JP/8/mao

JP/8/mao

Jung Chang and John Halliday were in Jakarta on July 9 as part of
a global book tour to launch Mao: The Unknown Story (Jonathan
Cape, June 2, 2005), which shatters the cult image surrounding
the 20th-century Chinese leader, at the Periplus Bookshop in
Kemang, South Jakarta. The Jakarta Post interviewed the authors
on their journey into uncovering the man behind the myth.

Investigative scholars shatter myth of Mao

Chisato Hara
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The in-store cafe and extra chairs set out in the Periplus
Bookshop are full, and standing guests line the magazine rack to
the rear or around book displays. At least half of the audience
is of Chinese ethnic origin, many of whom look to be in their 60s
to 70s. Shoppers from the nearby Hero supermarket stop by after
their errands, and guests keep trickling in throughout the
launch, which also marked the release of the Bahasa Indonesia
version of Jung Chang's Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, or
Angsa-Angsa Liar, a memoir of her upbringing in Mao's China that
took the literary scene by storm in 1991.

The launch and Q&A session run almost an hour overtime as the
questions keep coming from enthusiastic fans, and the authors
consider each one equally, even those that border on academic
debate. It is clear readers feel close to Chang because of Wild
Swans, and one asks, "How is your mother?" The cashier's till
dings in succession as guests purchase Mao: The Unknown Story,
Wild Swans or both for an autograph. One old woman clutches her
signed copy to her breast as she leaves the store.

It is now late afternoon, and Jung Chang is sitting back in an
armchair in her hotel room, wearing a tunic-and-trouser set in
mint, with a deep teal silk shawl around her shoulders.

She has not been feeling well today, suffering from some kind
of stomach ailment -- the hotel doctors have been called, and are
due to arrive in 30 minutes or so. Nevertheless, she and her
British co-author husband, Jon Halliday, have been gracious in
making the interview.

Chang has a mellow voice that resonates with animation as soon
as she begins to speak, and readers of Wild Swans would recognize
the precision and evocative quality of her narration.

"Mao seemed the obvious subject... (since) he dominated my own
life and dominated China," Chang replied as to her choosing a
biography on Mao Zedong to follow up her memoir.

The couple has spent the 12 years since the publication of
Wild Swans researching Mao exhaustively across China and through
various archives -- including the Russian Foreign Ministry
archives and the independent Communist International (Comintern)
archives in Moscow -- and in speaking to over 150 people who had
direct contact with him, from his personal laundry-woman to
former world leaders.

"We went for primary sources," emphasized Chang, "and used
secondary sources only if they were verifiable."

While much literature exists on the statesman who was
instrumental in bringing China into the modern era, Chang felt
that "it seemed the world didn't know him ... He hadn't
penetrated into the consciousness of the general public, although
he was as evil as Hitler or Stalin... He was responsible for the
deaths of at least 70 million of his countrymen during his rule".

Halliday added, "To be fair, earlier biographers didn't have
access to the material we had... But it's also about asking the
right questions. How did he hold cabinet meetings? Discussions?
For example, they don't describe how he made decisions when he
was in power."

This is the second husband-wife collaboration after Mme Sun
Yat-sen (Penguin, 1986), and the historian-linguist partnership
"worked very well", said Chang, who holds a doctorate in
linguistics and was the China section director for external
services at the University of London's renowned School of
Oriental and African Studies. There, she taught Mandarin and
Chinese culture to businessmen and correspondents, such as those
from Reuters, but mostly British diplomats, for posts in China.

Halliday's background lies in the Classics department at
Oxford, where he focused on Ancient History, along with Ancient
Greek and Latin philosophy. But he is no stranger to modern Asia,
and has published books on the Korean War and modern Japan. His
fluency in several languages, particularly Russian, and his
research for The Artful Albanian: Memoirs (Chatto & Windus, 1986)
on Stalinist leader and co-author Enver Hoxha, also proved
invaluable for Mao.

But it was Wild Swans that opened many doors to Chang and
Halliday. The book is banned in China, "But I'm happy that a
pirated Chinese version found its way in -- I know, because a
friend brought me back a copy," laughed Chang. "So people had
read Wild Swans and knew the kind of book I wanted to write about
Mao." If they hadn't, Chang was ready with a copy as introduction
to potential interviewees.

