Changing face of China
From Mr Jonathan Mirsky
Sir: Mr Joseph Askew packs a lot of misinformation into his letter (24 November) about my article on Rupert Murdoch On bed with the Reds', 10 November). His only fact is that I wrote a review of a book authored (partly) by the late John King Fairbank in the Journal of Asian Studies. The review appeared in December 1973. East Asia: Tradition and Transformation was not by Professor Fairbank alone, but was co-authored with his Harvard colleagues, Edwin 0. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig. It would astound the generations of China scholars who have recommended East Asia to their students to learn from Mr Askew that the book is 'fellow-travelling', an insult not heard since the McCarthy period. Nowhere in my six-page, broadly admiring review of this 968-page book do I refer to it as 'insufficiently supine to the Chinese Communist party', or imply that it is. I mention Chinese communism twice. First, I say the authors 'deal with communism not unsympathetically'. I refer, secondly, to an insight on Mao's peasant background and comment, 'We pause here for a moment as a real historian speaks to us.'
I once regarded the Chinese revolution with a sympathetic eye. I changed my mind about 30 years ago, after a trip to China during the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps, despite what Mr Askew says, that 'earns me the right to criticise anyone [such as Rupert Murdoch] for sucking up to communists', Jonathan Mirsky
London W11
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