ (renmin qunzhong de yijian ǦƠǢ̶w˔Ġ) refers to the more-or-less spontaneous opinions of a range of people, as reflected in letters to the editor, big-character-posters, and so forth.21 In this view of public discussion, social order is accomplished mainly through prescribed and institutionalized behaviour, defined by Party cadres and politicians, with the help of groups of academic researchers. Contrary to what the formula of ‘three basic rules of propaganda’ in the Big Dictionary suggests, there can be no simple rules for the production of propaganda, if only for the reason that propaganda employed by regimes exhibits specific modes, timing, style and form that vary with specific political, economic and social circumstances. As Bogart argued, ‘propaganda is an art requiring special talent. It is not mechanical, scientific work. Influencing attitudes requires experience, area knowledge, and instinctive judgement of what is the best argument for the audience’.22 Policy-makers and leaders have to make sure that the members of targeted academic organizations understand the practical significance of certain information for a particular audience. For this reason ‘scouting’ researchers make use of prescribed procedures in constructing official reports to represent what various audiences expect from Party organization. They need to take into consideration the discrepancies between the official view of reality and what many members believe to be true in order to enable officials to adjust instructive messages to fit the targeted opinions of the ‘masses of the People’. Wu Guoguang,23 a speechwriter to Premier Zhao Ziyang in the late 1980s and a chief editor in the Editorial Department of The People’s Daily, argues that the Chinese Communist regime operates through directives from the oligarchic top leadership. Such directives have their main form of expression in political documents. Wu calls this form of governance ‘rule by document’, which is different from rule in autocratic systems based on personal fiat by a dictator. Documents are presented as representing the collective will of the leadership, giving the regime ideological legitimacy. A successfully completed document enjoys both symbolic and administrative authority. The drafting of such a document makes up a 21 22 23

Dittmer, 1994, 90. Leo Bogart, quoted in Jowett and O’Donnell, 1986, 15. Wu Guoguang, E1995: 23–38.

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central part of the political process and consists of several stages. First, ideas are developed that formulate the central issues, and an agenda is set. Next, leaders are appointed to select the drafters of the planned document. For a political document, a special drafting group may be set up, for which drafters are selected and borrowed from several political institutions and academic research organs.24 The institutes consulted by decision-makers of the Politburo and the State Council are usually closely allied with Party and governmental organs. Personal connections (guanxi Òʅ) can play an important role, as personal and political loyalties are crucial in the process of formulating documents that affect directives at a national level. Instructions and information flow down from leaders to the drafters by means of discussion with the leader (or assistants), by phone or through special documents, until the drafters understand the preferences of the leaders. The drafters discuss the document and gather further information to complete the first draft. When this work is completed, sessions are held with the leaders and revisions are made until the leaders are satisfied with the result. During the next crucial stage of persuasion and consensus building among top leaders (in the Politburo or the Secretariat), the draft is discussed and revised until accepted (or rejected). The resulting document is published in several stages in national newspapers, e.g. The People’s Daily, and follows a pecking order of dissemination, using the rule ‘First supervisors, and then subordinates; first within the Party, then outside; and first the officials, then the masses’.25 The final stage consists of the open publication of the full document, and its careful study by Party working groups. There are various channels for the communication of ideas between the State Council and Party, and CASS researchers. Open forms of communication are of little importance, although it does happen that leaders draw the public’s attention to worthy academic works that set an example to others, or to those leaders who appear as the dramatis personae in a political work on themselves, such as Weng Jieming’s (et al.) Heart-to-Heart Talk with the President.26 The more regular communication flow between leadership and CASS consists of the circulation of internal journals and various kinds of reference materials (neibu cankao ziliao

24 25 26

Ibid. Wu Guoguang, E1995, 33. Weng Jieming, Zhang Xi Ming eds., 1995.

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ư05őͅź). The latter are taken each day to a so-called ‘exchange sta-

tion’, where they are exchanged with those of other government organs.27 Access to the reference materials requires official clearance. There are several categories of written communication: Newsletters (tongxun ɔȰ), Academic Trends (xueshu dongtai ʳȫ‹ɂ), Bulletins (kuaibao ś), Important Reports (yaobao ˉ), and other specialist reports. An example of Academic Trends (xueshu dongtai) is Trends in Foreign Social Science (guowai shehui kexue dongtai ÝɝȁĀŒʳ‹ɂ). It is positioned ideologically rather far away from the official Marxist view. An example of the Bulletins (kuaibao) are the bi-monthlies, which distribute abstracts of the general research. Both Academic Trends (xueshu dongtai) and the CASS Newsletter (Zhongguo Shehui Kuxueyuan Tongxun ̰ÝȁĀŒʳ˾ɔʷ) report on social-science research and activities in CASS. The most secret and important category of report is the Important Report (yaobao), which is issued only at certain research institutes. The Important Reports funnel important research results directly to the Central Committee. They are thought to be few, but not many people know exactly, as their circulation is limited to higher cadres (gaoji ganbu ÀČº0). Most of CASS’s thirtyone institutes have more than one journal; CASS altogether issues more than eighty periodicals. The ones that introduce foreign research results into China are widely read in CASS. If the Central Committee (Zhongyang Weiyuanhui ̰ˁɪ˼Ā) of the CCP calls for opinions on certain issues, academics can submit a proposal for writing a report, which will then be written and handed over to the Central Committee. Researchers that undertake to submit their reports to the leadership must, first, seek approval from the head of their specific institute and that of CASS. This process may require several meetings and assessments of the relevance and suitability of the materials concerned. Relevance here means relevant to state and Party policies, and suitability refers to the aptness of the formulations in the report. Depending on who is in power, who submits the report, and the political atmosphere, ideas may get through to the top, although possibly altered. Some critical recommendations are rejected initially, but in the course of time can be adopted as official policy. For instance, in 1979, Su Shaozhi and Feng Lanrui formulated a slightly different version of the theory of China’s first stage of socialist development, which, at first, was considered

27

Su Shaozhi, E1995, 114.

