Zhou Enlai in the Sinological Arts of East and West

Abstract

58 China Review International: Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 1994 Zhou Enlai in the Sinologica! Arts ofEast and West Dick Wilson. Zhou Enlai zhuan (Biography of Zhou Enlai). Translated [into Chinese] by Li Weizhou, Sa Xia, Zhu Jichun, Hai Lin, et al. Beijing: Zhongyang Dangxiap Chubanshe, 1989. (A translation of Chou: The Story ofZhou Enlai 1898-1976 [London and Melbourne: Hutchinson, 1984].) Ronald C. Keith, Zhou Enlaide waijiao shengya (Zhou Enlai's diplomatic career). Translated [into Chinese] by Feng Zhanghong, Zou Haiyan, Zhang Xianchen, Wei Yunhua, Zheng Wangquan, Chen Bo, Wu Qihua. Beijing: Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1992. (A translation of The Diplomacy ofZhou Enlai [London: Macmillan; NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1989].) Ronald C. Keith, Zhou Enlaide waijiao (Zhou Enlai's diplomacy). Translated [into Chinese] by Wang Yonghong. Beijing: Dongfang Chubanshe, 1992. (A translation of The Diplomacy ofZhou Enlai [London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989].) Since the early 1980s, as a result of the "open door" and the impact of contemporary economic reform on Chinese publication and scholarship, the Western and Chinese Sinological studies of China's senior leaders have begun to interact at a qualitatively new analytical level. However, it is still an open question as to whether diese two studies will form part of a new international Sinology that can bridge Aie differences between Aie Chinese and Western metiiodological and disciplinary lines of scholarly inquiry.1 These interacting Sinologies, however, are beginning to grapple more selfconsciously with the underlying issue of cultural relativism as it relates to the biographical correlation of power and morality in China's domestic politics. Furthermore , one can begin to document an incremental convergence of professional standards even in what has been, for Aie Chinese, the most closed and politically sensitive area of contemporary scholarship, namely, the biographical study of China's most senior leaders. Current change in die definition and/or practical implementation of Aie official guidelines governing the publication of materials concerning senior leaders y ? y ancj Jj16 greater public discussion of their personalities, policies, political relationships , and family lives may serve as a historic benchmark for die final passing of the age of revolutionary heroes. A more open and frank dialogue concerning poofHawaii Press Features 59 liticai leaders also has an important bearing on the assessment of die contemporary relevance oftraditional structures ofauthority and the emergence ofnew attitudes toward participation in civic culture. Despite the regulatory admonishments of the State Administration of Press and Publication, China's rapidly expanding publishing industry has eagerly facilitated a new commercialization of inner Party life as a fascinated reading public has demanded more and more detail on die internal motivation of China's leaders .2 Even in the context of contemporary reform, political history is still largely understood in terms of the moral or immoral example set by leaders. So much of the stuff of modern Chinese politics still concerns die "spirit" of the leader. The most recent high point in what the Chinese now call the "leadership craze," lingxiu re, was the Renmin ribao's extraordinarily protracted and unprecedented serialization of the full pre-1949 biography of Deng Xiaoping by his daughter, Xiao Rong (Deng Rong or, more popularly, Mao Mao).3 Mao Mao recollects Deng's family history and revolutionary life with pride, and perhaps her biography is a reiterated dimension of shenjiao, or teaching by example, which highlights the value system of the disappearing revolutionary generation in its struggle to create a distinctively Chinese "spiritual civilization." Over the last several years, the biographical study of Zhou Enlai has also formed part of the contemporary trend of"leadership craze." Zhou's importance in the Western Sinological study of domestic Chinese politics was summed up by Steven Goldstein in 1986: "Until a satisfactory study of [Zhou's] role in 20th-century Chinese politics appears, our view of that process must remain woefully incomplete ."4 In both life and death, Zhou Enlai has always been at the center of East-West Sinological understanding of the correlations of power and morality in Chinese politics. Furthermore, on the world stage, Zhou has been closely associated wiAi Aie history of the making and un-making of Cold War alignment. Zhou sought to scale the walls...