Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (26 page)

While the twenty articles on industry were taking shape, the Ten-Year Economic Vision was also being drawn up in preparation for a planning meeting to be convened in November. On October 5, Deng personally chaired
the initial State Council meeting to discuss the draft of the Ten-Year Economic Vision that had been drawn together quickly. Deng approved the draft and on October 27 forwarded it to Mao, who gave permission to distribute it to those central and provincial officials responsible for the economy.
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On November 1, with Mao's approval, a National Planning Conference was convened focusing on the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1976–1980) and the 1976 Annual Plan. Officials from various localities suggested possible revisions to the Ten-Year Economic Vision, some of which were incorporated into the revisions of the document. Meanwhile, discussions of the five-year and annual plans continued, and by the end of December the drafts were passed to Mao.
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The newly formulated five-year and annual plans represented a clear victory for the cautious planners, who had been struggling for years to overcome the chaos in planning work and finally had achieved their goal.
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But divisions had emerged between these cautious planners and the conceptualizers who had created the more ambitious Ten-Year Economic Vision, divisions that would become even more acute in the 1980s.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences

In June 1975 Deng turned his attention to rebuilding China's scientific establishment. During the Cultural Revolution, one out of every 250 scientific personnel at the CAS, where the vast majority of high-level scientists were concentrated, had been persecuted to death; in the CAS Shanghai branch the figure was one out of every 150 scientists. Even in the small number of civilian research units that remained open, work was disrupted.
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In 1965, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, there had been some 106 research centers under CAS, with 24,714 scientific and research personnel.
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In 1975, by contrast, CAS had been reduced to thirteen research institutes, two research offices, and about 2,000 employees, of whom 1,800 were officials or researchers and 200 were lower-level support staff. Many of the scientists who had been sent to the countryside had not yet returned. On June 29, Deng told Hu Qiaomu that the Political Research Office should spearhead the consolidation of CAS, which would include selecting new leaders and preparing to resume the publication of scientific works. Accordingly, the consolidation of China's scientific institutions began at CAS, then spread to many other institutions.

Deng himself decided that the man on the ground at CAS, directing the
actual consolidation work, should be Hu Yaobang (see Key People in the Deng Era, p. 726). In mid-July Hua Guofeng, on behalf of Deng and the party center, explained to Hu the party's hope that CAS would play an important role in the four modernizations. Hu was to investigate current conditions at the academy, report his findings to the party center, and then draw up a plan for reorganization.
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Only after consolidation had been achieved at CAS would it be carried out at other scientific institutions—those under the direction of the national defense ministries, economic ministries, and local governments. Consolidation of schools and publications would follow.

Hu Yaobang, heading a team of three, arrived at CAS on July 18 with his mandate to carry out consolidation. He declared that the Cultural Revolution was over at CAS and that the propaganda teams of workers and the military should leave. Former employees of CAS who had been sent to the countryside could now return to their offices and resume their work. Researchers would be allowed access to needed research materials, including foreign publications.
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A few weeks later, Hu Yaobang held a series of meetings with members of CAS and representatives of key ministries to discuss China's science and technology needs for the next decade. These meetings marked the first step toward drawing up the ten-year vision in science. From August 15 to August 22, Hu met with the relevant party officials to discuss the reorganization of CAS and the selection of key leaders. He announced that China's goal was to achieve the four modernizations, including scientific modernization, by the end of the century.
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Throughout September Hu met with leaders in each of the various institutes to discuss how to overcome specific obstacles in their work. Before going to each institute, he reviewed thoroughly the materials related to the institute and met with people familiar with the work conducted there.

To those who had suffered, Hu could relate his personal experiences, both as a victim and a survivor. Shortly after he joined the Communist movement as a teenager, he had been sentenced to death for questionable associations; he also suffered during the Cultural Revolution before being allowed to return to party work in Beijing. The scientists returning to their jobs could relate to Hu and came to trust him: here was someone who understood their suffering because he too had suffered. Moreover, by careful study, he had come to understand the specific problems at each institute and he believed completely in the scientific mission of CAS.

Hu also helped to resolve problems in the personal lives of CAS personnel,
in part by improving living conditions and bringing back family members from the countryside. In fact, he guided the officials at each institute in drawing up a list of all former employees who had been sent to the countryside for labor and “study” and he found ways to cut through the official red tape to bring them back to Beijing. He was not afraid to speak out and fight for their cause, and when he gave talks at an institute, it always was a dramatic moment. He soon became a hero to the Chinese scientific community.

When Hu Yaobang met with Deng Xiaoping on September 26 to update him on the progress at CAS, Deng strongly endorsed Hu's efforts.
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On October 4, Hu Yaobang was formally named first deputy head of the “Communist party small group” at CAS. From his new position, Hu appointed within each institute separate leadership teams for the party, for scientific work, and for supplies and support. He showed respect for the specialists and made it clear that they would be allowed to make decisions about the content of their work.
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When Deng began to be criticized late in the year, Hu was in the process of naming new administrative heads of the various institutes. At that point, the climate changed and progress stalled.