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unacceptable.28 Nevertheless, after its revision by the prominent scientist Yu Guangyuan, it was accepted as official policy by Zhao Ziyang at the Thirteenth National Party Conference in October in 1987, but attributed to the Resolution on Party History of June 1981. In the aftermath of the June 4th movement in 1989, the CCP distanced itself from placing China at a preliminary stage of socialism.29 Further into the 1990s, however, the analysis became official policy again. Currently, the theory of China being in a first stage of socialism is ascribed to Deng Xiaoping, and has acquired authority as part of Deng Xiaoping Theory. This process of rejection and acceptance has been so common that some intellectuals venture the hypothesis that change in China comes about mainly through this dialectical movement of rejecting critics and adopting their ideas under a different heading when convenient. This practice puts officials in a difficult position, as it is hard to know which ideas are to survive and become standard policy-making material. To play it safe, some officials and scholars are said to adopt the tactic of Mr. Lü Ƌ, a fictive person (note the Chinese character: a person and two mouths) that knows how to dialectically unite official and anti-establishment ideology in supracorrect double-talk. It is important to point out that intellectuals follow Party guidelines and prescribed research formulations only to various degrees. Intellectuals directly involved in the research of formulating political documents form only a small, though important, minority of leading scholars. One scholar jokingly explained to me ‘the four rules’ for interpreting regulations: first, find out if you can ignore them; second, look for all possible interpretations and support the one you can use; third, always make a show of following up on one or two details; and, finally, express your gratitude about the wisdom of all received guidelines. Accordingly, the extent of support of and resistance to official policies varies among researchers. As the following chapters look into this issue more closely, here it suffices to draw attention to an example of converging views between officials and researchers in the 1990s with regard to images of the West. Though in the 1980s a marked difference still existed between academic, discursive views of the West and official Party propaganda, various events and developments, such as the refusal to admit China into the World Trade

28 Su Shaozhi with Feng Lanrui, ‘The Problem of Stages of Social Development after the Proletariat Obtains Power’, Economic Research (Jingji Yanjiu) No. 5 (1979): 131–132. 29 Ernest Young, 1992, 17.

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Organization (WTO),30 the denial of China’s bid to host the Olympics in 2000, the experience of intellectuals abroad, the propaganda against the U.S. with regard to the Taiwan and Tibetan independence movements, and the ‘Western hypocrisy’ with regard to human rights—all have influenced the stance of scholars in the direction of official views as expressed in newspapers.31 However, as there are various relations of dependence, cooperation and negotiation between the leadership, the government, and certain groups of scholars, it is misleading to speak of intellectuals, Party, and state as separate entities in the first place. There have been many efforts to co-opt academics by the Party. Party recruitment of intellectuals is an increasingly common trend, as their remobilization is considered indispensable to modernization. Party membership among intellectuals has increased in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1991, the entire CASS staff of 4,865 workers included over 3,000 Party members.32 Although scholars have had ulterior motives in becoming Party members, especially in the last decades of the twentieth century—for example to better their chances of promotion, or to improve their network of connections (guanxi)—and although Party membership does not necessarily command dedication to Marxism, membership does entail a commitment of loyalty to Party politics and legitimizes Party leadership. In its policy of encouraging intellectuals to be useful to their motherland, the Party does not only tolerate various non-Marxist views, but it promotes them as well, as long as they remain within the continually changing political boundaries of what is acceptable to Party leaders. Among philosophers, for example, many advocates of traditional values, of concepts of systems theory, and of the ideas of Western thinkers ostentatiously consider those concepts as possible building blocks for the construction of a new authoritative ‘Marxist theory of the 21st century’. Therefore, as long as, for instance, the philosopher Zheng Jiadong stuck to claiming that he was a progressive Marxist patriot politically, he could go on expounding his Confucian ideas academically. Only by closely viewing such double-edged scholarship is it possible to form a conception of the role of academic theory in the process of nation-state building and vice versa.

30 WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] on January 1, 1995. 31 Cf. Zhao Suisheng, E1997. 32 CASS Yearbook, 1993, 23, 13.

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chapter two Internal and external organization

Professional titles and ranking at CASS The terms that CASS and other academic institutes use to classify staff constitute an extensive hierarchical system. As CASS is organized directly under the State Council, its status derives from the bureaucratic hierarchy. In 1998, CASS numbered 3,767 staff members. Among them, 2,975 were researchers or professionals of whom 1,504 held senior professional titles (of whom 560 were first grade, 978 second-grade professors) and 1,437 intermediate ones. Additionally, CASS employed 365 ‘ordinary’ workers and 427 administrative personnel.33 The main ranks among scholars are assistant researcher (zhuli yanjiuyuan ̻ťʺľ˼) or lecturer (jiangshi ĥȏ), associate researcher (fuyanjiuyuan ´ʺľ˼), associate professor (fujiaoshou ´ħȧ), and research fellow (yanjiuyuan ʺľ˼), which is the same as professor (jiaoshou ħȧ). Roughly, there are three levels of professors: assistant (zhuli), deputy (associate, vice-) (fuli) and full rank. A graduate student at CASS starts with ‘undecided research status’ (yanjiu weidingzhi ʺľɭˆ̤), studies for one ‘practical year’ (yanjiu shixiyuan ʺľȕʄ˼), and then specializes as a proper research student. In all, a scholar progresses through five levels: ‘undecided research status’ (weiding yanjiuzhi ɦ‡ʺľ̤) ‘teaching practice’ (shixi yanjiuyuan ȕʄʺľ˼), ‘assistant researcher’ (zhuli yanjiuyuan ̻ťʺľ˼), ‘associate researcher’ (fuyuanjiuyuan) and ‘full professor’ (yanjiuyuan). A Ph.D. degree holder, after one practical-year, can be promoted to associate professor (fuli yanjiuyuan). In other departments of CASS, for those that take care of work tasks, such as translating, editing, teaching, technical work, library work, accounting, economy, statistics, and health, a similar five level grading system applies. For example, in editorial work the lowest rank is ‘undecided copy editor’, the next rank up is ‘assistant-deputy copy editor’, followed by the ranks of ‘copy editor’, ‘deputy general copy-editor’, and ‘general copyeditor’. Holders of higher academic degrees have liberties that others do not. For example, they work at home a lot, engage in moonlighting, and do not turn up at meetings. However, since 1993 a stricter system of work evaluation and promotion has become effective. As the calendar year

33

CASS Yearbook, 1999, 3.

