Taiwan Today

Two Approaches to Reform

The Chinese language is the mother tongue of one quarter of the world's people. The written language is used by an even larger proportion.

No other tongue comes even close. English ranks second—but for only around 300 million people. Russian is the native language of fewer than 200 million, French of a mere 75 million.

Japanese and Koreans use the Chinese written language in scholarly works, and it forms an essential part of the written vernacular. Formerly, the Chinese characters were used exclusively in Vietnam, and they still play a role in scholarship.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Chinese spoken language is easy to learn, and the written language is not nearly so difficult as commonly believed. The simplicity and clarity of the language appeal to the memory. Chiang Yee, famous linguist, wrote in his book, Chinese Calligraphy: "Thoroughly to understand a single Western tongue, one must know several others. English ... contains more than 70 per cent of words derived from at least 10 different languages."

Chinese, Chiang pointed out, is monosyllabic and simpler than either German or English, which often have words of 15 or more letters with nine or ten syllables, such as "extemporaneously," "photo-telegraphically" or "antidisestablishmentarianism," difficult both to write and pronounce.

In addition, Chiang wrote, Chinese has neither accent, grammatical inflection, difference in number, gender, case, person, voice, mood, tense nor degree of comparison. It is a language that has been reduced to its basic elements.

"Chinese has had simplicity of form from its earliest days," wrote the linguist. "The style of the classical literary language is condensed to the extreme of significant brevity though from the richness of its content and the grace of its manner we must infer that it passed through a period of purgation before reaching its present form."

The Chinese language has been highly successful in conveying the ideas of the Chinese people through the ages, although the form of writing has gone through a process of evolution. There have been important changes in terms, phrases, facts and ideas, but the main forms and features of the characters and of literary expression have remained comprehensible. One of the most ancient books, The Book of Changes, written about 3,000 years ago, can still be read and understood.

To uninitiated Westerners, Chinese characters may seem to be chicken scratches run wild. But they are not arbitrarily constructed. They have a distinct logic of their own. No matter how complicated, most Chinese characters are susceptible to analysis.

One part of the character often gives the meaning, while another may indicate the sound. This logical structure is based on the foundation of pictured objects. Once a pictograph was established, whether it depicted man, tree, sun or moon, it conveyed a clear meaning, even for children and the uneducated.

Evolutionary Examples

Later came subtleties in definition, such as the transition from pictograph to ideograph to radical phonetic combinations. The process is not unlike the word-building procedures that have shaped the rich English-language vocabulary.

A few examples will illustrate the evolution of Chinese characters.

The character for "sun" originally was written as a pictogram ( ) and ( ), and the present modification is 日; moon ( ) is becomes 月 in modern form; star goes from ( ) to 星; mountain from ( ) to 山; water from ( ) to 水.

The pictures serve not only to give the basic meaning but easily can be expanded to cover more complex ideas and concepts. For example日, the picture of the sun, and 木, the picture of a tree, can be combined to get 東, a sun rising behind a tree, or "east." If 木 is doubled, we have 林 for "forest." If tripled, it 森, a dense forest.

Expanded meanings did not always require the addition of another element. Take 日 for example. While it meant "sun" from its first use, it also was used to represent "day." Another ancient character 月, the pictograph for the moon, also stands for "month." When a new character was needed to convey "brightness" or "clarity," what was more natural than to combine the two brightest heavenly bodies and come up with 明.

The pictographic tradition of the Chinese written language is similar to the system of roots that English-speaking people have inherited from Latin and Greek. The roots are used for constructing new compounds.

The English reader knows the Greek prefix "phil" means love. "Philosophy" is literally the love of wisdom. "Philanthropist" is one who loves mankind, and so on. Similarly, a Chinese reader who sees a character with the radical 忄 the word for "heart," can assume that the word has a connection with human emotions. He can usually make a good guess about pronunciation, although the phonetic components are not always a reliable guide because of dialect developments over the centuries.

Three Categories

The entire body of Chinese characters can be classified in three categories—pictograms, ideograms, and phonograms. The pictograms are pictures of objects or modifications; the ideograms are composite symbols representing ideas; and phonograms are compound characters of which the most important element represents a sound.