While plans were being made for the consolidation of CAS and the birth of an independent Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Hu Yaobang was following Deng's directions to help pull together the ten-year vision for the development of science that would be under CAS. Because the plan was being drawn up in great haste, Hu drew heavily on the existing twelve-year vision (1956–1967) that had been approved in 1956. A first draft of the new vision was completed on August 11, just before Hu began his series of meetings at the CAS institutes. It affirmed the progress made during the first seventeen years (1949–1966), which had produced some 150,000 scientific and technical specialists who later were criticized by the Gang of Four as “bourgeois” scientists. The drafters of the plan tried to cover their political bases by quoting Mao's 1962 statement that China needed to continue its class struggle. The emphasis of the document, however, was on providing stable work conditions to promote the “struggle for production and scientific experimentation.”
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The document discussed the technology needed to meet demands in agriculture, industry, and the military, but it also addressed strategies for developing cutting-edge computer, laser, remote sensing, and bionic technologies, as well as plans for conducting basic scientific research in nuclear energy, particle physics, and other areas.
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Reviewing the document, Deng was concerned about Mao's probable reactions;
he directed Hu Yaobang and the drafters to take the scattered references to Mao and put them together in one place to make clear that the document was in keeping with Mao's general views. While emphasizing the successes during the first seventeen years, the drafters were told to tread lightly over the problems encountered since. Deng also said that the document should be shortened.

Deng asked Hu Qiaomu to oversee these revisions, and on August 26, Hu wrote a memo to the drafters regarding Deng's views and then supervised the editing, with the hope that the results would be more acceptable to Mao. A fourth draft, completed on September 2, discussed China's scientific progress not during the first seventeen years but during the entire twenty-six years of the People's Republic, thus avoiding criticism of the Cultural Revolution. The document announced that the aim was to realize “Mao's goal of four modernizations” by 2000, and to catch up or even surpass world scientific levels. Scientists, it read, must continue to reform themselves and to unite with workers and peasants. Action clauses specified how scientists were to take the lead in opening new areas for basic research as part of their mandate to support the four modernizations. Finally, to achieve Mao's goals, the report stated, large numbers of outstanding scientific specialists with advanced training would be required. The document noted that although they must not assume that all things foreign were good, when appropriate, the Chinese should be open to learning from foreigners.
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At the State Council meeting on September 26 to discuss the report, as Hu Yaobang was making the presentation, Deng interrupted frequently. When Hu Yaobang talked about reaching world scientific levels, Deng emphasized that China had to be modest about its present levels because the nation had fallen far behind other countries in science and technology. Deng continued to interrupt, reflecting his passion to revive science in China—a step that, as he repeated, was essential for achieving the four modernizations. Deng stressed the need to support the small number of really brilliant scientists, even if they were unusual characters. It was important to solve their housing problems and other problems of daily life: their children should be placed in good kindergartens, and any spouses still in the countryside should be allowed to return to Beijing. Deng said that when he was in the Soviet Union in the 1950s he had learned that the basic work on the Soviet atomic bomb had been done by three young men, all in their thirties and forties. In contrast, Deng complained that the brilliant semiconductor scientist Huang Kun
had not been given a good position, and he said that if Peking University did not want him, he should be made head of a semiconductor institute where the party secretary would support his work.

Deng continued that although he had never become fluent in either French or Russian, Chinese scientists had to learn foreign languages so they could read foreign reports. They also had to learn scientific theory and if they did not understand math, physics, and chemistry, regardless of their degrees, they would not be able to handle scientific work. He defended those scientists who had tried to keep their studies going during the Cultural Revolution, despite having been criticized, saying that they were “a lot better than those who fight factional battles,” who “occupy the pot hole without taking a shit” and “hold back the wheels of progress.”
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Deng complained that some were even afraid to use the word “expert.” In his view, China should cherish its experts. It needed to introduce automation into its factories and to support talented scientists who could make it happen. Aware of the continuing ideological criticism of “bourgeois intellectuals,” Deng stressed that scientists were members of the working class. He directed that after the ten-year plan for the development of science was revised, it should be sent to Mao and to the members of the Politburo.
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Rarely was Deng as passionate as he was at this meeting on science. Not only did he interrupt frequently but he fervently argued that scientific research must take the lead among the four modernizations.
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But taking the lead would not require a complete reorganization, Deng insisted. Rather than change as many as 45,000 officials in the science sector, as some had proposed, changing only 5,000 would be sufficient. The key was the leadership team at each level. Why should people be kept in their posts if they don't know a specialty and don't yearn to get something done? Why can't China promote people with high levels of knowledge to become heads of research centers? The challenges were immense, and the key was to rely on scientists and leaders in their early forties and older who had been trained before the Cultural Revolution. Indeed, Deng said that China's educational system, in which some colleges were operating at the level of high schools in the West, faced a crisis that could hold back the entire modernization effort.
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By September 28, Hu Qiaomu had incorporated Deng's comments into a fifth draft. The report gave the necessary praise for Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, but boldly stated that political theory could not be used as a substitute for science. This fifth draft was the first to be shown to
Mao. Just at that time, at Mao's request, his nephew Mao Yuanxin was visiting him in Beijing. Mao complained to his nephew about Deng and his consolidation efforts at Tsinghua University. Mao was also furious about the document on science; he zeroed in on one sentence that Hu Qiaomu had inserted in the final draft quoting Mao as saying that “science and technology constitute a force of production”
(kexue jishu shi shengchan li)
. Mao insisted that he had never said that.
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