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approaches its end (late November, early December), researchers must report on their work, and give an account of their working time spent on publications, extra training, teaching, and other academic activities. All scholars are subject to evaluations, including leaders. Regulations stipulate that promotion is only awarded according to merit, while research achievements are judged by means of a voting system, in which evaluations of ‘excellent’ (youxiu ˧ʪ), ‘pass’ (hege èÄ), or inadequate (bu hege èÄ) are given. In evaluating achievements, the production of books and training of graduate students are especially valued. Finally, one scholar is assessed as the best achiever (ping ǂ) and appointed (pin ǀ) to a position at a higher level. The ‘winner’ receives a bonus at the end of the year. Those who do not pass receive a disciplinary warning once and those who do not pass for several consecutive years are in danger of losing their job. The levels of the hierarch of CASS leadership conform to those of state departments (guan benwei Óɮ):34 Fig. 1. Titles in the leadership hierarchy Chinese

Status in the Leadership Hierarchy

kezhang Ŗ@

section chief of office

chuzhang W@

head of office

juzhang Ń@

head of department

fubuzhang ´0@

vice-minister

buzhang 0@

minister

fuzongli ´͍ť

vice-premier

zongli ͍ť

premier

zhengzhiju de fuweiyuan ̝̯Ńw´ɪ˼

deputy committee member of the Political Bureau

zhengzhi de weiyuan ̝̯Ńwɪ˼

committee member of the Political Bureau

Though in general academics are encouraged to exert great efforts to obtain titles and gain status in the academic world, the status of intellectuals in Chinese society at large has dropped. At the time of the Yan’an Marxism-Leninism Academy, intellectuals were supposed to have equal 34 There are additional intermediate forms between the listed levels below, such as Vice-Heads or various grades of Heads.

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value to workers and wore an outfit similar to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In the 1950s, however, there were very few regular professors, but their status was high, equalling that of a vice-minister or minister (fubuzhang or buzhang). At present, if one were to compare the rewards given to various kinds of jobs, the status of intellectuals has dropped steeply, verging on the status of a head or deputy head of a department (juzhang) in the ministerial bureaucracy. Of course, there are differences in status within the academic world. A professor with excellent credentials has an approximate status of a ‘regular head of department’ (juzhang). Some professors of extraordinary achievement, usually when they have reached an advanced age, sometimes receive the status that conforms to that of ‘vice-minister’ (fubuzhang). This means s/he can travel by plane or on a soft sleeper in the train. There are also various levels of medical treatment. For example, there are hospitals for higher cadres (gaogan À º). High cadre hospitals have no long waiting lists, and staff, medical treatment and medicine are of high quality. But units of CASS occupy a ministerial level (buji de danwei 0Čwnɮ). This means that the president and secretary of CASS belong to the grade of minister (buzhang) and can make use of ministerial facilities; the vice-presidents and vice-secretaries belong to the grade of vice-minister (fubuzhang) and can make use of viceministerial facilities. When they retire, they still enjoy the right of using those same facilities. Lateral relations and personnel exchange Apart from vertical promotions, horizontal transfers (with or without promotion) between state institutions of the same level take place frequently. When available, such an arrangement entitles political authorities as position leaders at politically strategic positions. This practice also reinforces the contacts and cooperation between institutes active in applied research. For instance, CASS and the Central Communist Party School (Zhongyang Dangxiao) are both high level, academic institutes engaged in the activity of generating Party ideology, philosophy, and social science. While formerly the two institutes were considered political counter-poles, the Party School as conservative and the CASS as reformist, their ideological differences have become much less extreme. The Central Party School formerly held a monopoly on matters of ideology and policy research, and, compared to CASS, its research tended to represent an orthodox perspective in research. In the 1990s, after the reorganization of CASS and since the Party School attempted to apply

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the policies of Deepening the Reforms and Opening Up onto itself, their approaches to state policy have increasingly converged. However, they have also come to specialize in different tasks. The Central Party School specializes in educating middle-and-higher level Cadres, while CASS is a scientific research unit. They both differ from the Propaganda Department, which functions as an ideological branch of Party culture. It is involved in the enterprise of propagating ‘cultural knowledge’, that is, ‘educational knowledge’ with a political edge, and publishes, for example, booklets in bookshops, articles in newspapers, and programmes on TV and radio. The Central Party School, the Propaganda Department and CASS are units of official rank (pinji de danwei ƿČwnɮ), or cadre units of ministerial rank. All three are under the State Council, and the State Council leads the Central Party School and the Propaganda Department. Among these four official units of equal ranking, exchange of personnel is allowed, and occurs on a regular basis. Thus, the head of the Propaganda Department or a leader of any of these state institutions can fill the post of CASS vice-president. CASS Vice-President Teng Teng, for example, used to be vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), and vice-minister of the State Education Commission; Jiang Liu used to be chief of the Teaching and Research Section for Scientific Socialism, dean of the Central Party School of the Central Committee from 1977 to 1988, before he became vice-president of CASS in 1989 (until 1993). Conversely, CASS leaders moved to the Central Party School as well. For example, Xing Bensi, a former head of the Institute of Philosophy became vice-president of the Central Party School in 1988, and became the main-editor of the periodical Seeking Truth (Qiu Shi) in 1994; Zheng Bijian, former vice-president of CASS since 1987 (and former head of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought), in 1992 became the Central Committee Propaganda Department’s deputy head. Thus, the fact that the relations between the four institutions are of equal ranking (pinjide) means that leaders can be transferred and exchanged among the units. But only equals in rank (buji 0Č) are exchangeable (unless they are promoted): leaders are interchanged for leaders, and vice-leaders for vice-leaders. State policies that concern important theoretical issues undergo analysis at these institutes, especially when the drafting of documents is concerned. Usually one or two experts are invited from CASS, the Party School, and the Propaganda Department. One example is Jiang Zemin’s report for the 15th National Party Congress. A committee was put togeth-

