Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform

by Orville Schell

Overview

In this arresting chronicle of one tumultuous year in China's love-hate relationship with the West, Orville Schell brings us a revealing analysis of the Chinese reform movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307767141
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/06/2010
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	408
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Orville Schell was educated at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley and is the author of numerous books and articles on China, including Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century. The former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, he is presently the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on US–China Relations at the Asia Society in New York City.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	xi
	Back to the Future	3
Part 1	Don't Be Afraid of Democracy
	A Dictionary Time Capsule	9
	Don't Be Afraid of Democracy	15
	The Liberal Reformers Speak Out	23
	The Great Debate on Political Reform and Democracy	28
	Bankruptcy Comes to China	38
	Socialist China's Big Board	44
	Building Friendship Through Golf and Guns	55
	The Limo-ization of Beijing	64
Part 2	Bodybuilding and Bikinis
	A Vacuum	71
	Bodybuilding and Bikinis	73
	Cosmetic Surgery	80
	Fashion As Emblem	85
	Letting a Hundred Periodicals Bloom	89
	Mao, Freud, and Iacocca	93
	Socialism Is Good	101
Part 3	A Second Kind of Loyalty
	Three Critics and the Party	119
	Fang Lizhi: China's Andrei Sakharov	121
	Liu Binyan: A Second Kind of Loyalty	140
	Wang Ruowang: Political Iconoclast	162
	Communist Traditionalism	177
	A Unity of Opposites	183
	Wondering About the Thaw	187
Part 4	The Students March
	Liang Qichao: China's First Democrat	193
	The Democracy Wall Movement	201
	The Student Demonstrations Begin	211
	Fang Lizhi Addresses the Students of Shanghai	218
	The Students March on Shanghai	223
	The Students March on Beijing	231
	The Aftermath	241
Part 5	Emulate Lei Feng
	The New Political Climate	247
	The Party Reacts	250
	Fang Lizhi Is Purged	258
	Wang Ruowang Is Expelled from the Party	266
	Hu Yaobang Is Dismissed from Office	269
	The Campaign Against Wholesale Westernization	276
	The Dismissal of Liu Binyan	282
	Emulate Lei Feng	286
	Chinese Students Abroad Write a Letter Home	295
	Fang Lizhi's Speeches Are "Published"	302
	An Intellectual's View of the Party	306
	The Crackdown on Publishing	314
	Limiting the Hard-line Counter-attack	324
Part 6	Disco Dreams
	The Economic Effects of the Crackdown	337
	Advertising Comes to the Great Hall of the People	340
	Disco Dreams	349
	Fang, Wang, and Liu Reappear	357
	The Circle Comes Around	364
	Mao and Kentucky Fried Chicken	373
	Notes on Translations and Sources	383

Editorial Reviews

What China-watcher could have foreseen, only a few years ago, that the country would move from militant communist orthodoxy to an apparent headlong race toward capitalism? Schell (To Get Rich Is Glorious) spent a year in China to discover whether this metamorphosis is real or yet another mirage on the shifting sands of Chinese politics. Certainly, signs of a new spirit are everywhere. Schell recounts that free enterprise in Shanghai has skyrocketed, with a growth rate of 500%; stock exchanges have opened in several cities. And even Mao's guarantee of lifelong employment, the so-called Iron Rice Bowl policy, is beginning to rust as poorly performing workers are laid off. The lure of the forbiddenWestern culture with its glitzy array of movies, rock music, electronic equipment, high fashionis proving irresistible as many Chinese become disco devotees and eager consumers. Even such basic Western ideals as democracy are having an impact, especially among intellectuals and artists. But although the work ethic is rooted in Chinese tradition, independent thought and democratic participation emphatically are not. With the future still uncertain, Schell provides a clear, intelligent study of a society torn between a stagnating revolution and a newborn dynamism. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Schell, a career Sinologist, shows us the predicament of a changing nation opening its doors to foreign technology and capital but unable or unwilling to shut it on the accompanying Western values and crazes. He explains the dynamics behind political purges and controversies, student marches, popular culture, and the Party's attempts to keep a rein on democracy and the press. Schell is a political scientist and a roving reporter, combining brief journalistic narrative with lengthy discussion and quotation. He concentrates on the last ten years, especially 1986 and 1987. While Mark Salzman's Iron and Silk ( LJ 2/1/87) is a warm personal memoir, Schell's work is a chronicle with the compelling urgency of events unfolding before our eyes. Recommended for informed readers and scholars.Douglas W. Cooper, Randolph-Macon Coll. Lib., Ashland, Va.

Library Journal