Still angry after all these years

• Source: Global Times
• [11:44 April 20 2009]
• Comments

Intellectuals on a mission

Employed as TV commentators, think tank contributors and freelance writers, the group’s members could well be classed as “elite” themselves, at least in terms of income and influence. But they believe they are different.

Huang Jisu, a co-author of Unhappy China and researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, recalled how sad his father was when one of his relatives adopted US nationality. Having studied sociology in the States, Huang said he is not against people becoming naturalized Americans, but for intellectuals, “there’s a mission to revitalize China, and how can you achieve that with a foreign passport in your pocket?”

Worse than that, according to Wang Xiaodong, the leading figure of Chinese nationalism, are t h e people who lack a Chinese heart.

Hardly a day passes without a “masochistic remark” by a member of the Chinese elite, who “take to self-dwarfing” and “curse our nation with the most vicious language”, he said.

To show the “virulence” of the elite, Huang read a paragraph from liberal writer Yu Shicun’s famous piece Cheng Ren Zhi Mei (Help Them Perfect), in which the author laments that the once civilized Chinese race has degenerated into a “despicable herd” and calls on his countrymen to admit their “cowardice and guilt”.

“Isn’t this more evil than the Nazis?” Wang said.

Professor Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, thinks differently.

“We are dwarfs in many ways, so there’s no such thing as self-dwarfing. Without the guts to face our problems, we can’t make a great nation,” he said.

Enough is enough

According to Wang, China’s decline as a world power, starting from the late 19th century, compelled its intellectuals to examine the vices within the traditional system. Criticism of the dark side of tradition and the national character has been popular for almost a century, but enough is enough, he said.

“In 50 or 100 years, when our descendants look back at our time, they will feel depressed and unconfident, because the works left by our elite are all trash,” he said.

“But when they read our work, they will sigh with relief – that at least not all of their forefathers were mediocre and vulgar.”

Shen, however, said they are “a group of impetuous people in this epoch of change”.

“They are not satisfied with society and yet they don’t know what’s wrong. They will be forgotten, or remembered, but not in a benign way,” he said.

For Wang and his comrades, however, the “West-aping elite” do not have a correct understanding of the West.
“The fact is, America plans to wipe China off the planet,” Wang said.