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er to discuss and draft the report: from CASS, economist Wang Luolin, and engineer Liu Ji joined the draft committee; from the Central Party School, philosopher Xing Bensi joined the draft committee; from the Propaganda Department, political economists Zheng Bijian, and another vice-president of the Central Party School, Gong Yuzhi, who works on natural dialectics, joined the draft committee. Such a committee meets frequently. They study the matter under concern for about half a year before they report back their results. The process of consultation, drafting and checking is repeated several times until Jiang Zemin is satisfied. The occurrence of ‘unexpected theoretical break-throughs’, based on Marxism-Leninism and Deng Xiaoping Thought, are also required as part of the study process. Tasks are delegated, and distributed over various academic branches (fenpei yuanzhi ¤ƺ˾̠) and various committees may be set up.35 This kind of work can be very demanding and requires much patience as it involves scholastic perseverance in rereading standard works of Marxian authority, combined with propagandistic skills of choosing new vocabulary suitable to a new ‘historical era’, which China always seemed to enter just before a major Party meeting. Successfully completed documents sell well in the form of booklets and are reissued many times over. An example of a successful and consequential report is the proposal for economic reforms concerning state ownership. At present, economic reform is a crucial issue to the CCP. It is hoped that economic reforms will strengthen China in the twenty-first century. If they fail, some leaders most certainly will have to step down. Research in the field of economics in CASS is therefore of great importance.

35 Achievements based on Mao Zedong Thought alone have long since made place for ones based on Mao’s and Deng Xiaoping thought. The latter is supposed to be an updated improvement of the former. The theoretical explorations done by study committees of the late-1990s constitute the raw material for ‘Jiang Zemin Thought’, which undoubtedly will be added to the list of citations from the thoughts of great political leaders.

chapter three THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CASS AND THE PROCESS OF PRC STATE-BUILDING

After 1949 the social sciences were intended to help build socialist China. In this chapter I show how in the Xuebu, the precursor of CASS in the 1950s and 1960s, the social sciences were relevant mainly when they dealt with the political problems in China’s socialist development. It will become clear that without state protection, academic disciplines would not have the opportunity to mature. Starting in 1957 and accelerating during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), social science theory was largely replaced by political guidelines. Political state functions, which could have provided an institutional setting for the development of the social sciences, had been taken over by the Party, and Party rule meant the disintegration of the social sciences until the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). After 1978, however, the social sciences were assigned an important function in the reforms, and were to serve the goals of the Four Modernizations that pertained to agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology. They thereby constituted an important role in the process of socialist state building.1 The establishment of CASS research departments and the CASS Graduate School, their organizational set-up, research subjects, and the selections of leaders were clearly meant to suit those purposes. The organizational efforts, planning, regulation and financial investment, however, required both state and Party support. The institutional development of CASS was accompanied by ideological guidance from the very beginning, and it would continue to do so in the twenty-first century. Establishing state institutions, such as a Constitution and a legal system, have been crucial to the further development of the social sciences in China. The policies of a separation of Party and government and rule by law have especially been of major importance in debates on Party

1 The Four Modernizations were announced at the First Session of the 5th National People’s Congress (NPC) (February–March 1978).

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leadership in the Deng-era. ‘Rule by law’ was established to prevent the anarchy of another Cultural Revolution and to provide social stability and order, legal protection of economic interests, and to serve as a new source of regime legitimacy. This policy, however, required a redefinition of the relationship between Party and state. The intertwining relations between state and academic policy-making in CASS were illustrated by the parallel developments in the rebuilding of the Chinese state and the construction of CASS.

Academic institutes and China’s state building process since 1949 The revolutionary experience of the CCP hampered, rather than helped, modern nation-state building in China after 1949. As the state was expected to wither away according to Marxist-Leninist ideology, CCP ideology could not provide answers to issues of state building by means of conventional Marxist argument. It was in the 1930s that at the Yan’an base area, the organizational principles of the Party’s unified leadership and methods of mass-mobilization were established. They conditioned the CCP responses to new institutional challenges. Thus, after the founding of the PRC in 1949, the CCP relied on the army to enforce its rule, and mass-campaigns and revolutionary struggle to implement its policies. After 1949, institutions of social science, such as the Chinese Society of History, the Chinese Society of Economics, and the Chinese Society of Philosophy were organized to assist ‘socialist construction’ and international exchange. Although in 1950 three research institutes were established under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in the fields of archaeology, linguistics and modern history, the so-called bourgeois social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, political science and law were abolished in 1952. Nevertheless, by 1953, research institutes had been set up for philosophy, economics, literature, history, languages of minority nationalities and an Information Research Office. Beginning in May 1957, there was a brief period of liberalization when Mao invited intellectuals to criticize the bureaucratic practices. This ‘Hundred Flowers movement’ served to strengthen the Party by encouraging criticism and competition. The movement was cut short in June, when the ‘AntiRightist Campaign’ was launched against many of those who had raised their voice against the Communist Party. Nevertheless, between 1958 and 1964, six more research institutes were founded for law, nationali-

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ties, world economy, world history, world religions and world literature.2 These institutes mainly served the political agenda of the CCP. Under the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences of CAS, there were altogether fourteen research institutes linked to social science, which published academic journals such as New Construction, Economic Research, Law Research, Research on Nationalities, Philosophical Studies, Historical Research, Bulletin of Archaeology, Archaeology, Literary Review, and Chinese Language. Another thirty-seven social science organs, with their own local research institutes and journals, were set up in the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.3 The social sciences became involved in efforts of socialist state-building: economics was to bring about a Chinese socialist economic miracle; the translation and publication of the works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong were to popularize Marxist teachings; editions of Chinese ancient works, a number of works on Western social science, and Marxist textbooks on literature, history, philosophy, and economics were to be used in the dissemination of a national curriculum for education; language reforms and the standardization of Han Chinese were to create a uniform system of national communication and education; studies of Marxism, the history of the Chinese revolution, and Chinese history were to establish a revolutionary-Chinese national identity; and the investigation of the societies, histories and languages of minority nationalities were to strengthen China as a socialist nation-state that was unified and multinational. The precursor of CASS: the Xuebu After liberation, on the first of June 1955, a division for the social sciences was established under the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) (Zhongguo Kexueyuan ̰ÝŒʳ˾). Following the model of the Soviet Union, CAS mainly concerned itself with the sciences.4 Thus, the Chinese study of society became a division of CAS, called the ‘Academic Division for Philosophy and the Social Sciences’ (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Xuebu ̓ʳȁĀŒ 2