Inadvertently, the Chinese government had also aided their
course: "(The government) had warned Mao's inner circle not to
cooperate with us, but this had an adverse effect, because the
warning let them know that this was not going to be a party-line
book. They knew it was an important book..." She also found that
most of the interviewees, after so many years of silence, were
willing and more than eager to tell their tales.

Mao also attempts to go beyond a mere biography, as Chang had
a vision to explain 20th-century Chinese history in a
comprehensive manner through Mao and his relentless, pitiless
pursuit of personal power.

"He was heartless. He cared about nothing," she stressed. To
illustrate, she relates the life of Mao's second wife, Yang
Kaihui, who bore him two sons, and whom Mao abandoned to
destitution. She was eventually executed by the Nationalists for
her previous connection to Mao.

At the same time, however, "Mao understood human emotions very
well", said Chang, but even this insight was used to propel
himself toward his ultimate goal of world domination.

The authors found that he also identified with disgraced
leaders, and felt an affinity with former U.S. president Richard
Nixon and even his archrival, Chiang Kai-shek -- not because of
empathy, but because of his own fear of being deposed.

"In his last days, the most dominant emotion was self-pity --
because he didn't achieve world domination," said Chang.

Her most shocking discovery was that the Great Famine of 1958-
1961, during which 38 million Chinese people perished, was not
due to economic mismanagement as she had long believed: Mao had
calculated the deaths into his economic policy.

By the end of their investigation, she came to the realization
that Mao was "far worse than I had thought".

Even so, Chang does not appear to hold any personal animosity
toward Mao, and the most palpable emotion she and Halliday seem
to share is a blend of academic objectivity and scholarly
passion.

"The research was exciting in itself. And discovering new
material ... (like) finding the manuscript written by Mao's
second wife and making historical discoveries. For example, in
the war against Japan, (that) Mao used the Japanese to destroy
Chiang Kai-shek," she said.

Halliday interjects politely and is careful to specify that,
while Yang's manuscript was not a state secret, its existence was
certainly "kept secret" by the government.

The authors are modest about their monumental biography, which
TIME magazine referred to as "an atom bomb of a book" (June 13,
2005), and luck also played its part: "We were lucky the Russian
archives were opened after the fall of Communism," said Halliday.

"We set out to write a truthful book that could stand against
the strictest critics, a biography with a great narrative drive,"
said Chang. "And we were lucky because Mao's life was full of
drama."

How do they feel about their achievement? "We are very
pleased," she said. Chang is currently translating Mao into
Chinese, and hopes it will be available in China -- but no word
on this has been forthcoming thus far.

There is a knock on the door, and two doctors enter. Chang
excuses herself, extending her thanks for the interview, and
retires to an adjoining room.

"As a historian, (Mao) was a terrific subject," said Halliday.
"He led an incredibly interesting life ... (Researching the book)
was also a historian's dream. We made huge discoveries, accessed
thousands of pages never seen before ... It was as exciting as we
could hope for." He is also ecstatic about the journey they made
through China: "With Jung, I was able to travel to remote
locations which otherwise would have been closed to me."

Earlier, when asked as to why the authors had agreed to a
launch in Indonesia, Chang had replied, "Because of the
intelligent and widely read Indonesian readership" and the
historical connection the country holds with China.

Halliday elucidates that Mao had an intimate relationship with
Indonesia, and was actually behind the 1965 Indonesian Communist
Party (PKI) coup.

"Wild Swans was a big hit in Japan, and (Japanese Communist
Party/JCP leader) Nosaka Sanzo and his wife loved the book." They
welcomed the authors eagerly, and Nosaka moved to authorize the
release the transcripts of former JCP leader Miyamoto Kenji's
conversations with Mao about the 1965 coup. In addition, one of
their interviewees was Jusuf Adjitorop, possibly the only
surviving senior member of the PKI, who resides in China where he
was at the time of the coup.

"The Chinese government has released many transcripts of Mao's
conversations with foreign leaders. It's just a suggestion, but
it would be interesting, since he is going to China, if President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono could ask them to release the
transcripts between Mao and (then PKI leader) Aidit," he said.