The Hundred and First Flower

Those damned liberal teachers … propagandizing the kiddies with their squishy, one-world liberalism, decaying a society from the roots up. Is there any limit to the termity of their obsession to subvert?

When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.

Nearly overnight the country’s most prosperous schools have shelved the Marxist template that had dominated standard history texts since the 1950’s. The changes passed high-level scrutiny, the authors say, and are part of a broader effort to promote a more stable, less violent view of Chinese history that serves today’s economic and political goals.

I could easily explain the downsizing of Maoism — it didn’t work, no one believes in it anymore, and any government facing rising unrest in its countryside and the constant, implicit threat of an explosion of urban unrest needs another hook on which the subjects can hang their loyalty. All signs had been pointing to that being nationalism — hatred of the United States and Japan. What’s surprising is what those elements are also missing from this text. That would seem to be a victory for the “pragmatists” Chuck Downs had mentioned.

Let’s hope it works out better than the original Hundred Flowers campaign.

Thanks to a reader for forwarding.