See APPENDIX II. China Handbook Editorial Committee, 1983, 175–176. 4 It had a few research institutes in Peking, such as those of mathematics, chemistry and physics. Other research institutes were located in the Northeast in Shenyang (metallurgy), in Wuhan (The Wuhan Institute of Physics [Wuhan Wuli Yanjiusuo]) and Qinghai (The Institute for Nuclear Physics). There were also research departments unknown to the outside world, in which research was conducted into military equipment. 3

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ʳʳ0), or, Xuebu ʳ0 (academic division), for short. The priority given to engineering and science was evident from the organization of CAS, as only one of its four divisions was devoted to the social sciences and philosophy. The ten foci of the academy’s first five-year plan, outlined by the famous historian Guo Moruo (1892–1978), who headed the Xuebu in the second half of the 1950s and 1960s, referred to the social sciences only in that they concerned ‘research in the fundamental theoretical problems in China’s national construction in this transitional period’.5 The discipline of history received considerable attention, probably partly because Guo was a historian himself. The Institute of History was divided into compartments, as were most disciplines. It comprised three departments, consisting of the ‘first department’ (yisuo ˎȿ) of ancient history, the ‘second department’ (ersuo ™ȿ) of the history of the middle ages, and the ‘third department’ (sansuo Ƕȿ), whose subject was modern history. Additionally, from 1955 to 1966, there were departments within CAS for archaeology, economics, literature, foreign literature, linguistics, and minorities. There was no common academic journal (Yuankan ˾ō), but the various institutes had their own periodicals. Eventually, an Information Research Office (Qingbao Yanjiushi Ǘʺľȡ) was founded in 1957, which occupied a complex of buildings.6 It issued translations and introductions for textbooks, gathered information on research, and built information networks in the service of science, and in the role of leadership in decision-making. The main building, at that time, together with the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, had the additional function of an ideological centre. The layout of the complex must have facilitated this function: the majority of the institutes were located in the same building, except for the Institute of Economics and of Minority Studies, and all the main offices were located on the grounds of the main building. During the Cultural Revolution, intellectuals all over China had been made to work and learn discipline by following Mao Zedong’s ‘May 7 Directive’ of 1966. By 1969, all research personnel in the Xuebu were undergoing ‘political re-education’ under the direction of the Workers and Liberation Army Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team. Office

5

Wong Siu-lun, New Construction (Xin Jianshe) No. 7, 1955, 64. In 1961, it was renamed the Academic Materials Research Office, and in 1975 expanded to the Research Office of Information (Qingbao Yanjiushi). In 1985, it became a combined Document and Information Institute, with the Information Research Institute as its base. In 1992, it was changed to the Document and Information Centre. 6

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buildings were turned into dormitories, where academics had to perform communal tasks and undergo ideological reform. The militants at the Xuebu were divided into two factions: the majority faction was called the ‘company’ (liandui ű’), and the minority faction the ‘squadron’ (zhongdui ̰’). The factions were in protracted conflict, both willing to engage in proletarian struggle in the name of Mao Zedong. By 1970, around twenty million academics and other professionals were labouring in Cadre Schools set up throughout China. At the Xuebu, too, most institutes sent their ‘regiments’ to the May Seventh Movement Schools for Cadres. They were mostly spread over districts outside Beijing and beyond, into Hebei Province. Most intellectuals had to stay on for several years to ‘obtain knowledge through labour’, ‘learn from the peasants’ (xiaxiang ʇʐ) and engage in thought reform. Many intellectuals felt they were wasting time by this method of acquiring knowledge.7 Research at the Xuebu suffered. Most departments became dysfunctional or largely so because of factional struggles and material poverty. The Xuebu had only a few research students, as opportunities to take exams were scarce. No attempts were made at recruiting students on a regular basis either. Even though fourteen institutes were recognized, only the institutes for archaeology, linguistics and minorities were under Party-state protection. There were only three academic journals left: Archaeology (Kaogu őÏ), Chinese Literature (Zhongguo Yuwen ̰Ý˳ɲ), and History Research (Lishi Yanjiu Ūȗʺľ). Problems of a political nature were severe at the Xuebu, and factionalism, false accusations, a deficiency of material facilities, and financial problems nearly brought research to a halt. In 1966, the Xuebu became an important political enemy (zheng di ̝ |) of the perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution in Beijing. Partly under their influence, the Xuebu brought forth some well-known ‘Leftists’ (zuopai ͑Ʒ), such as Guan Feng, Lin Yushi, and Wu Chuanqi. Posters were hung up, meetings convened, and mass rallies held. Diverse audiences came to have a look at the rallies, because some members of the Xuebu were said to have ‘gone up to heaven’ and to have become ‘fellow inhabitants of heaven’ (tongtian ɕɍ), or Zhongnanhai ̰ƯÞ, the seat of top leaders in the Central Committee. Although some academics of the Xuebu were members of the Central Cultural Revolution Group, they were only a few among many. Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Xuebu

7 For an account of this experience by a researcher of the Institute for Foreign Literature in the Xuebu, see Yang Jian, E1982.

