Contemporary Chinese Politics Research Articles

"Red and Expert" and China's Cultural Revolution

IN ANY CONFLICT situation, it is difficult to describe the action without a program and a means of classifying and categorizing the players. This is true in war, professional athletics, and cultural revolutions. Most analyses of China's Cultural Revolution utilize, often implicitly, some form of the paradigm. The purpose of this article is to suggest an alternative approach. The red-expert paradigm has perhaps hampered as much as it has facilitated understanding of contemporary Chinese politics. The problem stems primarily from the fact that the Chinese Communists have used the phrase to refer to a new type of Chinese cadre and citizen, whereas Western specialists have extended this image of the ideal comrade by using the red-expert paradigm to classify specific officials. If and were ideal types, then it would seem reasonable to conclude that some officials would be more than expert; this assumption was reinforced by the continuing process of reinterpreting red and expert to emphasize first redness and then expertise. Moreover, as this seemed to suggest a process of competition and perhaps conflict between reds and experts, officials were soon being classified as reds (appropriate synonyms in the literature are ideologue, utopian, and revolutionary romanticist) and experts (pragmatist, moderate, and consolidator). One of the earliest and most interesting accounts of Chinese politics in terms of conflict be. tween reds and experts suggested that Liu Shao-ch'i, Peng Chen, and Teng Hsiao-p'ing were among the leading reds, while Chou En-lai, Ch'en Yfin, Po I-po, Li Fu-ch'un, and Li Hsien-nien were among the leading experts.' This classification, however, plays havoc with any attempt to understand the Cultural Revolution, for it is the reds who are purged and the experts who not only survive but on the whole thrive. Does this mean that the experts out-ideologued the reds in the manner in which Stalin purged the Preobrazhensky school of economic thought only to adopt the policies for which they were condemned and purged?2 Or does it mean that earlier

Contemporary China as a Problem for Political Science

This article attempts to set forth, in as nearly comprehensive and organized a manner as possible, a range of problems referring to the political development of Communist China whose investigation would not only advance our understanding of contemporary Chinese politics but would also produce results of value for the general study of politics. Our focus is particularly, but not exclusively, on events since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Our procedure is to move from the general to the specific: that is, to inquire, first, what are the most general classes of political phenomena with which the Chinese political system has affinities; second, what are the most general developmental trends which can be observed in the Chinese revolution; and third, what are the particular aspects of the dynamics of the Chinese political system which offer rewarding opportunities for research.

The Study of Contemporary Chinese Politics: Some Remarks on Retarded Development

Aretrospective assessment at mid-century might have suggested that the course of Chinese history between 1900 and 1950 recorded only two events of enduring political significance: the first, the fall of the Ch'ing dynasty in October 1911 and, with it, destruction of the imperial system which had lasted for two millennia; the second, the establishment of the People's Republic of China in October 1949 and, through it, commitment to accelerated modernization and forced industrialization along lines similar to those plotted earlier by the Soviet Union. Simultaneously, assessment of the future might well have concluded, with prescience born of objectivity, that the effect of the Chinese Communist explosion on both Chinese and world politics would merit a major effort on the part of American social science research.