Born in 1942, Zhang is the second daughter of Zhang Bojun 章伯钧, the influential democratic politician and intellectual who was active in the government of the People’s Republic in the 1950s until his downfall in the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, when he was labeled ‘China’s Number One Rightist’.

Zhang Yihe entered the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts in 1960, but was demoted to a Sichuanese opera troupe in Sichuan in 1963 for having offended Jiang Qing (Mao Zedong’s wife and a leading figure in the revolutionisation of Beijing opera) by penning the line: ‘He who prospers advances the fortunes of his minions’ 一人得道，鸡犬升天 in her diary. Seven years later, when the Cultural Revolution was sweeping over China, Zhang was given a twenty-one year jail sentence as a counter-revolutionary. In 1979, the year that her husband Tang Liangyou 唐良友 died of acute pancreatitis, she was released and allowed to return to Beijing, where she joined the Chinese National Academy of Arts and pursued studies in theatre.

Following her retirement in 2001, Zhang turned to the writing of historical biography. In 2004, she published The Last Nobles 最后的贵族, a semi-fictional account of the lives of several key intellectuals and politicians and their families in China during the Anti-Rightist Movement, including the editor and journalist Chu Anping 储安平, Kang Tongbi 康同璧, daughter of the renowned late Qing scholar-activist Kang Youwei 康有为, the political scientist Luo Longji 羅隆基 who was minister for forest industry in the 1950s, Shi Liang 史良, the famous female legal scholar, the eminent calligrapher and collector Zhang Boju张伯驹, and her own father Zhang Bojun. The book was published on the Mainland as The Past is Not Like Smoke 往事并不如烟, a heavily edited edition that found popularity with academics as well as the general public and continued to circulate widely in pirated editions despite being banned. In a follow-up collection of biographical essays, Past Stories of Actors 伶人往事, Zhang explored the lives of famous opera performers during the Mao-era political campaigns.

The individuals in Zhang’s works are portrayed as highly talented individuals striving to retain their humanity despite the ruthless politics of the day. Her sympathy for and identification with her subjects is evident in lines such as the following from The Last Nobles:

As it was impossible for an impoverished China to support a large class of aristocratic intellectuals, the majority of these intellectuals were consigned to the same fate as manual labourers, working with their hands and enduring hunger and cold. Yet they were content with their servile positions and supported themselves and their families in cramped quarters through hard honest work. In a country where life and knowledge were increasingly devalued, there was clearly little use for wit and intellect. Besides, delicate trees are easily broken when subjected to force and stress. People who are neither Chinese nor intellectuals will find it difficult to appreciate the sheer weight and pressure under which Chinese intellectuals found themselves in the history of modern China.

Though she describes some of her work as fragmented memoirs, her educational and family background and social status grants her unique insights into the lives of famous artists and intellectuals. Her books are thus a blend of literary history and autobiography and her passion for her subjects is evident. Though she seldom discusses the politics of the Maoist period per se, she offers a richly emotive account of it through her narrations of the many lives destroyed by Mao-era campaigns, directives and policies. In 2004, she received the International PEN Award For Independent Chinese Writing.

Zhang is praised by her admirers for her critical insights and sharp observations. She has also published social commentaries about the persistent negative legacy of the Maoist past. In 2009, she wrote two articles in which she accused two people, the celebrated writer and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member Feng Yidai 冯亦代, and the cartoonist and art historian Huang Miaozi 黄苗子, of being state informants who helped to send her father and a family friend to prison, kicking up a storm of controversy in the media.

With He Weifang 贺卫方, a law professor and rights activist, she published Piano Four-Hands 四手联弹 (2010), an eclectic collection of essays and dialogues on pop culture, history, philosophy and geography, deliberately eschewing the big issues of politics and national destiny. Zhang has recently turned to creative fiction, publishing The Liu Woman 刘氏女 (2011), The Yang Woman 杨氏女 (2012) and The Zou Woman 邹氏女 (2013), a series of novellas based on women she encountered during her decade in prison.

‘We shouldn’t be attached to this world’, she said in an interview in 2012 (link). She sees herself more as a story-teller of the past:

Death is the final form of life, after I finish writing all I ought to, I will consciously seek death. No epitaph.

Additional links:

• Zhang Yihe’s Sina Weibo, where she actively engages in discussions about theater and politics.

The post Zhang Yihe 章诒和 appeared first on The China Story.

