Riding the Iron Rooster (45 page)

Before I left for the ministry I asked a Chinese friend what questions I should put to the official. He said, "No matter what you ask him you will find his answers in the
People's Daily
"

The taxi driver who took me to the Ministry of Truth was impressed by the address I had given him. He said, "Can you meet American officials as easily as this?"

I told him truthfully that I had never met a really high government official in Washington—that I had never gotten the urge to meet one. It was only in foreign countries that such things seemed important. But the fact was that I had spent all my time talking to people on trains, or farmers, or market traders, or kids playing in parks, or students. They were the people who really mattered; but it was absurd to spend a year going up and down in China and not talk with an official and hear the Party line.

"What would you ask this official if you could?"

The driver said, "About the future."

"What
about
the future?"

"Will I be all right? Will the reforms continue? Will we have more democracy? What about prices? And"—he started to laugh—"how can I get a new license for my taxi?"

I was met by Comrade Bai, a little fellow in a blue Mao suit. He explained that he was not the official—certainly not the high official, he added anxiously, and he breathed noisily through his clenched teeth. Then he laughed. It was the Chinese laugh of warning.

Comrade Bai led me to a ministerial reception room, and then he went to tell the high official that I had arrived.

Comrade Hu entered with a flourish, gesturing for me to return to my plump armchair. He was about fifty or so, and had Deng Xiaoping's broad, tomcat face and unblinking eyes. It was obvious that he was a Party man in the new mold: he wore a gray Western-style suit and speckled tie in the manner of the rising Mr. Zhao Ziyang. He seemed brisk and even a bit impatient, but he was candid, and his English was fluent.

After our opening pleasantries I asked him about the relations between China and the Soviet Union. He said there was trade between the two countries, but that there were political obstacles—
Soviet aid to Vietnam, the Afghanistan business, and troops in Mongolia.

"The Soviets make a big mistake in thinking that their kind of socialism can be exported to other countries," he said. "It doesn't work."

"Can Chinese socialism be exported?" I asked.

"We do not force our ideas on other people," he said.

I then asked him a roundabout question, wondering whether the government was alarmed by the recent disturbances.

"Perhaps you are referring to the events in Peking and elsewhere caused by the students," he said, and he explained, "China is in the first stage of socialism—we are just beginning to develop. In some ways, we are underdeveloped and we are proceeding slowly and carefully. In the countryside the reforms have gone smoothly. But in cities much remains to be done."

"How long will this stage of socialism last?"

"Until we achieve our target," he said. He told me the statistics, the income figures and projections; but in an uncertain world such numbers seemed meaningless to me. It was not just inflation that he seemed to be ignoring but the rising expectations of the Chinese people.

I said, "Does it seem to you that the Chinese people are too impatient for changes to come about?"

"Some are very impatient," he said. "Especially the students. What do these students know about democracy? They are speaking in a very abstract way. They lack concrete ideas."

"Do you think the students don't understand democracy?"

"In each country there is a strict definition of democracy," he said. "You have yours in the United States. We must have ours in China."

"So you think student demonstrations are really dangerous?"

"Some elements could get out of hand," Comrade Hu said. "They could bring disorder. If there is no control there could be chaos—everyone doing as he likes. That could produce another Cultural Revolution."

I did not see the logic in this. Wasn't it the other way around? If the government kept the lid on and the so-called ultraleftists succeeded in suppressing the students, a Cultural Revolution was much more likely. He was using the Cultural Revolution as a frightener. But I got nowhere in trying to pursue this with him.

"You must read more," he said. "You must examine our Four Guiding Principles."

"I have read them," I said. That particular pamphlet, in five languages (including one of China's favorites, Esperanto) was in the waiting room of most railway stations. I had plenty of opportunities to read it. "I meant to ask you about that. Guiding principle number four mentions Marxism-Leninism and Mao's thought."

