Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics: Five Studies.

This collection of five essays promises a study of "the way in which formalized language and formalized speech acts help constitute the structure of power within China's political system" (p. 1). It delivers on this promise in a fascinating work that provides numerous insights into the structure and specifics of political conflict and control in the PRC.

Each short essay illuminates a different aspect of how control over language is used to exercise power in contemporary China. The first chapter sets forth the conceptual framework of the study and argues the centrality of language to Chinese politics. It also provides an overview of how the scope of "discourse control" by the CCP has expanded and contracted over the years. The second chapter discusses the formal documents - different types of party circulars - that are used to communicate "correct" terminology. It argues that this formal system, rather than simply ideology, is the method by which the striking (and sometimes stultifying) uniformity in ways of discussing political and other matters in China is produced. Chapter 3 discusses the role of "ghost-writers," illustrating the very different role that these individuals were alloted under two different political leaders. Whereas Hu Yaobang would fully communicate his views to his ghostwriters before asking them to draft a document, and then rely heavily on them to provide the speech that he would ultimately deliver, Lin Biao would provide little if any indication of what he wanted, and would then mostly ignore what his speechwriters provided him with. Despite this variation, Schoenhals argues convincingly that key "ghost-writers" like Hu Qiaomu have played a crucial role in formulating the "scientific language" that is ultimately endorsed by the CCP.

Chapter 4 looks even more closely at Hu Qiaomu's role, using illustrations from a booklet, originally published in the 1950s and reissued in 1977, containing a series of critical comments to junior editors of the People's Daily made by Hu Qiaomu in the mid-fifties, when he was in charge of supervising the work of the People's Daily on behalf of the CCP's Central Secretariat. The chapter provides fascinating insights into how the Party ought, and continues to seek, to render journalists tools to "mobilize the people to carry out the Party's general line" (p. 102).

The final chapter discusses the system of censorship as well as ways in which political control of language have limited the development of the humanities and social sciences in China. Schoenhals argues that until political control over language is significantly relaxed, creativity in these realms will not be able to flourish: control of form becomes control of content.

In his introductory chapter, Schoenhals raises the important question of why, given the fact that control over speech and writing is such an obvious aspect of power in China, so few political studies in this field focus on language. He suggests that the answer may lie more in the training and predispositions of scholars of Chinese politics than in the intrinsic importance of the topic. This reader, at least, after reading Schoenhals' study, was more than convinced that the study of control over language provides essential insights into many different aspects of Chinese politics.

NINA P. HALPERN Stanford University, Standford, U.S.A.