If one knows the components of a hundred characters thoroughly, he probably can read and use a thousand characters.

In the traditional form, the Chinese characters are arranged in columns, starting on the right-hand side of the page and running from top to bottom. For many purposes today, characters also may be written horizontally from left to right.

How many Chinese characters are there? The number increases steadily with the passing of time. The "oracle-bone characters" of the Shang Dynasty (1766-1154 B.C.) included only around 2,000 words. The Chung Hua Dictionary published in 1915 has 44,908.

Hsu Shen's work on Chinese etymology Shou-wen-chih-tzu, published posthumously around 120 A.D., contained 9,353 ideographs (excluding 1,630 "variants"). In the famous Kang-Hsi Dictionary published in 1716 during the reign of Emperor Kang-Hsi of the Manchu Dynasty, there were 46,216 ideographs. But of this number, some 34,000 were monstrosities and useless "variants."

Of the approximately 45,000 Chinese characters known, some 78 per cent have become obsolete.

How big a vocabulary is needed in daily life? A survey made by the Ministry of Education during the first years of the Republic showed these results: Number of words used by ordinary adults, 2,774; by merchants, 2,358; by students, 3,654.

The People's Primer of 1,000 Words, compiled by the Ministry of Education in 1925, was useful in teaching the illiterate to read and write.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen used only a few more than 3,000 words in writing his Three Principles of the People and Principles of National Reconstruction. If such an abridged vocabulary is sufficient for the discussion of political problems, it should be sufficient for use in everyday life.

It has been noted that three thousand characters are not difficult to master in an ordinary school program. By learning just ten characters a day, it would take only about one year.

A standard Chinese-language typewriter usually has 5,372 characters. Of these, 2,401 are classified as "commonly used." The rest are "reserved types."

A Chinese printing house usually stocks 6,875 characters. The most commonly used total only 704.

While the Chinese written language is used and understood throughout the Chinese language area, the spoken language has regional phonetic differences and variations in pronunciation and usage. These differences may make one dialect unintelligible to others.

The major dialects are Mandarin, Wu, Min, Amoy-Swatow, Hakka, and Cantonese—with variations and subdivisions.

The Amoy-Swatow, Hakka, and Cantonese dialects are spoken by most overseas Chinese, numbering about 15 million. On the mainland, Mandarin and its variations are spoken by 75 to 80 per cent of the people. Those in the Kiangsi-Chekiang area speak Wu, while Min is used in the Fukien and Taiwan area.

People from the Amoy-Swatow or Canton area have difficulty understanding their compatriots of the North. The Mandarin pronunciation of a written character may differ greatly from the sound in Cantonese, Amoy or Shanghai dialect. A Chinese from Nanking speaking to a group of Toishan people in an overseas Chinese community may require the services of an interpreter.

Fortunately, there is the common bond of the written language. When two Chinese cannot communicate in speech, they "write" the characters on their palm with a finger. Comprehension is ordinarily immediate.

Educators long have been aware of the desirability of standardizing the spoken language. For 40 years the national government has been encouraging nationwide use of Mandarin, which is spoken by 75 to 80 per cent of the population.

The chief effort of the government has concerned the phonetic translation of difficult words. The tool used is the Chu-yin-tse-mu, or phonetic symbols.

Three Methods

Methods long had been suggested for annotating the Chinese characters phonetically, so that people could pronounce the words. Over the ages, three methods developed: Chih Yin, Fan Chieh, and Chu-yin-tse-mu (phonetic transcript).

The Chih Yin method, invented in 250 B.C., annotates a character by another character. The method does not work when there is no available word of the same sound. Nor is it effective when there is a word of the same sound, but the word is itself unfamiliar or difficult to pronounce.

Following the Chih Yin came the Fan Chieh, which was introduced toward the end of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220). This is more successful because any character can be annotated by using two characters, the first with the same consonant and the second with the same vowel. Still, the reader has to possess a vocabulary sufficient to enable him to read and pronounce the two characters in the annotation.

The third method, Chu-yin-tse-mu, was introduced after the establishment of the Republic in 1911. There are 40 phonetic symbols, and these serve to transcribe every Chinese character in the Mandarin dialect. As soon as one masters the symbols, one can pronounce.

