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Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China - The Politics of Knowledge (Paperback, New)
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Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China - The Politics of Knowledge (Paperback, New)
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When in 1989 Chinese astrophysicist Fang Lizhi sought asylum for
months in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, later escaping to the West,
worldwide attention focused on the plight of liberal intellectuals
in China. In Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China H. Lyman Miller
examines the scientific community in China and prominent members
such as Fang and physicist and historian of science Xu Liangying.
Drawing on Chinese academic journals, newspapers, interviews, and
correspondence with Chinese scientists, he considers the evolution
of China's science policy and its impact on China's scientific
community. He illuminates the professional and humanistic values
that impelled scientific intellectuals on their course toward open,
liberal political dissent. It is ironic that scientific dissidence
in China arose in opposition to a regime supportive of and
initially supported by scientists. In the late 1970s scientists
were called upon to help implement reforms orchestrated by Deng
Xiaoping's regime, which attached a high priority to science and
technology. The regime worked to rebuild China's civilian science
community and sought to enhance the standing of scientists while at
the same time it continued to oppose political pluralism and
suppress dissidence. The political philosophy of revolutionary
China has taught generations of scientists that explanation of the
entire natural world, from subatomic particles to galaxies, falls
under the jurisdiction of "natural dialectics," a branch of
Marxism-Leninism. Escalating debates in the 1980s questioned the
relationship of Marxism to science and led some to positions of
open political dissent. At issue were the autonomy of China's
scientific community and the conduct of science, as well as the
validity and jurisdiction of Marxist-Leninist philosophy-and hence
the fundamental legitimacy of the political system itself. Miller
concludes that the emergence of a renewed liberal voice in China in
the 1980s was in significant part an extension into politics of
what some scientists believed to be the norms of healthy science;
scientific dissidence was an unintended but natural consequence of
the Deng regime's reforms. This thoughtful study of science as a
powerful belief system and as a source of political and social
values in contemporary China will appeal to a diverse audience,
including readers interested in Chinese politics and society,
comparative politics, communist regimes, the political sociology of
science, and the history of ideas.
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