Question Authority

Experts on both sides of the Pacific have welcomed the liberalization of mainland China in the last decade. One Harvard senior, an admitted product of the recent enlightenment, epitomizes the freer inquiry and use of Western knowledge that China wants to harness.

A magna cum laude Government concentrator who calls himself a liberal socialist, Huang Yasheng wrote his thesis on agrarian reforms in rural China. Its conclusions took a surprisingly critical view of the communist regime: Huang found that economic changes did not bring about the social progress that the government had sought.

Huang, who plans to return to China when he finishes his studies, feels grateful for the new freedoms he and some other students enjoy. "The less they restrict us, the more I love my country," he adds. Huang will enter the Harvard's graduate program in Government next year, after which he plans either a diplomatic or academic career.

But his thesis, a direct challenge to the communist regime's "official" conclusions, would appear to have jeapordized his career. His thesis advisor, Professor of Government Roderick MacFarquhar, says Huang showed "considerable courage in going back and looking into official policy with a questioning eye."

New Trust in Government

But Huang downplays this personal risk, saying his government puts no political restraints on him and one other Harvard student from mainland China. Conceding that as recently as 1980 the government had far less trust, he calls the recent reforms "a wonderful idea and a historical necessity."

Huang says he came to Harvard for its resources and the inquiring attitude he feels the University develops.

When he arrived, he wanted "to find out why China has lagged behind technologically," he says, adding he has discovered only some pieces of the answer. Huang says he has learned that "cultural factors, and the emphasis on a communal lifestyle, are inherently hostile elements to good organization." China's new open-mindedness toward the West, he adds, hopefully will dispel its "threatening self-assumed superiority and self-indulgent nostalgia.

He feels China has begun to shed its view that economic impoverishment stems solely from imperialist exploitation by the West. When he returned home for thesis research last summer, Huang says other scholars were starved for his Harvard-acquired knowledge of Western scientific techniques and the world economic system."

Vikram K. Chand, a teaching fellow who awarded Huang's thesis a grade of summa minus, calls the essay "better than a lot of published work on the subject."

"It was a pretty inspired piece of writing," Chand says, because of Huang's use of empirical research within an excellent theoretical framework. Huang also profited from special access to a variety of Chinese sources, Chand adds.

Huang's background includes two years as a research assistant on political economy issues for Raymond Vernon, the eminent Dillon Professor of International Affairs Emeritus, Vernon calls Huang "outstanding, bright, Industrious--everything you want in a research assistant."

Learning to Ask Questions

Huang, whose parents write for official mainland publications, says he was "chosen by Harvard, not by the government," to attend school here, after alumni in Peking administered an exam that mostly tested ability to speak and write English. He wrote an essay on "the religious calling in American jobs"--a subject he freely admits to know nothing about.

While Huang has devoted most of his Harvard career to studies, he does fundraising work for the Endowment for Divestiture, a gift-fund Harvard will receive when the University sells its stock in companies doing business in South Africa. He describes the campus's recent divestment activism as "the only politically exciting" movement he has seen in four years. The participants have a "very noble spirit" because they "are motivated by something only remotely connected with their lives," he adds.

In marked contrast to his criticisms of Chinese higher education, Huang praises American universities--and Harvard in particular--for encouraging students to question their teachers and books, since this philosophy of education develops an inquiring mind.

"Given that as the goal, American education is superior," he says. Education in mainland China has a different goal: to promote moral sensibility in students. Huang believes a university could instill moral virtue without neglecting its teaching mission, but given a choice between the two approaches he favors the American system, wherein "students are graded for their reasons, not for their conclusion."

Nonetheless Huang remains critical of some aspects of American education, cautiously agreeing with Secretary of Education William J. Bennett that college degrees do not serve as indicators of knowledge.

Battling the Core

Huang endorses the philosophy of Harvard's Core Curriculum, but he has encountered many bureaucratic problems because of it. He says he gave up on fulfilling the complicated distribution requirements after his freshman proctor could not explain them. Thus Huang never took enough Humanities courses, and he only recently received permission to graduate when administrators allowed him to count Historical Study B-56, "The Russian Revolution," as a Humanities course. "I guess they don't want to hassle most seniors," he says.

Huang enjoyed many departmental courses, especially his sophomore tutorial, but says he hated Core science courses and Government 30, "Introduction to American Government." He characterized that required course as "very trivial."

Huang also raps the Government department's excessive requirements, especially a rule that requires a third reading for any thesis receiving two high grades. That dictum, according to Huang, cost him a higher thesis grade by allowing a reader unfamiliar with China to make "ignorant and irresponsible" criticisms of his work. He says he probably would concentrate in Social Studies if given another chance.