Zhu completed his undergraduate studies in the Chinese Department at East China Normal University and, upon graduation in 1983, was assigned to a teaching post at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. In 1985, he attracted intellectual attention with his essay ‘The Anxious Generation and Their Urban Dreams’ 焦灼的一代和城市梦. In 1986, another article ‘On the Flaws of the Xie Jin Model’ 论谢晋电影模式的缺陷, published in Shanghai’s Wenhui Bao 文汇报, caused a fierce debate in intellectual circles. Zhu had criticised the work of the acclaimed director Xie Jin 谢晋 as derivative, moralistic and amounting to no more than ‘cinematic Confucianism’  电影儒学. At the time, Xie was something of a cultural hero as his 1986 film Hibiscus Town 芙蓉镇 about the persecution of ordinary citizens in the Maoist 1960s had struck a deep chord with mainland audiences. Meanwhile, Zhu’s article established his reputation as a polemicist.

In 1994, Zhu undertook doctoral studies at the University of Technology Sydney. He spent eight years in Australia, during which time he established the Chinese-language website Australia News 澳大利亚新闻网, later renamed Cultural Pioneer 文化先锋. It was around the time of his return to China in 2002 that Zhu declared he was abandoning his long-held belief in the agency of literature. He claimed that contemporary Chinese literature offered neither social criticism nor spiritual solace. However, he continued to write on current issues and a range of popular topics and his reputation as a cultural critic continued to grow.

His major publications include The Burning Maze 燃烧的迷津 (1991), a collection of literary and social criticism from the 1980s; Dossier of a Fugitive 逃亡者档案 (1999), a selection of early film reviews and essays written during his sojourn in Australia; The Lightning of Discourse 话语的闪电 (2003), which pairs literary criticism from the 1990s with more recent historical essays, and The Banquet of the Liumang 流氓的盛宴 (2006), a study of the history of hooligan culture in China which has earned Zhu high praise in the Chinese-speaking world and attracted scholarly attention internationally. In 2003, he collaborated with the cultural critic Zhang Hong 张闳 to edit and produce the annual publication Atlas of 21st Century Chinese Culture 21世纪中国文化地图, of which six volumes have so far appeared (the first in 2004 and the last, titled ‘2008’, was released in 2010).

As one of China’s best-known cultural critics, Zhu Dake publishes widely in the mainstream press and appears frequently on TV as a commentator on hot-button issues. In June 2011, for example, major Chinese news portals relayed critical remarks by Zhu comparing the market for Chinese cultural artifacts to a casino. Zhu warned that financial speculators were destroying the fundamental rationale for the collection and distribution of cultural artifacts and that it was increasingly difficult to find people who truly appreciate and want to protect China’s cultural heritage (see 天价文物和贱价文化, 《东方早报》, 7 June 2011). Zhu’s remarks on this occasion reflect a recurring theme in his writings of recent years: namely, China’s affluence has been accompanied by its cultural decline. In this connection, Zhu regards restrictions on personal independence in China as a major handicap in the cultivation of finer sensibilities.

Zhu’s recent work includes a study of the history of Chinese mythology. He began researching this subject in the early 1990s but stopped when he went to Australia. He returned to the subject in 2001 when he wrote a column for the Southern Metropolis Daily in which he discussed and retold well-known folk tales. In 2013, a collection of Zhu’s essays on Chinese folk tales was published under the title Myths 神话. The book is one of five volumes written by Zhu, published by Eastern Publishing Company, under the series title Keeping Faith 守望.  The other volumes – Time 时光, Foreknowledge 先知, Utopia 乌托邦, and Judgment 审判 – also deal with key aspects of Chinese culture and their influence on society today. In an interview with Xinhua Monthly 新华月报 in December 2012, Zhu described how folk history has defined his place in Chinese society:

Xinhua Monthly: At the start of Myths, you discuss at length the place of martial arts masters (jianghu 江湖, ‘rivers and lakes’ – an allusion to their itinerant lives) in traditional Chinese culture as well as ‘hooligans’ (liumang). Does this have anything to do with your Hakka identity?

Zhu Dake: If it’s necessary to find kinship roots, then give me a moment to reminisce. I remember my family had a red ocher painted bamboo basket, handed down from my maternal grandfather’s generation. It had four black characters which read: ‘Li Family, Longxi’. My mother’s side came from Gansu and may have been distant relatives of the Li clan that founded the Tang dynasty, but they weren’t Hakka (which is a little strange). Genealogical records say my father’s side is descended from [the Song Confucian philosopher] Zhu Xi. They migrated to western Fujian around the tenth generation, where they began speaking Hakka. They have spoken the dialect for twenty-one generations, right up to my time. According to the genealogy, I am Zhu Xi’s thirty-second generation grandson. Not in the main branch of the lineage, of course. As one of those people with just some traces of Hakka ancestry, I am able to view that peculiar tribe quite rationally. Hakkas suffer from an acute split personality. They were always on the move, which led them to seek new ways of doing things, yet they also clung to ancient teachings and prized their clan genealogies and the Confucian tradition. I’ve always thought that by reflecting on the Hakkas, one can learn a great deal about Chinese culture as a whole. (See 新华月报·下 2012年第12期; text also on Douban.)