Comrade Hu's eyes were fixed upon me. The name
Mao
in China always concentrated people's attention. It was probably the single most powerful syllable in China.

I said, "I was wondering which of Mao's thoughts seemed especially pertinent today."

"One cannot summarize Mao's thought," he said smoothly. "It is too subtle and wide ranging. Mao wrote about everything." But when I pressed him, he said, "His essay 'On Practice' is one which contains the essence of his thought, and that is something we can be guided by these days."

That essay is an argument for action, I found, when I read it later. It is about learning by doing; and "practice" is like a synonym for living, in this down-to-earth approach to running a society. It is a tract against handbooks, against bookishness of any kind—Mao loved literature but hated books. Mao seemed to sum up the essay when he wrote, "All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience." It was a struggler's motto, and rather a good one, I thought: action was everything. It was also a good motto for a traveler.

"You must remember that China is unique," Comrade Hu said. "There is no model for China. We have to solve our problems in our own way."

I said, "Do you think it's a problem that China seeks the West's technology but not its ideology or influence?"

"No problem at all," he said breezily.

"But surely there have been negative influences that have come to China with the new technology."

"We have to educate people to make a distinction between what is good and what is bad influence."

The word
educate
in China always seemed to me somewhat ambiguous. Education was sometimes classroom work; but just as often it was prison, the workhouse, exile or even (as Deng had frankly emphasized) a bullet in the back of the neck.

"What do you think is especially decadent about Western culture?" I asked, hoping to provoke him.

"The music of Beethoven is good, and so are many other things," Comrade Hu said. "And I don't think drugs or violence are specifically Western. They are by-products. We can do without them—and prostitution, too."

Remembering what the taxi driver had said, I asked, "Will the reforms continue to increase or might they diminish?"

"They will continue as they are," Comrade Hu said. "We want to keep our open policy. We want trade with the United States to expand. We believe in reform—we want a growth rate of seven or eight percent."

There was an idea current among Chinese bureaucrats that the sole purpose of political reform was to produce economic growth. It had nothing to do with enlightenment, or people's minds, or the happy imagination. If liberalization did not yield material prosperity—a chicken in every pot—they would just put the screws on again. I talked around this subject but I was not sure where Comrade Hu stood on the issue, and indeed I had begun to be rather careful in my questions, for what they revealed about me.

He made me feel young, somewhat reckless and sceptical in just the same way my father had when I was sixteen. We were uneasily like father and son. There is something in the very nature of Chinese authority that makes anyone who asks questions seem childishly naive and credulous, not to say dangerous.

We talked about travel in China. He asked me about my experiences, and were they favorable? I said yes they were, and I gave him a few examples from the various trains I had ridden.

Comrade Hu said, "You have been to more places in China than I have."

"I'm sure that's not true," I said.

"It's true," he said. "I haven't traveled much."

"Have you been to Urumchi?"

"No."

"What about Langxiang in Heilongjiang?" It was a small logging town in the far north that I aimed to visit.

"I have never heard of it," Comrade Hu said.

"Tibet?"

He shook his head: No. "But I have traveled abroad a great deal."

He clawed his cuff in an obvious way and conspicuously consulted his watch. So I said that I was grateful for his valuable time, but that I had to go. He rose and took me to the door.

"You have interesting views," I said. "I am sure people will be fascinated by them."

"No, no, no," he said, smiling for the first time since I had entered the room—but it was of course a smile of anxiety. "Don't quote me."

"Not at all?"

"No. This is a private conversation."

"What about your mention of Mao's essay. 'On Practice'? I thought that was rather pertinent."

"Nothing," he said, and the feline look left his face. "And don't mention my name."

When he left me, Comrade Bai materialized among the sofas and the teacups. Comrade Bai escorted me to my taxi. "You heard what he said"—how did he know?—"Don't use his name. And don't mention the Ministry of Truth."

I said, "But what the official said was interesting. Why doesn't he want me to write it? You know I'm a writer!"

