The JAS for Free: REVOLUTION!

Last spring, we reported from the annual AAS meeting on President Elizabeth Perry's inspiring address ("Reclaiming the Chinese Revolution"). For a short period of time, the address is available for free PDF download and we strongly encourage you to grab a copy while you can. [Link will take you to the issue and from there you can select the format in which you wish to view Perry's piece.]

The address begins:

REVOLUTIONS ARE UNPOPULAR THESE days, among Western politicians and scholars alike.We put our faith in liberal institutions such as markets and courts of law, looking to “democratic transitions” rather than to social revolutions as the path toward political progress. The view of revolution as a nasty and needless mistake was evident twenty years ago when celebrations surrounding the bicentennial of the French Revolution evoked debate and discomfort both inside and outside France. Then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, after leaving Paris on Bastille Day 1989, tapped into the prevailing sentiment when she presented President François Mitterrand with a handsome edition of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, and smugly instructed the French president to read Dickens to learn why the French Revolution had been completely unnecessary...

Indeed, I imagine it is fair to say that many members of our association were initially drawn to the Asian field because we once held a favorable view of the Chinese revolution. Forty years ago, in the spring of 1968, the Association for Asian Studies convened its annual meeting in Philadelphia. That occasion was marked by a subgathering of Asianists who opposed the war in Vietnam, out of which was born the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS). The many budding young Asianists who soon joined the CCAS, myself included, were generally united in the conviction that the war in Vietnam represented an epochal clash between a dynamic Asian revolutionary upsurge, stirred by the example of Mao’s China, on the one hand, and a destructive American imperialism, bolstered by the work of some prominent members of the Asian studies establishment, on the other.

But that was then...

The availabilty of the address is part of an effort on the part of the AAS's journal, the Journal of Asian Studies, to increase the association's reach. For another free article (again, available for limited time), see "State, Sovereignty, and the People: A Comparison of the 'Rule of Law' in China and India" by Jonathan K. Ocko and David Gilmartin (Feb. 2009).

Coming Distractions: The Annual AAS Meeting

Robert Buswell, Association for Asian Studies President, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies (and a China Beatnik, of course, who regularly contributes to this blog), have released a joint letter that may interest those who will be or are considering attending the AAS annual meeting in late March (or who simply like to follow the organizational goings-on of AAS and its flagship publications).

In the letter, Buswell, a U.C.L.A. specialist in Korean studies, and Wasserstrom lay out changes to this year's and future annual meetings, including efforts to expand the scope of the association to include diplomats, journalists, and public intellectuals as well as emphasizing disciplines not traditionally well-represented in the association (and speaking to issues that engage this broadened audience through topical essays in the JAS), and increasing the internationalization of the association's membership and journal coverage. To read the full contents, you can visit the AAS website.

For those who are interested in learning more about the schedule for this year's meeting in Chicago, March 26-29, the program is available online. The conference (where, incidentally, our by then-just out China in 2008 will be displayed in the book exhibit hall) will include keynote speeches by Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Han Sung-Joo, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and former Ambassador to the U.S. Journalists participating in panels at the conference include Howard French, Jonathan Fenby, Ching Ching Ni, Ted Fishman, and Nayan Chanda.

In Case You Missed It: Post-Mao China

Last year, the Association for Asian Studies inaugurated a new series of booklets under their “Resources for Teaching About Asia” branch called “Key Issues in Asian Studies.” The first two booklets in the series were published in 2007: Political Rights in Post-Mao China by Merle Goldman and Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia by Michael Peletz. (Those interested in applying to write a “Key Issues” booklet should see the AAS’s author guidelines.)

Goldman’s book on political rights in contemporary China canvases the factions that dominated political discussions in the post-Mao era, and is key reading for those who want a quick introduction to the post-1989 Chinese political landscape. (The booklet clocks in at a very manageable 76 pages.) The primary topic of Post-Mao China is actually politics from the late 1980s to the late 1990s; there is very little discussion of politics in the new millennia. Even so, for those perpetually mixing up their new leftists with their neo-Maoists, this is a good start for clarification. And with protests in the news of late, Goldman’s sketch of the definitions of citizenship participation and varying groups’ access to and engagement in the political process provides useful background information.

Goldman, professor emerita of history at Boston University, has been a prolific writer during her career and is the author of Literary Dissent in Communist China, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China, and From Comrade to Citizen, among other books, as well as numerous edited volumes and dozens of book chapters and articles. We chatted with her over email about the topics raised in her booklet:

China Beat: What was your goal in writing Political Rights in Post-Mao China? What kind of audience did you have in mind?

Merle Goldman: The purpose of the book was to reach high school and college students who might be interested in the issue of human rights in China.

China Beat: One of the interesting backdrops to your discussion of the political landscape of the 1990s is the disintegration of the Soviet Union. I've heard it said that the 1989 protests provided inspiration for sovereignty movements in Eastern Europe, but hadn't realized how fear-inducing the Soviet Union's collapse was for CCP leadership, and how much that fear then shaped the political discussions of the 1990s. When and why did the power of that narrative wane?

Goldman: That is true. In fact, the Chinese students were excited about the trip to China of Gorbachev at the time of the 1989 demonstrations and had wanted to talk with him. That frightened the Chinese leaders, who feared a Gorbachev and his reforms in China. They feared it would lead to the end of the CCP. They were right. The Gorbachev era not only led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but also the rule of the Communist Party in Russia.

China Beat: One of the issues raised in Political Rights in Post-Mao China is the role of the emerging middle class as a political force. Middle class protest—like the "strolls" that took place in Shanghai and Chengdu, among other places—have received a lot of media interest this year. On the other hand, workers' protests and farmers' protests, also discussed in the booklet, have received less attention. Do you think the media is right to pay so much attention to middle class protest? In other words, is this where political change will come from in China, or could we be surprised by peasant and worker coalitions' ability to effect political change from below?