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housed around 2,500 workers, staff members and their families who lived together as regular residents and workers. By 1973 the Cultural Revolution movement at the Xuebu was no longer vibrant. Responding to the request of Zhou Enlai, the Xuebu recalled intellectuals from the May Seventh Cadre Schools, but most research did not resume until 1976, the year in which Zhou Enlai (January 8) and Mao passed away (September 9). Soon afterward the gang of leaders of the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four—Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, and Kang Sheng, Chen Boda, and Yao Wenyuan—was rounded up (October 6). An end was put to the ‘Ultra-Leftist policies of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four’, and the Cultural Revolution became the target of debate and criticism. Many students had been active as militants, and the Institute of Philosophy protected some of the young Cultural Revolution activists in view of their young age. However, Guan Feng, Wang Li, Qi Benyu, Chi Qun and Wu Chuanqi were purged, as they were regarded as Lin Biao’s ‘Black Guards’ and ‘big mess-makers’. Qian Zhongshu, who in 1983 became a vice-president of CASS, expressed his unease about the way intellectuals dealt with the Cultural Revolution. He summarized his feelings concerning the three main groups of participants in the following way: the victims will be left with indignation; the gullible broad masses will be left with remorse; and the conscious instigators of revolutionary witch-hunts will be left with shame. But he added, ‘An acute sense of shame can result in selective amnesia: no one wants to remember things that have caused him or her a loss of face or embarrassment. It is not surprising then that uncomfortable memories can slip unnoticed from conscious recollection into oblivion’.8 Establishing CASS Under Hua Guofeng’s reign as chair of the State Council (premier), some Ultra-Leftists remained powerful. Though it was recognised that much work had to be done to regain the former standard of education, millions of people who had been labelled had to wait for rehabilitation. One of them was Deng Xiaping. During the 1950s and early 1960s, Deng had risen to a high position in the Central Committee, but was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. In late 1975, another campaign had flared up against Deng, and in March 1976, CAS formally announced a

8

Qian Zhongshu, ed., preface to Yang Jian, E1982, 12–13.

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denunciation of China’s ‘capitalist roader’.9 But by 1977, after the arrest of the Gang of Four and Mao’s death in 1976, Deng was rehabilitated as vice-premier to the Politburo and the Military Affairs Commission. In 1978, Deng became the chairman of the CCP Central Committee, a position that only Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai had held, and which had been vacant since 1964. In his policies of reform, Deng also received the steady support of the secretary-general of the Party, Hu Yaobang, and Premier Zhao Ziyang, who headed the State Council’s ‘Science and Technology Group’. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP, held in December 1978, announced the decision to focus the entire country’s working efforts on socialist modernization. In 1977, the Department of Philosophy and the Social Sciences was upgraded and the Central Committee of the CCP gave permission for the founding of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). CASS is known as the highest academic research institution in the fields of philosophy and the social sciences, as well as a national centre for comprehensive (zonghe ͌è) studies, a large pool of loosely integrated, functional disciplines of strategic value, including economics, politics and area studies. The 1977 decision to assign a greater role to the social sciences entailed the establishment of a number of new research fields, such as international relations and foreign area studies, demography, law, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Academic societies were set up, the number of academic journals was increased, long-term plans were designed, and debates on ‘the criteria of truth’ were undertaken and became widespread. These debates on the criteria of truth allegedly involved many millions of people, though they attracted the attention of philosophers in particular. Since July 1977, after Deng Xiaoping’s excoriation of the Two Whatevers (liang ge fanshi ŵŜȝ), the First Congress on Truth Criteria (1978) followed suit. It was decided that Mao Zedong Thought ‘needs to be grasped comprehensively and accurately as a scientific system’. The ‘Two Whatevers’ stood for the principle that all Mao’s political decisions should be held onto, and the principle that all instructions Mao had ever given must be obeyed.10 Despite Hua Guofeng’s preference to continue Mao’s policies, the Two Whatevers came to an official end. This debate in Marxist cir9 10

Spence, 1999, 611–612. Deng Xiaoping, E1984, 51–52.

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cles is claimed to have revived the Communist Party’s ‘fine tradition of seeking truth from facts’, and is regarded as ‘lively education in Marxism’. Initially, the Party had been slow to publish the procedures of the rehabilitation of intellectuals, and the preferential treatment of the exRightists that were Party members was endemic. In CASS, nearly half of the approximately 2,100 intellectuals had run into political trouble during the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution, especially during the so-called Four Clean-Ups (siqing ȵǖ) movement of 1963–1964 and in the early years of the Cultural Revolution. By mid-1979, however, over eight hundred of them were rehabilitated, including well-known academic leaders, such as philosopher Yang Xianzhen, president of the Higher Party School, the famous economist Sun Yefang, the prominent historian of science, Xu Liangying, historian of philosophy Hou Wailu, historians Liu Danian, Li Shu, and Luo Ergang, and archaeologist Xia Nai. By then only forty-five Rightists were still employed by the Academy. Of them, forty-four were absolved. Others had died, and many had been sent to farms and then to work outside the Academy.11 In 1982, in order to enhance the status of intellectuals, the State Council and the Central Committee of the CCP resolved to send Party and state cadres to study under famous specialists. Furthermore, the Party’s theoretical journal, Red Flag (Hong Qi), recommended the selection of talented intellectuals as leaders. Some intellectuals became trained as models, other skilled intellectuals with favourable class backgrounds were considered for Party membership, while the working and living conditions of intellectuals were improved.12 The reputation of most academic disciplines was cleared; new ones were established, corresponding to their expected value for society. Whereas philosophy was to play a central guiding role in the field of ideology, in the field of Marxian science, and in the coordination between different scientific disciplines, economics was to discuss economic laws under socialism, and the readjustment and restructuring of the economy. Discussions of major theoretical issues conducted by Chinese literary critics and historians were to emancipate people’s minds and to assist research. For example, the 1981 symposium in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of China’s famous short-story writer Lu Xun (1881–1936) and the symposium in commemoration of the seventi11 12

People’s Daily, July 14, 1979 (quoted in White 1987, 255). White, 1987, 256–257; 258–261.