These symbols are actually extracted from certain Chinese characters. For example,ㄅ (pao), the first one, is the upper part of 包,  pronounced pao, meaning "wrapping."

Encouragement of the phonetic system was pressed in a nationwide campaign in 1913, when the national government ordered all official organizations to promote Mandarin by adopting the Chu-yin-tse-mu. The order pointed out that Tse-mu could unify the nation's spoken language, wipe out illiteracy, and increase popular interest in study of the written language.

The first non-governmental group to promote Mandarin was established at Peiping in 1916 by a group of patriots. The short-lived "emperor" Yuan Shih-kai had just been expelled from the throne, and democratic sentiments were running high. The Mandarin enthusiasts sought to promote democracy through education. What had blocked democracy, they reasoned, was the high rate of illiteracy.

Control by Few

Tsai Yuan-pei, educator who later became Minister of Education, wrote in a newspaper: "The majority of the populace can neither read nor write, and have no interest in politics, so the government is being controlled by a few... The people are not even aware that democracy had been on the brink of being completely uprooted by an ambitious conspirator. Though the danger is now temporarily over, the people are as blind and dumb as ever. The administrative power of the government can still fall into the hands of a few, and true democracy will be hard to achieve."

With his friends, Tsai established the National Spoken Language Research Society in Peiping, then the national capital. Supporters in various provinces responded warmly. Members increased from 1,500 in 1918 to 9,800 in 1919 and 12,000 in 1920.

The society set up a branch in Shanghai in 1920 and began to publish the Mandarin Monthly. It was devoted to the phonetic symbols.

Hu Shih, scholar-philosopher and the initiator of the 1919 Literary Renaissance Movement, was a member of the Society. He wrote in an article "On Literary Revolution": "If China wishes to have a lasting literature, the use of Pai Hua (spoken language) must be advocated. All local dialects should be replaced by the Mandarin."

Under the Literary Renaissance Movement, Pai Hua flourished like spring flowers. Newspapers and magazines, formerly printed in the classic literary style, began to switch to Pai Hua and to use phonetic symbols. Evening classes were set up to teach the working class, using Pai Hua literature and Chu-yin-tse-mu.

On November 22, 1918, the Ministry of Education officially announced a revision of the phonetic script. The number of symbols was raised from 37 to 40. This system is still in use.

Another measure to promote Mandarin was an order to primary schools to replace the classical Chinese literature with Pai Hua. Wen Yen (terse and concise classical form) since has become a course taught only in high schools.

Chaos Interferes

On January 1, 1926, the National Spoken Language Research Society celebrated its 10th anniversary. Mandarin Movement rallies were held in many cities. The Mandarin promotion campaign reached its climax. Soon afterward, turmoil stirred up by northern warlords plunged the nation into chaos. Literary activities largely ceased.

Not until nine years later, in September of 1935, when the situation had become quiet once more, did the government again pick up the work of Mandarin promotion. The Ministry of Education announced the "Nine Rules Governing the Promotion of Phoneticized Chinese Characters" and ordered primary schools to use textbooks containing phonetic symbols. The rules also encouraged newspapers and magazines to use phonetic characters.

Just as the government was pushing hard, the Japanese invasion of China began and work had to be shelved once more.

However, Mandarin promotion was resumed as soon as the government settled down in Chungking of Szechuan province. Classes were set up in primary schools. Phoneticized books were published. Wounded soldiers were given Mandarin lessons in hospitals.

Mandarin promotion was negligible during the brief period between V-J Day and the Communist seizure of the mainland. Social order was disturbed and inflation rampant. Children were cut off from proper education, to say nothing of Mandarin lessons.

Taiwan province then became the locale for the government's continued efforts to promote Mandarin.

Linguist Chao Yuan-jen once said the difference between the Fukien and the Peiping dialect can be compared with that between French and Spanish. Anyone from northern China coming to Taiwan, where Southern Fukien dialect is used, has the feeling of being shut out by a language barrier.

