Interview, Fireside Chat
Jung Chang (Wild Swans author) — Living through history's largest man-made famine
- Hyung Chang (Jung Chang) was born in 1952 in Sichuan, China, to communist officials, and lived a privileged early life before the Cultural Revolution.
- In 1966, at age 14, her father, a high-ranking party official, was arrested, tortured, and driven insane after criticizing Mao's policies, eventually dying in exile.
- Her mother refused to denounce her husband, enduring over 100 "denunciation meetings" where she was beaten, paraded with broken glass under her knees, and attacked by children in the streets.
- Jung Chang was exiled to the Himalayas, working as an untrained peasant, barefoot doctor, steelworker, and electrician, where she suffered five electric shocks in one month due to lack of safety training.
- Between 1966 and 1976, China became a "cultural desert" with schools closed, books burned, and a total ban on foreign contact, isolating the population from external information.
- Universities reopened in 1973; Jung Chang entered university to learn English, the first lesson of which was "Long Live Chairman Mao," and English vocabulary was limited to basic greetings learned from sailors.
- Following Mao's death in 1976 and the subsequent purge of the Gang of Four, Jung Chang passed a national exam in 1978 to study abroad, becoming one of the first 14 people selected from Sichuan province to go to Britain.
- In 1982, she became the first person from communist China to earn a doctorate from a British university (University of York).
- Jung Chang began writing Wild Swans after her mother moved to Britain in 1988, transcribing 60 hours of tape recordings detailing their family's suffering.
- Wild Swans was published in 1991, has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and was described by diplomat George Kennan as "the greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be leveled in modern times."
- Jung Chang's biography Mao: The Unknown Story was also a bestseller but is banned in China; possession can lead to imprisonment, creating a "total clampdown" on historical research under Xi Jinping since 2012.
- Jung Chang notes that under the communist regime, a culture of silence persists where parents with bad experiences under Mao often do not tell their children the truth.
- Mao maintained total control through a combination of total societal organization, isolation from the outside world, and the use of terror to suppress dissent.
- Jung Chang argues that while China had a history of rebellion, Mao's regime was distinctively totalitarian due to its ability to control society down to the grassroots level through party organizations.
- During the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), approximately 40 million people died of starvation; the famine was caused by Mao's export of food to Russia and Eastern Europe to buy industrial machinery, despite domestic shortages.
- To meet steel production targets, Mao ordered the destruction of trees for fuel to feed backyard furnaces, which produced useless metal and led to environmental devastation.
- Mao's campaign to eliminate sparrows to protect grain crops backfired, causing pest infestations that further reduced food supplies.
- Liu Shaoqi, Mao's number two, attempted to stop the famine policies in 1962 by bowing to starving peasants and halting food exports, leading to his purging during the Cultural Revolution.
- Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 specifically to retaliate against Liu Shaoqi and purge officials who had thwarted his policies during the famine crisis.
- Jung Chang states that Mao viewed death philosophically, reportedly saying, "If we don't have death, the earth can't contain us," to harden officials against seizing food from starving peasants.
- The regime forced peasants to confess guilt and denounce family members to maintain control, using "warm feelingism" (prioritizing family over the Party) as a charge for political persecution.
- Deng Xiaoping, whose son was paralyzed by Red Guards, chose not to denounce Mao immediately after taking power, fearing that rejecting Mao would collapse the Communist Party's legitimacy.
- Jung Chang criticizes Kissinger for maintaining a fascination with Mao's power and lending his status to efforts to preserve Mao's legacy even after Mao's death.
- Jung Chang refutes the claim that Nixon and Kissinger "opened up" China, stating that liberalization occurred only after Lin Biao's death and Mao's loss of control over the army, with actual opening happening after Mao's death under Deng.
- While acknowledging China's economic growth and poverty reduction since opening up, Jung Chang warns that a rising China poses a potential menace to the world.
- She argues that Western intellectuals and academics often defend communist regimes due to disillusionment with capitalism, lack of access to facts, or wishful thinking.
- Jung Chang rejects comparisons between the Cultural Revolution and modern Western movements like BLM, citing the former's 10-year total destruction of culture, private property, and human rights.
- The current Chinese regime officially derives its legitimacy from Mao, maintaining his portrait on Tiananmen Square despite his role in the deaths of tens of millions.
- Jung Chang suggests that the children of former communist officials often remain loyal to the Party to protect their own privileges and wealth generated under the one-party dictatorship.