CHINA: STRUGGLE OVER EDUCATIONAL POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90T00114R000200650001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 29, 1987
• Content Type: MEMO

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Central Intelligence Agency
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DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
29 June 1987
China: Struggle Over Educational Policy
Summary
Since the fall of Hu Yaobang in January, conservative leaders
appear to have reasserted their influence forcefully in several areas,
including state educational policy. We believe they have been
instrumental in beefing up political indoctrination on college campuses,
reintroducing stricter ideological qualifications for college applicants and
imposing new restrictions on students applying to study abroad. Although
these policies will probably increase student alienation from the ruling
Communist Party, they have had their intended chilling effect for now on
student activism. Reformers appear to have gone along with these
changes, but we suspect that educational policy will be one of several key
areas where conservatives and reformers quietly struggle for dominance.
Political Assessments Branch, China Division, OEA,
This memorandum was prepared by Political Assessments Branch, China Division, Office
of East Asian Analysis. Information available as of 29 June 1987 was used in its
preparation. Comments and queries are welcome and may be directed to the Chief,
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New Emphasis
Although Zhao Ziyang and other reform leaders have tried to limit the struggle
against "bourgeois liberalism" 1 to the party, we believe that conservatives such as Peng
Zhen and Deng Liqun have ignored the restriction and have already begun to exert
considerable control over state educational policy--an important barometer of the
overall political atmosphere. The conservative cast of four central documents this year
(numbers 1, 2, 3, and 8) has prepared the way for a number of new, more conservative
educational policies, including:
? More politicized admission standards by which more academically qualified
students may be rejected on ideological grounds.
? Institution of mandatory political courses in universities.
? Greater emphasis on "social practice"--practical work outside the
university--extending into summer vacations and beyond graduation in order to
tighten control over students' activities.
? More rigorous party inspection of applicants for overseas study and a new
requirement that applicants first work for two years, designed to weed out those
who might not return.
? Abolishment of student grants on the premise that students who must borrow
money for their education will adopt a more serious attitude toward their studies.
? New restrictions on student debating societies designed to ensure tighter party
control.
? The promotion of university political instructors to lecturer and professor status
starting in June of this year.
Chinese Academy of
Arts and Sciences is now demanding to review all student manuscripts destined for
possible publication. many students who
demonstrated last winter are expecting work assignments in remote regions as
punishment for their activism.
1 Conservatives have used the drive against bourgeois liberalism, following on the
heels of the student demonstrations and the ouster of party General Secretary Hu
Yaobang, to accuse their opponents of promoting capitalism and "total
Westernization."
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Impact of The New Policies
To date, conservative-led efforts to reassert party control over the campuses
apparently have had their intended effect--student activism has been muzzled. Since
the clampdown began, leading reform intellectuals at various universities have been
silent, and politically charged anniversaries marking the Tiananmen Incident, May Day,
and the May 4th Movement have passed quietly. The new policies, however, will in our
judgment exacerbate another problem--the party's already low credibility and prestige
among young intellectuals. During the student demonstrations the deteriorating state of
the student-party relationship was especially apparent when local party organizations,
_
including the Communist Youth League (CYL), were unable to defuse student unrest. F
Student alienation from the party has manifested itself in several other ways:
? The CYL, in which student membership is nearly mandatory, has come to be
viewed by students as only a mouthpiece for party authorities rather than as a
voice for (or representative of) their interests, according to students in several
cities.
? Those students who join the party often do so only to enhance their career
prospects, according to Shanghai students interviewed by consular officers.
? After party ostracism of University of Science and Technology Vice President
Fang Lizhi, Beijing students showed their defiance by electing him by write-in
vote and his wife through regular voting procedures to the Haidian district
People's Congress, according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. (The
Post stated that authorities later nullified Fang's election.)Z
? In early June students at Beijing's Central Institute of Finance and Banking
directly challenged the party's recent efforts at control by boycotting classes in
protest over the occupation of their campus by a tobacco factory since the
We believe educational policy will increasingly become a center of quiet struggle
between reformers and conservatives. Conservatives are likely to push their educational
policies as an indirect means of attacking the overall reform agenda. The extent to
which Deng Xiaoping and leading reformers can block further conservative inroads will
provide one indication of their relative strength over the next several months. We
expect the reform leadership to focus on shielding those educational reforms they
believe most vital to China's economic development, including admissions based on
academic excellence, relatively free debate--at least privately--among intellectuals, and
2 The Haidian district of Beijing municipality includes 100,000 of Beijing's 130,000
students. Students comprise 10 percent of the district's population.
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rational assignment of jobs based on students' training. Reformers at the same time
probably will accept the increase in political indoctrination on campuses and "social
practice" during vacations and after graduation, some seeing these as relatively small
sacrifices and some agreeing with conservatives that students would benefit from such
programs.
