HERETICS OF CHINA HERETICS OF CHINA THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MAO AND DENG NABIL ALSABAH URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:473-opus4-445061 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20378/irbo-44506 Copyright © 2019 by Nabil Alsabah Cover design by Katrin Krause Cover illustration by Daiquiri/Shutterstock.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. ISBN: 978-1-69157-995-2 Created with Vellum During his years in power, Mao Zedong initiated three policies which could be described as radical departures from Soviet and Chinese Communist practice: the Hundred Flowers of 1956-1957, the Great Leap Forward 1958-1960, and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. Each was a disaster: the first for the intellectuals, the second for the people, the third for the Party, all three for the country. — RODERICK MACFARQUHAR, THE SECRET SPEECHES OF CHAIRMAN MAO In many ways, [Deng Xiaoping’s] reputation is underestimated: while Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev oversaw the peaceful end of Soviet communist rule and the dismembering of the Soviet empire, he had wanted to keep the Soviet Union in place and reform it. Instead it fell apart; communism lost power—and Russia endured a decade of instability […]. Perhaps the most influential political titan of the late 20th century, Deng succeeded in guiding China towards his vision where his fellow communist leaders failed. — SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, TITANS OF HISTORY CONTENTS Introduction ix 1. Historical Overview: A Century of Humiliation 1 2. Struggling with Self-Doubts 27 3. Groupthink in Zhongnanhai 76 4. The Turning Point in the Chairman’s Life Narrative 134 5. Conquering the Cognitive No-Go Zone 192 6. Coping with Dynamic and Complex Situations 233 7. Summary: Evaluating the Psychological Arguments 279 Acknowledgments 297 Notes 301 Bibliography 305 About the Author 337 INTRODUCTION Renowned economist Larry Summers argues that we speak of an Industrial Revolution because, for the first time in history, the period saw living standards rise by approximately 50% during the lifespan of a single human being. The current growth rates in Asia, Summers contends, indicate that under the same conditions as those that characterized the Industrial Revolu- tion, living standards in the region would have risen by around 10,000% within a single lifespan. Summers goes on to predict that the “rise of Asia and all that follows it will be the dominant story in history books written 300 years from now with the Cold War and the rise of Islam as secondary stories” (Mah- bubani 2008, p. 10). At the heart of what Singaporean intellec- tual Kishore Mahbubani terms Asia’s march to modernity lies the story of China’s remarkable rise from being the sick man of the continent at the dawn of the twentieth century to being its economic growth engine and dominant power less than 100 years later. The chapters of that story are shaped as much by the principal protagonists’ and antagonists’ hopes and fears, dreams and x | Introduction nightmares, moments of hesitation and occasions of reckless- ness, as they are by the interplay between historical, social, and geopolitical forces beyond their control. The ceaseless e!orts of Chinese intellectuals, warlords, government o"cials, and revo- lutionary peasants to reunify their nation, to end decades of foreign interference, to achieve genuine national indepen- dence, and to realize the dream of securing both wealth and power culminated in the founding of Communist China in 1949. Aside from the e!orts of numerous individuals, it took several small-scale wars with Western powers, the end of over 2,000 years of dynastic rule, invasion and occupation by a foreign aggressor, and a civil war for this change to occur. Having secured political unity and reasserted national inde- pendence, Mao Zedong, the new regime’s paramount leader, embarked on an intense search for a distinctively Chinese path to modernization. However, rather than fostering wealth and power for the nation, his experiments precipitated the most severe famine in human history, the destruction of both national treasures and cultural relics, and the poisoning of the very fabric of Chinese society. Hence, Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, sought to forge a fundamentally di!erent path to modernity. His policies lifted 400 million Chinese out of dire poverty, underpinned the longest period of sustainable economic growth in human history, and helped to return China to the world stage. Mao’s path was paved with ideology, while Deng’s was founded on pragmatism. Mao’s approach failed spectacularly, while Deng’s succeeded remarkably. Yet, despite their underlying di!erences, both paths shared one core element—outright heresy toward the prevailing system of political beliefs. Chairman Mao rejected the Soviet orthodoxy, condemned blind