"Yes. You can write it. But just say, 'A Chinese official.'"

What was this, the Ming Dynasty, with all the mandarins scurrying around, whispering and shifting blame and doing it with mirrors? It was not a question of being bold but simply of not wishing to be held accountable.

"Okay," I said. "Can I quote you—that you said that?"

"Ha-ha! Better not!"

I changed the names, but as you can see I left that part in. As the Great Helmsman had said, All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.

I wanted to see Harbin at its most characteristic: in the middle of winter, frozen solid. It is in the far northeastern province—part of what used to be called Manchuria. Now it is Heilongjiang, Land of the Black Dragon River. The Russians refer to the river as the Amur. It is one of the disputed frontiers between the two countries, and over the past twenty years has been the scene of armed conflict as well as low farce—the Chinese soldiers provoking incidents by dropping their pants and presenting their bare bums northward, mooning the Soviet border guards.

The train I took was going on to the border town of Manzhouli and then into Siberia to connect with the Trans-Siberian. I took it because it was the quickest way to Harbin, and also because I wanted to see who was continuing into the Soviet Union. In the event I discovered that very few people were crossing the border. It is the most roundabout route to Moscow, and no one ever goes to Vladivostok.

I left Peking on a cold afternoon, the train traveling through a landscape of black and white—trees and light poles and furrows set into relief by the snow. The countryside looked like a steel engraving, and it grew sharper and fresher, for the dusty snow of Peking gave way to a snow of intense brightness in the clearer air of the Chinese hinterland. It was exciting to be heading north in the winter, and I intended to keep going, beyond Harbin to the forests in the north of the province. I had been told there was wilderness there—real trees and birds.

Three swarthy Hong Kong Chinese joined me in the compartment. They said they were cold. They wore thick nylon ski suits that screeched when they walked or moved their arms, and the noise of the rubbing fabric set my teeth on edge. This sleeping car was all Hong Kongers in screechy ski suits. They had traveled nonstop from Kowloon. They had never before been to China, had never seen snow; their English was very poor—and yet they were colonial subjects of the British Crown. They did not speak Mandarin. Like most Hong Kongers I had met, they were complete provincials, with laughable pretensions. Was it the effect of colonialism? They were well fed and rather silly and politically naive. In some ways Hong Kong was somewhat like Britain itself: a bunch of offshore islands with an immigrant problem, a language barrier and a rigid class system.

"Going skiing?" I said.

They said no—they had picked these ski suits up at a cut-price department store in Causeway Bay.

They were looking out of the window at a fat woolly sheep that was nibbling at a hank of brown stubble it had found sticking out of the snow. The sheep glanced up and stared back at them.

What did they think of China so far?

"It's thirty years behind," one said. This from a person who lived in one of the last colonies on earth. In a political sense Hong Kong had hardly changed since the time of the Opium War.

"Thirty years behind what?" I asked.

He shrugged. It was probably something he had read.

"Do you think there's any difference between a Chinese person here and one from Hong Kong?"

"Oh, yes!" several of them said at once, and they were incredulous that I should ask such an ignorant question. But I pressed forward nonetheless.

"Can you recognize a Hong Kong person when you see one?"

"Very easily."

"And a person from the People's Republic?"

"Yes," he said. And when I asked for details, he went on, "The Chinese here have rough faces."

"What sort of faces do Hong Kong people have?"

"Gentle."

He said the way they talked and dressed were dead giveaways. Well, even I knew that. The Hong Kongers were either overweight or else stylishly skinny. They yelled a lot and wore brand-new clothes and trendy eyeglasses. They fancied themselves up-to-date, and they believed in the myth of their modernity. They were often all elbows, very impatient and demanding. They fussed over each other, they were philistines. A great number of their traits were the result of being British colonials. The colonial system really is paternal in an almost literal way. By treating the people like children it turns into a messy family, and some of the children are favored, others become spoiled brats, and still others delinquents and rebels.