‘I asked myself whether I was wrong . . . and whether Mao was wrong. I thought I was right.’ : Chinese Muckraker Stirs Up Audience’s Opinions, Memories

After Liu Binyan had finished his speech last Sunday, the audience filled the jam-packed room with robust talk about this muckraking journalist from China.

Those who came to Monterey Park City Hall reflected the voices and politics of many areas and points of view: from Beijing to Hong Kong to Taipei.

One listener who grew up in Shanghai heralded Liu as a hero, a Chinese version of Andrei D. Sakhrov, the Soviet dissident.

Another, Paul Teng, a Long Beach neurosurgeon who left China 40 years ago, said: “Liu’s ideas are correct. The Communists have to change. If they don’t, they have no hope.”

One man pointed out two women who were upset because they thought Liu was a propagandist for the Communists. “The tragedy of China today,” said Yi Ling Wong of Garden Grove, “is that if you want to be fair and objective, both sides will oppose you.”

And Charly Y. C. Cheung, a San Gabriel financial consultant who came to America from Canton 20 years ago, said: “I hope that both the Nationalist Chinese and the Communist Chinese will open up to what Liu says because he is the voice of the people.”

In his first address to Southern California’s Chinese-American community, the journalist and author known around the world did what he has done for decades in China: provoked talk about Chinese politics and about what is right and what is wrong.

Considered one of China’s leading social critics today, Liu, 63, was in the forefront as a young journalist after the establishment of China’s Communist government in 1949. But by the late 1950s, after he followed what he thought were leader Mao Zedong’s instructions to expose governmental corruption, he was expelled from the Communist Party and sent to work in the fields.

For most of the next 22 years he was unable to work as a journalist, although he did spend eight years as a translator and researcher for a newspaper. He was rehabilitated and restored to party membership and to his job as a writer on the People’s Daily, the organ of the Chinese Communist Party. Liu rose to prominence with the 1979 publication of another expose, “People or Monsters,” an article that described corruption in one province. But by last year he had been expelled again from the Communist Party.

Literary Style

In the process he has become an international symbol--as much for his expulsion as for his work, which represents a style of literary journalistic writing. Despite his controversial stature, the Chinese government allowed him to visit the United States for a 14-month stay that will include a Nieman fellowship at Harvard, a program for distinguished working journalists.

Though not all of the 240 Chinese-Americans in attendance Sunday agreed with Liu, no one disputed that his criticisms of the Chinese bureaucracy require courage.

“Has he been in jail?” asked Tony Thai, a Los Angeles businessman who was worried that Liu’s frankness would get him in trouble when he returns.

“Yes, he’s been in jail,” said Charly Cheung, inaccurately adding to the Liu legend.

Spoke in Mandarin

It was a special afternoon of discussion about the future of the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. During his talk in Mandarin, the audience questioned him about the expiration of Britain’s rule of Hong Kong in 1997. They wanted to know about Taiwan and its new president, who has improved ties with the mainland, and how the Communist government is coping with young people who are pushing for changes.

Since arriving in the spring, Liu has spoken at universities throughout California, including Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA, where he teaches.

But Sunday was the first opportunity to speak to people old enough to know first-hand what Liu was talking about: modern Chinese history and politics.

Worked in Countryside

He did not need to go into detail about how he suffered in internal exile. Or how he was required to work in the countryside and attend camps at which intellectuals were schooled in proper political thinking. He knew from looking at the audience, he said, that “they had experienced a lot.”

In an interview after his talk, Liu said through Zhu Hong, his wife and interpreter: “Maybe they had a lot of bitterness and suffering so they understood me. That is why they responded warmly and sympathetically. They care very much about the future of China and like me, they have high hopes for the unity of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.”

Even if they did not agree with him, Liu was a link to their homeland.

Common Traits

“We all have a very different personal history” but share common traits, he said.

“We all have black hair, black eyes. They are the same as I am,” said Liu, whose almond-colored face is gently lined. His black hair is graying.

It was standing-room-only for Liu’s talk, which was sponsored by the Monterey Park Library and Evergreen Publishing, a local bookstore. Those who were unable to find a chair sat on the floor and at the edge of the podium. Parents held infants as the elderly supported themselves on canes and children ate cookies to sustain themselves throughout the 2 1/2-hour event, which ended with a swirl of picture-taking, autographs and well-wishing.