faith in the Marxist-Leninist creed, and enjoined his colleagues to work toward a distinctively Chinese strategy for modernization. Mao’s personality, leadership style, Introduction | xi and decision-making approach all facilitated the emergence of a new state ideology centered on his vision for the future. Mao’s colleagues in the upper echelons of power swore allegiance to this new ideology. The dogma became sacrosanct. Chairman Mao began with heresy concerning the Marxist and Soviet orthodoxy and ended up creating a religion. Deng Xiaoping’s heresy was born from the utter failure of the Maoist religion to advance China’s quest for modernization. China’s new heretic- in-chief ushered in a cognitive revolution intended to emanci- pate the mind, reject blind faith in ideology, and embrace prag- matic policy making. This book will investigate these heresies by analyzing the heretics themselves. However, it will not provide a thorough chronology of the historical events that took place during the Mao and Deng eras. It will not elaborate on the social and economic forces at play. Nor will it expand on the Cold War environment in which China found itself embedded. All these factors have previously been documented in several excellent essays. Instead, this book aims to arrive at a better under- standing of the principal actors, their motives, and their deci- sion-making processes. For this reason, the questions addressed in this book are wide-ranging. I question why bright and astute decision makers preferred to profess blind faith in a man-made ideology than to rely on their own critical faculties, how this faith was nurtured and nourished despite the negative feedback from reality, and how psychological defense mecha- nisms were put in place to avoid confronting the negative consequences of the enacted policies. Further, I analyze Deng’s process of coming to terms with Mao’s—as well as his own— failings, accepting responsibility for bad policies, and constructing a new decision-making environment. This book views the political protagonists and antagonists as the masters of their own destinies. It does not seek to portray xii | Introduction them as mere pawns controlled by the unswerving hand of historical necessity. Nor does it aim to caricature them as hapless slaves to some innate, insatiable hunger for political power. Rather, I hope that a psychological approach can facili- tate a more realistic understanding of human behavior in highly complex and dynamic situations. The investigation begins in Chapter 1 with a historical over- view of China’s accelerating decline throughout the nineteenth century. This introductory chapter depicts China’s so-called century of humiliation (1839–1949). It o!ers some context as to the repeated failures to achieve national rejuvenation over the decades. The psychological analysis starts in Chapter 2 with a detailed discussion of Mao’s restlessness. I will argue that Mao was locked in a never-ending battle against recurring self- doubts, which left him with a constant need for reassurance—a need that he attempted to satisfy by seeking to overcome ever more formidable political challenges. This, in turn, condemned China to a state of uninterrupted mass political campaigns, which greatly interfered with the nation’s attempts at economic and social modernization. Chapter 3 analyzes why Mao’s colleagues went along with his utopian visions. The discussion here will demonstrate that the decision-making behavior of the Chinese leadership exhibited all the hallmarks of groupthink—a modus operandi whereby the yearning to retain the approval of one’s leader as well as one’s colleagues outweighs the desire to draft e!ective policies. Chapter 4 explores how and why Mao’s principal goal in life eventually shifted from building socialism in China to preventing an imaginary capitalist restoration—a shift that ulti- mately paved the way for the disastrous Cultural Revolution. I interpret this shift in Mao’s narrative identity as a reaction to his repeated failure to advance the quest for modernization. Introduction | xiii Chapter 5 centers on Deng’s silent rebellion against Mao’s deci- sion-making approach. The discussion here will showcase the power of self-reflection—a psychological exercise that subjects one’s past behavioral and thought patterns to ruthless scrutiny so as to learn lessons for the future. Having subsequently renounced his faith in Maoism and all other “isms,” Deng espoused fact-based and practice-oriented decision making. Yet, this did not turn either him or the decision-making appa- ratus over which he presided into dispassionate robots. Beliefs and values, as shown in Chapter 6, still colored how Deng and his colleagues interpreted complex developments in China. These beliefs and values were shaped by the forces of personal- ity, the power of worldviews, and the subjective manner by which di!erent decision makers processed their past experi- ences.