LIGHT ON CHINA——Inside China Today（今日中国见闻）

节选

相关资料

The People's Republic of China has yet to prove it has developed a safemeans of succession to power. In the first twenty-four years, there have beensuccessive challenges for the leadership. Mao Tse-tung has weathered allthese, and now the blurring of his physical presence into the Thought leftbehind became the apparent means of transition to his successor. The otherunanswered challenge for the Chinese government is to learn if their new"moral" man, who has accepted the rigor and demands of the initial exces-sive fervor, hard work, and puritanical behavior, can be maintained at thislevel of commitment. Initial excesses plus initial asceticism are characteris-tic of successful revolution. How much of the present Chinese model behavioris beyond normal human behavior？ Mao claims his system is molding a newmodel citizen. His success thus far is impressive; can such behavior continue？ The citizen there and here can only be appreciative, however, that atleast the options are now open for interchange and some influence upon eachother. One definition of peace is the absence of war. If only time can bebought so that the large nations.of the world can discover their dependenceon each other for food and materials, the awareness of the mutuality of de-pendence upon the earth's resources perhaps will force peace as a permanentcondition upon us. Throughout this book, I have tried to walk the narrow line between re-porting what is good and perhaps adaptable by us in today' s China and at thesame time to make clear my awareness of the precious values which are partof our own system. I refer essentially to those factors of individual freedomwhich are so much a part of American life that we squander them as a drunksplashes from his tilted glass the very drink he enjoys. The Chinese govern-ment has demanded a commitment from the Chinese people which has notpermitted room for self-concern, personal latitude, and——what we proudlyhave——individual self- determination, or liberty.