In 2006, Phoenix Life 凤凰生活 magazine named Zhu Dake as a prominent authority on Chinese culture and as one among the top fifty Chinese most likely to influence the future of the world.

Additional links

• Zhu Dake’s blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/zhudake and Sina Weibo: http://weibo.com/zhudake

The post Zhu Dake 朱大可 appeared first on The China Story.

In 2000, Zhang resigned from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), where he had been involved in the drafting of the multi-volume official History of Republican China 中华民国史. Severing ties with the establishment seems to have emboldened Zhang to write on topics regarded as politically taboo. He is widely praised as an independent thinker and has attracting a large following on the Chinese Internet.  His writings also appear  in mainstream magazines and newspapers. The influential political magazine, Yanhuang Chunqiu 炎黄春秋, which enjoys the patronage of retired pro-reform senior Party officials, has published many of his personal essays and his biographical accounts of prominent Chinese intellectuals. Zhang has a particular interest in individuals who rose to fame in the Republican years and who, in 1949, chose to remain in what would become the People’s Republic rather than to follow the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan.

The youngest son of Zhang Naiqi 章乃器, a social activist once lauded by the Party for his anti-Nationalist stance before falling out of favor during the Anti-Rightist purge of the 1950s, Zhang has first-hand knowledge of the lives of prominent individuals who were persecuted along with his father. His memoirs often present new information on these individuals, all of whom had influence in cultural circles or in politics before their downfall under Mao (see, for example, 黄梅戏著名演员严凤英文革惨死记). Zhang’s own father died as a prisoner in a hospital basement in 1977.

One of Zhang’s most widely circulated works is a biography of Kang Tongbi 康同璧 (1897-1969, see 章立凡忆’文革’中的康同璧母女：乱世逸民), the daughter of Kang Youwei (康有为, 1858-1927), the renowned advocate of constitutional monarchy in late-Qing China. During the Cultural Revolution, Kang Tongbi, then the widow of a diplomat who had formerly served the Nationalist government, lived a protected and isolated life. Zhang presents a moving portrait of Kang as the descendant of a revered figure for whom Mao professed admiration, who witnessed in her final years the horrors of China’s descent into anarchic violence.

Zhang Lifan is also active in promoting political reforms in China. In 2008, he was a signatory of the Charter 08 manifesto for democracy and on 25 December 2012 his name appeared on a petition (signed by seventy-one scholars) posted online, urging the new Party leadership under Xi Jinping to undertake political reforms and highlighting the crucial need to separate the Party from the government.

A prolific online commentator, Zhang often posts scathing remarks on social issues. In one post, he dismissed China’s education system as incompatible with modern citizenship and declared it incapable of nurturing independent thinkers (see 中国的教育培养不出公民). In another, he poked fun at the ‘Fifty-cent Gang’ 五毛党 (online commentators paid by the state to post pro-government remarks) using a photo-shopped image of China’s national flag where he replaced each of its five gold stars with the character ‘毛’ (meaning ‘ten cents’).  The five mao 毛, or ‘fifty cents’, represents the fee per comment that these propagandists are rumored to be paid (see 章立凡肆意篡改国旗门).  Since ‘Fifty-cent Gang’ is regularly used to deride anyone who volunteers a pro-government remark, Zhang’s microblog promptly attracted a deluge of hostile comments. He was called a traitor for defiling the national flag.

Additional links

• Zhang Lifan’s Sina microblog
• Zhang Lifan on Internet censorship

The post Zhang Lifan 章立凡 appeared first on The China Story.

In 1984, when he was just twenty-three, Zhang wrote an article lauding the merits of profit making. Titled ‘A Justification for Money’ 为钱正名, it sent shockwaves throughout the Chinese economic world when it appeared in China Youth Daily. At a time when China’s economy was still following the Soviet-style state-owned model, Zhang’s provocative thesis put him at odds with many mainstream economists. However, Mao Yushi 茅于轼, a veteran economist who would later become a pioneer in China’s micro-finance and poverty eradication programs, took the younger man under his wing, defending him and helping him with his career after he graduated from China Northwest University. In a 2009 article, Zhang lavished admiring words on his mentor, calling Mao his ‘role model’ (张维迎：我的榜样茅于轼先生).

Zhang’s economic view is heavily influenced by the theories of the Austrian School (in particular von Hayek), which puts a strong emphasis on individualism. In 1990, Zhang left China to study at Oxford under James Mirrlees (the 1996 Nobel laureate) receiving his doctorate in 1994. In his PhD thesis, Zhang elaborated on the relationship between entrepreneurship and private property. He argued that capitalism is the only system in which real entrepreneurs can be distinguished. Entrepreneurship, according to Zhang, is central to the sustainable operation of any form of economy.

