One of the characteristics which makes this book striking is the style of its composition, Simon Leys writes with great passion. He is clearly both well informed and full of ideas; these he puts down on paper in a way which arrests the reader’s attention. Although disagreeing very deeply with a great many of the views expressed, I never found this book boring. Let us return to the four principle issues the author raises.

On the question of love for the Chinese people there can be no quarrel, his belief that the Chinese people have much to teach the world, are able to enjoy themselves under very difficult circumstances, and are above all magnificent as human beings can be endorsed wholeheartedly. And yet even in this uncontentious area his obsessive hatred for the present government has drawn him into inconsistencies, On p.48, for instance, he quotes a passage about Stalinist Russia which he adds could perhaps well apply to Maoist China’, ‘Kind people,’ it runs, ‘disappeared. Kindness is not, after all, an inborn quality but it has to be cultivated, and this only happens when it is in demand, For our generation, kindness was an old-fashioned, vanished quality, and its exponents were as extinct as the mammoth.’ The implication that there may be no kindness in China conflicts with all my experience, Moreover, it is inconsistent with his claim that the system cannot destroy the Chinese as people.

There is a certain Manicheism. Or dualism in the author’s approach: the people versus the government. It is not simply the Communists whom he sees as so evil but all Chinese governments since the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). He perceives the first Ming emperor as having introduced the totalitarianism which has become so characteristic of China right down to the present. And yet, clearly, it is the Chinese Communist Party which is the real target of his attack. One could summarise this book by calling it an attempt at a scathing in­dictment of the Chinese Communist Party and the government it leads. On pp.188 – 9 he tells us of a ‘simple image of society’; there are ‘we’ and ‘they’, the latter being ‘the cadres, party people, and the authorities’. In this image, the party members are the worst. He quotes a Chinese thus: ‘Watch out for W. and L. They are party men. But M. is a good fellow: he is not in the party’ (italics Leys’). Yet he also implies a reluctant belief, certainly a correct one, that at least Mao enjoyed popular support.

Leys appears to see the present government as lacking real redeeming features. At one point, he does acknowledge their ‘accomplishments’, but does not specify or make the slightest attempt to give them due weight. He is prepared to quote the great Lu Hrun to the effect that Chinese history can be divided into orderly and disorderly periods; with the implication that order is preferable to disorder. Yet the comparative order of the present is no grounds for any kind of commendation. Again, among his many denunciations of foreigners who go to China he is prepared to ridicule them for their belief that there is no theft in China. he then goes on to say, ‘In all fairness it must be said that most bicycle thefts are committed by youngsters out for a joyride, and, in general, Chinese society maintains its very high standard of discipline -even after the Cultural Revolution.’

In other words, there is even for Leys some truth in the assertion that the Chinese are remarkably honest. Moreover, they are more so than under previous governments. But even this turns out to be not a good thing but a bad. Leys continues: ‘To find such a standard in the past, one has to go back more than twenty-two centuries to the brief Ch’in dynasty’ (290–221 BC), when, according to the chroniclers, ‘people could leave their luggage on the wayside without fear that anybody would touch it but the Ch ‘in regime was also the one in ancient times that managed to come closest to being a totalitarian system in the modern meaning of the word.

Simon Leys reserves his most acid comments for what he perceives as the hypocrisy associated with bureaucratic inequality. He claims that China is not more equal but less so now than it has ever been. Typical of his approach is to quote a text referring to the sixth century BC to the effect that Chinese social hierarchy had only ten degrees and to add, ‘We have progressed since then: the Maoist bureaucracy today has progressed since then: the Maoist bureaucracy today has thirty hierarchical classes, each with specific privileges and prerogatives.’

Few would assert that Chinese society is totally equal or deny that there are many officials, some of whom could justly be classified as bureaucrats. But it is both unfair and distorted to overlook totally, the lack of big property-owners, and the relative equalities in standards of living between party members and others, between managers and workers, by com­parison with the past. Above all, Leys should have commented on the constant Maoist attempts to fight bureaucratism. He could also have noted that China’s cities are less divided in terms of wealth than those of virtually any other country in the world, The only section of Peking that can be described as upper class is the diplomatic. The savage differentiation between the slum areas and the rich such as characterises Hong Kong or Mexico City, even Sydney, is simply not found in China.