Liu sat in the mayor’s chair, with the flags of the United States and California behind him. In recent years this same room had been the scene of heated debates over the thousands of Chinese immigrants who have transformed Monterey Park’s politics and culture.

Criticisms Begin

With his wife, a former children’s book editor, listening from the audience, Liu detailed the early days of China’s Communist government and how he began to write critically about the failings of the bureaucracy.

“I asked myself whether I was wrong,” Liu said. “And if I was not wrong, then whether Mao was wrong. I thought I was right, not wrong. I thought what I was doing was in accord with what Mao told us to do.”

At that time, he said, the Chinese people might not have liked the repressiveness of the campaign against people like him but they realized that the Communist Party had made great improvements in their lives. Because people were afraid to speak up, he said, party leaders thought that “all the people were in favor of them and they could do whatever they liked.”

Grass-Roots Support

In recent years, he said, the more his writings have been criticized by top party leaders, the more grass-roots support has has gained. “Then I knew that the Chinese people had wakened up,” he said.

Such awakening does not signal a desire to overthrow the Communist regime, he said, but rather a desire for reforms. “It is the Chinese people who form this force for reform,” Liu said. “It sounds very abstract but it is not and the process already began with the Cultural Revolution.”

His criticism of Mao and other Communist leaders, he said, is not as strong as the complaints of many young people.

Leader Praised

He spoke favorably of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. “What Deng started doing back in 1979 was bold and daring. He had the guts to rehabilitate 99% of the rightists (intellectuals who were critical of the government). This was something very unusual because only he knew the complexity of the Communist Party and the strength of the conservative people in the leadership.

“Also, China has to feed 1 billion people, so it was not easy for Deng to do what he was doing in 1979. Nor is it easy for any one person to lead China, not just Deng Xiaoping.” What Deng must do, he said, is similar to what Taiwanese leaders must do: maintain balance between the conservatives and reformers.

He quoted Chinese playwrights and spoke of the post-Cultural Revolution fiction, saying: “In spite of criticism, the writers dare to speak up in their writing.”

Applauded Loudly

At the conclusion, he was bombarded with questions: Why hasn’t the Communist Party collapsed? Is it true that Deng dares not completely negate Maoist thought? Will Liu ever regain party membership? When will the Chinese people stop quarreling with one another?

Liu was applauded loudly when he said: “I am not impatient so long as I have the opportunity to write and carry out my activities, whether or not I am a Communist party member is of no importance.”

After the talk he was surrounded. A Chinese cable television reporter wanted an interview. A woman from Canton wanted to tell him how he had restored the hope she had lost for China.

“People admire his courage--because he says what he says and he still wants to go back,” said Yi Ling Wong.

‘I Am Encouraged’

Chiang Tung, who lives in Thousand Oaks and was carrying under her arm two of Liu’s books in Chinese, said: “I feel he has looked at the positive and at the negative situations in China and I am encouraged.”

Doris Yu, who left Taiwan for America eight years ago, said, “Some people, the rightists in Taiwan, maybe they would be offended by him. But since we live in the States we should be more open-minded.”

In between signing some of his books, Liu said that because he is a journalist he talks to people of all walks of life in China and perhaps has a clearer sense than most about what is happening in the country. But, he says, he has never sought the limelight where he now finds himself. “I’m just being pushed into this position.”

What about those who say he is a propagandist for the Communists?

“What I said is not what the Communist Party would like me to say,” he replied.

“I believe that my views are not different from those of other people,” he continued. “I hope that Taiwan and (the) mainland will be coming closer and closer. And that the two regions in making reforms will mutually influence each other.”

When he returns to China next year, he believes that the situation will be much improved. “People are very eager for reforms,” he said.

So much so, he said, that he foresees Taiwan business people traveling to the mainland, which in turn will supply raw materials for manufacturing in Taiwan.

Joke Repeated

Liu in an interview repeated the joke that prompted laughter and applause during his talk. One day, he predicted, the anti-Communist political parties of Taiwan will set up a branch office in Beijing and the Communist Party will have its branch office in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan.

Stopping her interpretation of her husband’s remarks, Zhu said: “The main reason he was so warmly appreciated by these people is they think that someone who has endured these persecutions would not speak the truth. But he did.”