Goldman: The rising middle class has several components in China. The new entrepreneurs are being inducted into the party and have been co-opted, but on the fringes of this rising middle class are public intellectuals, journalists and defense lawyers who have spoken out on human rights issues. They are the topic of the new book that I am now working on.

China Beat: You note that neo-nationalists-who also received quite a bit of attention from Western media this year in the wake of the Tibet protests and the Olympic torch relay-are focused on "a revival of nationalist spirit" (26). The party has found eagerness for a stronger China (and anger at those who thwart it) useful at some times and dangerous at others. How do you see the Party utilizing young people's nationalist sentiments in the coming years? Do you see the neo-nationalist ideas as pointing the way toward a new kind of (potentially productive) Chinese political thought, or is this simply an old-and dangerous-path?

Goldman: The rising nationalism is filling the ideological vacuum left by the bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism. Through most of its history, China has been governed by an overriding ideology. In the pre-modern era, it was Confucianism and in the last half of the twentieth century it was Marxism-Leninism and the thought of Mao Zedong. Thus nationalism is filling that ideological vacuum. It could hold China's huge population together, especially in a period of great change, but it could also lead to a dangerous xenophobia, which will not only be harmful to the Chinese people but also to the rest of the world.

China Beat: The notion of "rules consciousness"- people using existing rules to justify challenges to local or even national actions (or, as you say in the book, framing "their critiques and demands in terms of the existing rules and regulations in order to exert pressure on the party to live up to its own laws")-is a regular theme in Political Rights. What are the most important ways that "rules consciousness" is being employed in the growing number of (mostly small-scale) protests today?

Goldman: Those who are calling for human rights and are demanding more political and religious freedom, call on the party to live up to the stipulations in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, which calls for freedom of speech and religion. China has also signed onto the UN Declarations on Human Rights. Whereas the Declaration on Economic Rights has been passed by China's rubber-stamp National People's Congress, the Declaration on Political and Civic Rights has not been passed. Those who are calling for human rights in China have urged the National People's Congress to pass the latter declaration.

China Annals: Elizabeth Perry

Elizabeth Perry of Harvard University is the outgoing president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) and the author of many books. She has also edited and co-edited nine books (one with China Beat’s Jeff Wasserstrom) which address issues of workers’ rights, popular protest, revolution, and reform. Last April, she delivered the presidential address at the Annual Meeting of the AAS in Atlanta, Georgia. In this address, which will appear in print in the November issue of the Journal of Asian Studies, she focused on the non-violent worker strike at the Anyuan coal mines in the early 1920s, and called for a more positive re-assessment of China’s twentieth-century revolutions. Nicole Barnes of The China Beat interviewed Dr. Perry about the content of her address and her current research.

Nicole Barnes: After serving your term as President of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), what direction do you see or would you like to see the Association moving in? What future challenges do you see the AAS having to overcome?

Elizabeth Perry: The AAS is a wonderful organization, the largest area studies association in existence and one that – unlike many scholarly associations these days – is continuing to grow and change. My hope is for still greater internationalization and diversification of the AAS membership. In particular, I would like to see more Asian-based members, younger members, and more members drawn from the social science disciplines and professions. As the terms of “intellectual trade” between America and Asia shift, with more influential scholarship being produced by our colleagues in Asia, it will be increasingly important for the AAS to identify, introduce and incorporate that work into our annual meeting program and our journal. The recent economic growth of China and India has generated considerable public interest in the prospect of an “Asian twenty-first century.” While we can never sacrifice the high academic standards for which our association is known, it is also important for us to find ways to make our knowledge of Asia more publicly accessible.

NB: Would you like to let our readers know about your upcoming book, and in what journal issue they may find a tantalizing piece of that work?

EP: The book I am currently writing is entitled, Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Traditions. The book will explore the early history of the labor movement at the Anyuan coal mine as well as the political uses of that history over the years by politicians, artists, writers, and ordinary Chinese citizens. In addition to the paper in the November 2008 JAS, I have published an article in Twentieth-Century China, which focuses on the Communists’ early efforts at mass education at Anyuan.

NB: Can you describe the intellectual and professional trajectory that led you to your topic for the presidential address?

EP: Most of my work has been concerned in one way or another with the Chinese revolution. My first book (Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China) focused on the countryside, looking at the relationship between “traditional” peasant rebellion and the Communist revolution. Subsequent books (Shanghai on Strike; Patrolling the Revolution; Proletarian Power) focused on the city of Shanghai, from the 1920s through the Cultural Revolution. The Communist mobilizing effort at the Anyuan coal mine had major implications for both the rural and urban wings of the Chinese revolution. Moreover, its history became highly contested during the Cultural Revolution. A study of Anyuan serves, I believe, as a revealing prism through which to understand the unfolding of the Chinese revolution.

NB: In your address, you mention several China scholars whose assessment of worker and peasant revolutions in China have changed drastically over the years. You include yourself among this list. What would you say you have learned about the successes and failures of revolutions in your scholarly career? How has your assessment of popular revolutions changed?

EP: Like many in my generation, I was initially drawn into the field of Asian studies because of a fascination with Asian revolutionary change – in both China and Vietnam. But after living in China as a visiting scholar for a year in 1979-80, I arrived at a more sober assessment of the Chinese revolution, especially as it developed under the PRC. My latest book, Patrolling the Revolution: Worker Militias, Citizenship and the Modern Chinese State, reflects that perspective. The current study of Anyuan has renewed some of my youthful admiration for the initial ideals of the Chinese revolution, while providing a vehicle for studying what went so wrong in its subsequent development.