At the local level, we believe that reform officials and academics, who have
gained increased autonomy in recent years, will resist many of the new policies while
paying lip service to them. A gap between policy and implementation is already evident:
? In Liaoning Province, delegates to a work meeting on education vehemently
attacked bourgeois liberalism, according to consular officials, yet their final report
dealt solely with improving higher education and increasing funds.
? Subsequent to this meeting a Liaoning university president confided to a consular
official that at his institution, practical application of the new policies had boiled
down to enforcement of discipline--keeping dormitories clean and enforcing
participation in morning exercises.
? Beijing Embassy officers noted that although students theoretically must work for
several years before applying to study abroad, individual units continue to make
numerous exceptions to the rules.
? At Nanjing University only fifty students have been sent to factories; a college
official blamed the weak participation on insufficient funding and the reluctance
Possible Impact on Sino-US Exchange Program
The battle over education policy could further complicate an already sensitive
area of US-China relations--Beijing's unhappiness over the number of Chinese students
who choose not to return after completing their studies here. Indeed, fear of reprisals
for supporting the December student protests may prompt more Chinese students in US
universities to seek residence here. According to press reports, many students have
expressed fears of retaliation for voicing support, especially since the arrest of one
student who returned to China to participate in the demonstrations.
We believe conservative leaders might try to capitalize on such an increase in
emigration to press reformers to place still tighter restrictions on the selection of
candidates for the overseas study program or perhaps even reduce some exchanges
with the United States they consider expendable. At minimum we would expect them to
criticize US immigration policy, hoping to embarrass reformers who are strong
supporters of these exchanges. In fact, several delegates to the recent National People's
Congress--where conservatives have a strong voice--singled out the United States for
criticism for not preventing Chinese students from obtaining jobs with US firms.
Conservatives might also press for an expansion of more "ideologically safe" student
exchange programs with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe--a proposal education
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minister Li Peng may have made last year,l I At 25X1
present those countries play host to only a few hundred Chinese students compared to
the 19,000 now in the United States. 25X1
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Subject: China: Struggle Over Educational Policy
Distribution:
White House and National Security Council
1 - Don Gregg, Special Assistant to the Vice-President, NSC, Room 298,
White House
1 - Doug Paal, Director of Asian Affairs, NSC, Room 493, OEOB
Department of State
1 - Stapleton Roy, Deputy Assistant Secretary, East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, Room 6205
1 - Richard Williams, Director, Office of Chinese Affairs (EAP/C),
Room 4318
1 - Joan Plaisted, Deputy Director of Economic Affairs, Office of Chinese
Affairs (EAP/C), Room 4318
1 - John Danylyk, Chief, INR/EC Communist Economic Relations Division,
Room 8662
1 - G. Eugene Martin, (EAP/CH), Room 4318
1 - Richard Solomon, Director Policy Planning Staff, Room 7311
1 - Tom Fingar, Chief, INR/EAP/CH, Room 8840
1 - Chris Clarke, INR/EAP/CH, Room 8840
Department of Defense
1 - Rear Admiral Baker, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia, ISA,
Room 4E817, Pentagon
1 - Ed Ross, OSDISA, 4C840, Pentagon
1-
Lieutenant Colonel Eden M. Woon, Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
China Plans and Policy, FESA J-5, Room 2E973, Pentagon
1 - Major Ron Tom, China Staff Officer, Hq Dept. of the Army, DAMO-SSA,
Room 3B516, Pentagon.
1 - Chris Madison, Office of the Army, Assistant Chief
of Staff for Intelligence, DAMI-FII, Room 2A474, Pentagon
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Central Intelligence Agency
1 - DDI (7E44)
1 - D/DCI/DDCI Executive Staff (7060)
1 - NIC Analytic Group
1 - NIO/EA (7E62)
1 - NIO/Econ (7E47)
1 - D/OEA (4F18)
2 - C/OEA/CH (4032)
1 - OEA Production Staff (4G48)
1 - C/OEA/SDS (4G32)
1 - C/OEA/CH/IS (4G32)
1 - C/OEA/CH/EA (4G32)
4- C/OEA/CH/PA (4G32)
1 - C/OEA/CH/TT (4G32)
1 - PDB Staff (7G15)
5 - CPAS/IMC/CB (7G07)
1 - CPAS/ILS 7G50)
1 - CH/EA (5038)
1 - EA (5D0106)
1 - C/EA (5E-18)
1 - C/PES (7015)
1 - C/DO/PPS (3D01)
1 - D/OLL (7B24)
1 - SRP (5000)
1 - D/LDA (1 H 18)
1 - C/LDA/CH (11H18)
1 - (814 Key)
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