Chinese contradictions: Intellectual liberalisation in 1983 was almost reversed when the leftists sprang their short-lived but powerful ‘anti-pollution’ campaign

Abstract

The excerpt that follows is taken from Intellectual Freedom in China After Mao, With a Focus on 1983, a report by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro, with a foreword by Arthur Miller.

Liang Heng, who came to the US in 1981 and took an MA degree at Columbia University, and American Sinologist Judith' Shapiro married in China in 1980, when Shapiro was teaching at Hunan Teachers' College. They are the authors of Son of the Revolution (Chatto & Windus, London), the story of Liang's growing up during the Cultural Revolution. He is now Editor-in-Chief of Zhishi Fenzi (‘The Chinese Intellectual’), a new magazine published in Chinese in the USA for visiting scholars and students from China.

The 214-page report concentrates on the climate for independent thinking in China during 1983 and on the nature of official constraints on intellectual freedom. The report was published in July 1984 by the Fund for Free Expression. The Fund set up the Helsinki Watch and the Americas Watch and is the US sponsor of Index on Censorship. Intellectual Freedom in China After Mao is available (price $10) from the Fund at 36 West 44th Street, New York NY 10036.