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eth anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, sparked discussions on Chinese revolutionary history, the struggle (and triumph) of the Chinese nation, and the meaning of socialism. A fresh look at Marxist theory was hoped to speed up China’s modernization; this time, it was to be in concert with the ‘universal truths of science’. Practice, now, would be the only criterion of truth, and largescale economic development and restructuring was going to be the field of practice that would prove the true strength of China. Large numbers of researchers were to participate in investigations on the macroeconomic approach to socialist reconstruction, organized by government departments and enterprises; jurists were to build a socialist legal system and to formulate its guiding ideology; ethnologists were to study minority nationalities and their socialist transformation; and, sociology was to study real life phenomena, such as youth behaviour. Freedom of debate was to be guaranteed by the Double-Hundred policy of ‘letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend’. Debate was to be incorporated into the Party Constitution so as to prevent the schools from premature withering.13 Furthermore, the policy of Opening Up (kaifang) would render it possible for Chinese social scientists to learn from the ‘advanced experience of foreign countries’, from the ‘study their achievements’, and from the capacity to ‘absorb what is of value’. These set phrases would reverberate in thousands of academic texts. The establishment of social science disciplines did not only require political legitimization by the state, but also financial support for the creation of a new disciplinary infrastructure. Funding of CASS research institutes was established by governmental mandate, so that the plans of research institutes largely depended on state policies. Even financially independent groups that wanted to found an organization, journal, or commission required official fiat. The great increase in academic activity led to more, rather than less, state involvement in steering, controlling, and defining new boundaries for scientific research. Apart from loosening up ideological guidelines and clearing away obstructions to research into ‘forbidden zones’, the creation of an infrastructure of a discipline required active support, strategic planning, and political engagement with the enterprise that steered the production of knowledge. As the funding of the social sciences and the number of research projects in13 Article 47 of the Constitution specifies the freedom of speech and the press and ‘freedom to conduct scientific research, literary and artistic creation, and other cultural activities (Wang Ruoshui, E1986, 79).

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creased, research planning was needed to coordinate research to the effect that they could support official research priorities. Means of directing research were developed so as to coordinate the requirements for socialist-state building and modernization with the institutional research setting. In the 1980s, research centres involved in ‘urgent’ research, such as border-regions research and political science, were promoted to a higher institutional level; and, in the 1990s, the disciplines considered less productive or problematic were demoted. To ensure an efficient and effective method of allocating funds among institutes, a bidding system for priority projects was developed, and several foundations were set up to award grants for promising talent and the publication of outstanding books. Other means designed to encourage politically relevant research were the recommendation and discouragement of certain trends and topics by important leaders. Promises were made granting work security, material benefits, and promotions. Status was conferred upon ‘model scientists’, and official recommendations were made of the study of certain historical movements. These movements included the May Fourth movement, and the beginning of the Xia period. Historical personae included, in particular, famous philosophers and revolutionaries. The formation of CASS: a vote for order and informed authority As described above, CASS grew out of the Xuebu, a division of CAS since 1955. Party Chairman and Premier Hua Guofeng on May 7, 1977, authorized the separation of CASS from CAS. The establishment of CASS had Deng Xiaoping’s full support, as he believed that socialist science had to be ‘instrumental in achieving the goals of the Four Modernizations’, declaring that intellectuals were to be regarded as a part of the ‘socialist working class’.14 Deng believed that ‘Only by making our country a modern, powerful socialist state can we more effectively prevent capitalist restoration, cope with aggression and subversion by social-imperialism and imperialism, and be more certain of gradually creating the material conditions for the advancement to the great ideal of communism’. Therefore, science was to be regarded as part of the productive forces and ‘the overwhelming majority of intellectuals are part of the proletariat’. Further, ‘a mam-

14

Deng Xiaoping [Teng Hsiao-ping], ed., 1978, 9–18.

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moth force of scientific and technical personnel, who are both red and expert (you hong you zhuan ˬîˬ̿), had to be assembled in order to combat China’s backwardness; and, finally, a system of division of responsibility among institute directors under the leadership of Party Committees would ‘strengthen the leading role of the Party Committees while bringing into full play the role of the specialists’.15 Thus, socialism and expertise, apart from making China more prosperous, promised to protect China from the imperialist West by means of modernization. In March 1978, it was decided to draw up three- and eight-year plans for the social sciences, parallel to the national economy and science plans for 1978–1980 and 1978–1985. After that, planning would focus on the implementation of the plans synchronously with the nation’s five-year plan. CASS was delegated by the Leading Group for the National Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences to coordinate research forces in, and draw up a five-year plan for, the country’s philosophy and social sciences. It acted for the Leading Group in taking charge of the State Social Science Foundation. It also edited the annual Directory on the Selection of Subjects Covered by the National Social Sciences Foundation, and it handled matters pertaining to applications for research subjects and related financial assistance.16 During the first years, considerable attention was paid to the recovery of the social sciences from the Cultural Revolution and to formulating national plans for rebuilding social-science research. Though the Deng camp supported the enhancement of the status of intellectuals, such an effort was bound to take much time and devotion to Party politics in order to groom ‘a mammoth force’ of intellectual advisors. In 1978, important vehicles of propaganda, such as The Peoples Daily (Renmin Ribao), the Liberation Army Paper (Jiefangjun Bao), and The Red Flag were still under the influence of so-called ‘Ultra-Leftist’ policies of ‘uniting, educating, and reforming of intellectuals’. Furthermore, the journals of the ‘two schools’ (liang xiao ŵʚ), Beijing and Qinghua Universities, had retained much of their influence, too. During the Cultural Revolution, people from these schools (and others) had written lengthy and fierce articles under the pseudonym ‘bridge schools’ (liangxiao ųʜ) (‘bridge’ [liang] is homonymous with ‘two’). Deng Xiaoping, however, did not have an authoritative theory at hand to combat these forces and, at that time, he had no crowd of people writing for him yet. Such concerns also led to the upgrading of the Xuebu into CASS. And as the Xuebu build15 16

Ibid. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences—A Brief Introduction, 1988, 34.

