Chinese

The aim of this book is to present a realistic picture of life today in the People's Republic of China. Reference has been made to Chinese communities in other places - Hong Kong, Taiwan, South-east Asia. But to describe their lives in detail would take one or several more books, so they are discussed only insofar as they make possible a better understanding of the life of Chinese people in the PRC. Similarly, no attempt has been made to give a detailed description of the lives of ethnic minorities in China, who are discussed only in the context of national policy as a whole.

Certain terms used commonly in this book need to be defined from the outset. The phrase 'the Eleven Years' denotes the period from 1966 through 1976, when left-wing Maoist ideas about society and government were generally dominant in the PRC. The term has been used quite frequently in the Chinese media, and it is the only one which neatly covers the period of the Cultural Revolution and its after math up till the purge of the 'Gang of Four'.

The term 'Euro-American' has been chosen in preference to the misleading and racially charged word 'Caucasian', to refer to various common concepts and attitudes found in West European and North American culture.

The Maoist political line has been called 'left-radical', while the pragmatic approach to policy matters (typical of Vice-Chairman Deng Xiaoping) has been called "right-moderate'. Some scholars of Chinese affairs dispute the ability of such a simple antithesis to por tay the country's politics, but it is the one which makes the most sense in surveying the events of recent years and corresponds closely to the model used by the Chinese themselves.