Entrepreneurship and leadership would be a recurring theme in Zhang’s work. He wrote several books on the topic, including Incentives and the Art of Leadership 激励与领导艺术 (2005), Price, Market and Entrepreneurs 价格市场和企业家 (2006), Leadership and the Fate of Enterprise 领导人与企业成败 (2007). In a book called Theory and China Enterprise Reform 企业理论与中国企业改革 (1999), Zhang proposed the ‘Theorem of the impossibility of the entrepreneur in a state-owned economy’ 国家所有制下的企业家不可能定理. Zhang has such a marked enthusiasm for entrepreneurship that on one occasion he told an economics magazine that ‘The more active entrepreneurs are in a particular region, the smaller the social and income gaps’ (China Review 权衡, 2006.12.27).

Zhang was heavily involved in China’s economic reform policy making through late 1980s to 1990s. He claims that he was the first Chinese economist who proposed the ‘dual-track price system reform’ (in 1984), a hybrid price system that allowed the coexistence of a free price system and a fixed one. The system served as an interim solution before the government mustered enough confidence in committing wholeheartedly towards a market-oriented system. Though praised, the dual-track system has also been criticized for unleashing large-scale corruption, especially the kind involving government officials selling government-controlled commodities at inflated prices through back door channels. This particular form of corruption, called ‘official sales’ 官倒, is believed to be one of the factors leading to popular discontent in the 1980s that climaxed in the bloody Tian’anmen incident of 1989.

In a recent interview with a Chinese newspaper, Zhang commented that corruption was the necessary price paid in exchange for the support of  government officials for economic reform. However, questions have been raised as to how significant a role Zhang played in the formulation of the dual-track price system. Hua Sheng 华生, another prominent economist, contended that Zhang shouldn’t be given all the credit for it was the outcome of ‘collective wisdom’. (华生等联手反击张维迎’发明双轨制’论:说谎触及道德底线)

Zhang is highly critical of Keynesianism, especially governmental economic stimulus, a method that is endorsed by the Chinese government under the name ‘macro-controls’ 宏观调控. At a conference of Chinese entrepreneurs in 2009, Zhang called for ‘burying Keynesianism completely’ (see 张维迎：彻底埋葬凯恩斯主义). More recently, Zhang argued against government stimulus aimed at bolstering the economy in the wake of the 2008 Global Fiscal Crisis. In a lecture at the Guanghua School of Management of Peking University, Zhang mocked the government’s stimulus package as ‘prescribing morphine to a drug addict’ (政府面临的不是市场危机而是国家危机). In light of such a track record, Zhang’s opposition to the government’s popular policy of restricting housing purchases in some major  cities so as to cool down the real estate market is only natural.

Another target of Zhang’s criticism is the size of the government and its taxation regime. He appears to be a believer that a big and rich government can only hinder economic growth. In a recent interview, Zhang remarked: ‘If we compare different parts of China, it is obvious that the areas with a low ratio of government officials to employed population have faster economic growth’ (China Review). Ever the iconoclast, he suggested that reducing the number of government officials would contribute to economic growth.

Some of Zhang’s arguments, including that a Kaldor Hicks improvement should proceed a Pareto improvement, namely that the government should be more preoccupied with the generation rather than the distribution of wealth, are interpreted by critics as defending vested interests. His pro-free markets opinions have also drawn the ire of Maoists, who call him a ‘new rightist’ and a ‘blind follower of neoliberalism’. Criticism of Zhang intensified after he was found to be on the list of attendees of the New Xishan Meeting, a close-door session that gathered some of China’s most prominent liberal intellectuals, including the legal scholar He Weifang 贺卫方 (previously featured in this section) and the economist Gao Shangquan 高尚全. After the discussions at that meeting were leaked, Ma Bin 马宾, a former State Council economic adviser, wrote a letter to President Hu Jintao accusing Zhang and other attendees of conspiring to foment a ‘colour revolution’ in China (好与左派斗的张维迎：会等到他们向我道歉的一天的).

Zhang is in the news for non-academic reasons too. In 2010, during an online mania for exposing celebrity fraud, questions were raised about his master’s degree and academic awards, but he was able to refute the allegations of resumé-faking. Zou Hengfu 邹恒甫, a former professor and economist with the Guanghua School of Management which Zhang led until his removal in 2010, has published several extremely critical articles about Zhang. His removal led to rumours that he was cashiered due to his radical views.

Additional links:

• Zhang Weiying’s blog;
• Zhang Weiying, ‘From Privilege to Rights’, in Mark Leonard, ed., China 0.3, downloadable PDF.

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