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ings were too old and dilapidated, plans were made for the construction of a new building. Apart from the official reason of stimulating the social sciences, there were other motives for setting up CASS. One reason, according to Su Shaozhi, derived from the need for separating the natural sciences of CAS from the system of propaganda. Such separation would entail a separation between science and social scientific disciplines, and the continued monitoring of the social sciences through the propaganda system.17 In this way CASS remained under the supervision of the Propaganda Department, while the sciences of CAS could continue a separate academic life in relative freedom from the scrutiny of the Propaganda Department. Another reason for the separation of the sciences and the social sciences was the importance attached to the latter as a think-tank for the modernization policies under the Deng-regime. During the Mao era, Mao’s Red Book had served to reflect the ‘truth’, and was taken as the point of departure by great numbers of people writing articles on all kinds of pseudoscientific subjects. Only a few people knew how to write independently. Students had to study articles in the newspapers and Party documents, after which they had to discuss them, and then make known their position, and, finally, criticize their own writings. The new separation of sciences and social sciences had made possible the production of social knowledge that could be moulded to the needs of the Party, while at the same time it had taken away some of the political burden from the sciences. The creation of theoretical backing for Deng’s regime tempered the aggressive tone of discussions that had held sway during the Cultural Revolution. Education policies had been attuned to the adage of ‘Today’s Soviet Union Is Our Tomorrow’ (Sulian de jintian jiu shi women de mingtian ȹŮwİɍŁȝɷƙwƢɍ): most academic materials, ranging from philosophy, economy, and literature to ethnology and genetics, had been translated materials from the Soviet Union. At the present, the only way out for China was ‘opening up’ and ‘to learn from the achievements of the West’. Politically, the loosening of ideological reins required extreme caution. For social scientists this meant keeping the propagated ‘free’ debate within the bounds of Party guidelines and the politics of ‘no-change theory’ (bubianlun -#Ə), that is, the absence of political reforms.

17

Su Shaozhi, quoted in Miller, 1996, 96–97.

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The changes in the tasks of the social sciences required institutional growth. The Xuebu, in 1976 had counted a staff of approximately 2,000 members and included fourteen more-or-less paralyzed institutes, but during the first five years of CASS’s existence, from 1977 to 1982, thirteen institutes were added.18 The growth of the field of economics between 1978 and 1982 exemplifies the trend of ‘increase through differentiation:’ five institutes split away from the Institute of Economics (see Appendix III). Furthermore, the number of area-studies institutes grew extremely fast. After the founding of the South Asia Studies Institute in 1978, CASS disciplines multiplied until they covered the entire world. In fact, the Institutes of East European, Russian and Central Asian Studies (1965/ 1981) were returned to CASS from the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee (CC) of the CCP (zhonglianbu ̰Ů0), where they had played a role, mainly, in applied foreign policy research. In the same period, the editorial committees and offices for the society for Chinese Social Science Periodicals, the China Social Science Publishers, the Graduate School and the Guo Moruo Society were set up. After 1981, the Research Centre for Chinese Borderland History and Geography (1983), the Institute of Politics (1985), the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies (1988), and the Institute of Taiwan Studies (1984) were added (see Appendix II). In the course of time, disciplines were also grouped into clusters. Thus, disciplines were assembled into the modules of economics, philosophy, history, literature and international studies; on the basis of the internal structure of the disciplines and their interrelations, some branches were combined into comprehensive projects, such as ecological economics, artificial intelligence, future studies, national defence economics, computer linguistics, and prediction studies for socio-economic development (yucexue ˹9ʳ). The Graduate School of CASS, set up on September 25, 1978,19 enabled CASS to increase its capacity from 150 to 448 students.20 Until the Graduate School quarters were completed in 1985, there remained a shortage of residential facilities.21 About 400 people resided in the student quarters of other universities or had to rent rooms. Nevertheless, the future conditions for students looked more promising than ever.

18

See APPENDIX II. Before the Graduate School was founded, the Xuebu had trained many graduate students in the period from 1956 to 1964 (CASS Graduate School 1998: 11). 20 CASS Graduate School, 1998, 14. 21 Ibid.: 28. 19

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For decades much time and talent had been expended on a wasteful class struggle, but now the students, possibly future leaders, were to live together in unison. This atmosphere was jokingly referred to as ‘First Class Whampoa’ (Huangpu Yiji), invoking the images of loyalty and a team spirit associated with prominent communist graduates, such as Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao, in the military academy near Canton in the 1920s. Of course, in the eighties, it was the power base of Deng Xiaoping that was at stake, and the phrase of Huangpu Yiji was used as an invocation for a strong and loyal future leadership. Conforming to Deng’s policies toward science and technology, criteria for evaluating competing research proposals were devised to fit in with the demands of modernization. In most of the sciences, standards could be unspecific with respect to political principles, so that the newly set up Science Foundation of CAS supported projects that answered to its general needs.22 The theoretical sciences and the social sciences, however, were in a more knotty predicament. On the one hand, they were expected to ‘seek truth from facts’, requiring academic freedom, while, on the other hand, they owed obedience to the Party leadership, with its requirement of forsaking academic freedom. Similarly, the conflicting adages of the Double-Hundred policies and the guideline of upholding the Four Cardinal Principles—the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat (changed to the People’s Democratic Dictatorship), the leadership of the CCP, and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought—required intellectuals to hold on to a double standard of concepts such as ‘freedom’ and ‘truth’. Adherence to the political guidelines for academic research, in the years to come, would lead to various responses among intellectuals, such as uneasiness, uncritical acceptance, and rebellion. Nevertheless, these guidelines did not stop applicants from choosing an academic career, especially during the first decade of the reforms, when the relevant material and social circumstances of intellectuals promised improvement.

22

White III, 1984, 17.

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Building state institutions and regulating academic life Compared with the doctrinal development of the social sciences in the first decade after liberation, the social sciences after 1978 were given far more ideological space for diversification. Paradoxically, this development of liberalization involved increased efforts by the state to keep the development of the social sciences within a politically acceptable scope of expansion. However, it was an absence of a protective authority, or, as present leaders prefer to believe, an absence of organized state protection and authority, that had made possible the persecution of intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution.23 Before the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, state power had already faded. Thus, in June 1958, a recentralization of the leadership in the Party had reduced the autonomy of state, judicial, and social institutions, as well as that of the press. The CCP Politburo retained the power of decision over major principles and policies, but transferred authority for concrete policy, legislation, and oversight from the state and judicial bodies to the CCP Secretariat. The government became in essence the executive organ of the Party, rather than of the state. In 1959 judicial organs were merged into the public security organs at all levels, and the Ministry of Justice and notary offices were abolished. All state supervisory organs were replaced by Party ‘Supervisory Committees’ (jiancha weiyuanhui ě