On the other hand, there is a certain irony in the fact that some of Leys’ ideas on government are actually rather similar to what the Chinese official publications are themselves currently saying. This book refers specifically to the early 1970s, when Simon Leys was living in China; consequently, he is describing the period when the ‘gang of four’ was in the ascendancy, Leys’ criticisms of Chinese culture at that time and of those who determined its shape, especially Chiang Ch’ing, is no harsher than anything one can read nowadays in Peking Review, Of course, there is one vital difference for Leys, Mao Tse-tung’s Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art are just as blameworthy as Chiang Ch’ing, whereas in China they remain sacrosanct as the ideological basis of the arts. Moreover, Leys appears unwilling to accept any changes in policy as genuine, since for him the Chinese Communists are totalitarian and can never be otherwise. No shifts can be more than superficial.

A related point where Leys is curiously in accord with current official Chinese thinking is in his overall judgments on Chou En­lai and Chiang Ch’ing. On pages 196–97, Chou En-lai receives quite high praise, Leys refers to one aspect of his personality that has not been noted by observers: his good taste. Chou is the only member of China’s ruling clique who has never taken advan­tage of his position to have his poems published’. Correspondingly Leys shares the current damning view of Chiang Ch’ing, though hopefully not for the same reason: ‘The sight of Chiang Ch’ing reminds one of what one of Koestler’s characters says: One can see what is wrong with the left-wing movement by the ugliness of their women.’  

More dissatisfying than judgments based on such trivial and absurd grounds, however, is that at no stage does Leys offer any suggestion as to what kind of government the Chinese should have. He talks about ‘the Chinese revolution’ which ‘will take fire again’; he also despairingly records his view that in fact the Communists will probably survive for a long time. But just what does he want for this country he loves so much? If Leys is suggesting that it is wrong to idealise contemporary China, that nobody should be blind to the disadvantages of life in China, then of course one can agree with him. But the unwritten implication of all he says is that the people should overthrow the Communist Party with no guarantee that its replacement would be any more than a bunch of bureaucrats, The impression is of a book negative for the sake of being negative. The author’s third major concern appears to be his love for the Chinese tradition. ‘We must all learn from the Chinese world: if we do not assimilate that great tradition, we cannot pretend to a true world humanism’. In every city he visited, he felt himself drawn to the old buildings and temples, and took steps to go and see them without guides. All this is fine, even admirable. Leys is right to denounce the physical attacks on some old monuments during the Cultural Revolution. Fortunately, this was a passing and, in most cases, redeemable phase, as the current reopening of old buildings and revival of traditional operas show. Leys becomes less engaging with a tendency to look down on anybody who does not share his passion for tradition. This becomes outright censoriousness when Leys talks about foreign observers of China. The book fairly bristles with observations on their ignorance, including personal attacks on particular and named individuals. To point out mistakes is of course necessary, even praiseworthy, but Leys’ snide language leaves a de haut en bas impression which tends to pall after a while.

A typical example is where Leys talks about a correspondent of Le Monde who is ‘protected by his blessed ignorance of Chinese’. Naturally, all would agree that a knowledge of Chinese is extremely useful in understanding China. To sneer at those who do not know the language, however, and to imply that they have no right to say or write anything about China is tantamount to placing oneself on a pedestal in order to despise others.

This is a sad book, not only in the unnecessary and negative picture it paints and in the impatience the author shows with any view alternate to his own, but also in his, certainly genuine, wish to have felt able to write a different kind of book. Leys finishes as follows:

This book is at the opposite pole from the one I would wish to write and one day hope I can write. If the Maoist bureaucrats could only shed some of the pessimism, suspicion, and contempt with which they look down on those over whom they rule, and if they would only take a risk and let us live, truly live, among the people, I cannot believe that the experience would furnish such negative impressions as mine here. Not that the daily life of the Chinese people is such a picnic far from it but at least its inexhaustible humanity would be. enough to wash the sterile sarcasm from these pages.

The sarcasm cannot be denied; Leys’ judgment on it as sterile is apt. The inexhaustible humanity of the Chinese should have washed it from the pages anyway take a more dispassionate look.