Title: Politics inside the “Black Box”: How and Why Western Analyses Have Misunderstood Elite Politics in the PRC
Lecturer: Frederick C. Teiwes (Emeritus Professor of Chinese Politics, UniversityofSydney)
Chairperson: LIU Chang (Professor, Department of History, East China Normal University)
Date: 9 am, May 30th, 2014 (Friday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
The dominant contemporary Western scholarly assessments of CCP elite politics in almost every period of PRC development have been either dramatically wrong, a very mixed bag, or speculation that could not be verified on existing evidence. This paper will review the shifting circumstances and conclusions of Western scholarship as they apply to the very top leadership that operates in a “black box” generally opaque not only to outsiders, but even to highly-positioned members of the elite itself. The periods and related themes to be reviewed are: pre-Cultural Revolution scholarship that was limited in scope and severely restricted in evidence; work during the “Cultural Revolution decade” and extending into the post-Mao period that mindlessly adopted the Party’s “two-line struggle” model of PRC politics since 1949; scholarly work in the 1980s and 1990s on the initial post-Mao period that again swallowed the official line as it related to Hua Guofeng, but with the advantage of growing contacts in China developed a better grasp of various political and policy tensions in the 1980s, although without an adequate understanding of politics at the top; and the general failure since the early 1990s of analyses on contemporary developments to rise above quasi-journalistic approaches. While the mix of factors adversely affecting analysis has varied by period, the following will be assessed: the frequent tendency to adopt official CCP interpretations, inadequately dealing with limited source material, reliance on suspect sources, a lack of cultural sensitivity, and following American academic fashions. One or two case studies may be provided for purposes of illustration.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Frederick C. Teiwesis Emeritus Professor of Chinese Politics at theUniversityofSydney. He received his B.A. from AmherstCollegeand his Ph.D. in political science fromColumbiaUniversity. He is the author of various books on Chinese elite politics includingPolitics and Purges inChina(1979, 1993),Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict inChina(1984), and Politics at Mao’s Court(1990). Some of his most important work has been jointly authored with Warren Sun includingThe Politics of Agricultural Cooperativization: Mao, Deng Zihui, and the “High Tide” of 1955(1993),The Tragedy of Lin Biao: Riding the Tiger during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1971(1996),China’s Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Emergence of the Great Leap Forward, 1955-1959(1999), andThe End of the Maoist Era: Chinese Politics during the Twilight of the Cultural Revolution, 1972-1976(2007).