A little more than a decade later after start of the government campaign, more than half of Taiwan's 11,600,000 people, including both natives and mainlanders, can speak fairly good Mandarin. A majority of some 200,000 aborigines converse in the national language. Another advantage is the virtual elimination of illiteracy. Of primary school-age children, 95.59 per cent are in classes and Mandarin is the language of instruction.

Success Story

In 1960, the Ministry of Education announced that Taiwan had carried out the most successful Mandarin program in the history of the Republic of China.

Immediately after retrocession of Taiwan province from Japan in 1945, the Provincial Governor's Office set up a "Taiwan Provincial Mandarin Promotion Commission" responsible for research, planning, editing, training, and experimentation.

In 1946, the Governor's Office ordered schools to use the Standard Phonetic System promulgated in 1918. The Mandarin Commission began to teach Mandarin via radio.

The Mandarin Commission set up branches in counties and townships. Extension schools were established for primary school teachers who hadn't mastered the national language. Mandarin become compulsory in normal school and a passing grade was required for graduation.

Mandarin classes were established in factories and offices. Employees were encouraged to converse in Mandarin.

Experimental School

With a view to finding more effective ways of teaching, the Provincial Department of Education established the "Mandarin Experimental Primary School" in Taipei in 1948. After four years, results were compiled in a report: "Problems of Mandarin Teaching in Taiwan Primary Schools." Teaching methods underwent considerable change.

In accordance with suggestions made in this report, primary school beginners are taught only speaking methods and phonetic symbols in the first 12 weeks in contrast with the previous characters-symbols combination. Comprehension came much faster.

Later the teaching of the spoken national language was extended to middle schools and universities. In 1950, the National Chengchi University set up an experimental Mandarin class based on "full use of phonetic symbols, automatic learning, and intensive reading of books."

Supplementary Mandarin classes were conducted regularly to eliminate illiteracy. Local governments were instructed to give top priority to "makeup" education for the illiterate who had reached conscription age. By 1962, 1,780 "makeup" Mandarin classes were being conducted in counties and cities for young men eligible for military service. The number of students was 68,747.

Recent research by the government shows there are more than 700 Chinese-language schools in overseas communities throughout the world. Most are at the primary level. There are also some kindergartens and middle schools. Many lack enough Mandarin-speaking teachers.

Foreigners, Too

At the request of these schools, the Ministry of Education has encouraged overseas teachers to come to Taiwan for brief, accelerated Mandarin instruction. It has established an overseas Chinese Teachers' Mandarin class at the Taiwan Normal University.

Textbooks exclusively for teaching Mandarin in overseas schools are compiled and supplied by the MOE. Overseas Chinese students coming to Taiwan for education are sent to special Mandarin classes for at least two months.

Even foreign residents of Taiwan join in the study of Mandarin. A Chinese Language and Culture College was established in Taipei in 1957. It has a faculty of 39 and an enrollment of 148, including diplomats, military personnel, missionaries, merchants, and school children.

The school advocates lots of practice in learning the spoken language. Students are encouraged to speak with those in the local community, always in Chinese.

The school is so successful that American and European universities are beginning to send students here to learn Chinese language and literature.

Also contributing to Mandarin promotion in Taiwan is the Mandarin Daily News established in 1947. This is the only newspaper in free China using phonetic symbols alongside each printed word. It is a tabloid-sized afternoon paper, and is widely read by students. Contents include international and domestic news, a children's page, a teenagers' page, and weekly or fortnightly supplements.

40,000 Circulation

Primarily for school children, the Mandarin Daily uses simple language. It avoids sensational news.

Many journalists thought the paper would fail. They neglected the fact that potential readers included two million primary school pupils.

In 14 years, circulation of the Mandarin Daily jumped from a few hundred to more than 40,000. It has published more than 1,000 supplements. One, a biweekly "Selections from Classical and Modern Chinese Literature," has sold more than 10 million copies of its 400 issues. Subscribers include overseas Chinese in Hongkong, Macao, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaya, the United States, and Canada. The paper can be found in the libraries of such universities as Harvard and Waseda.

The Mandarin Daily News is among the most profitable newspapers in Taiwan. In December, 1962, it moved out of its old building in the Taipei botanical gardens and into a six-story structure built with its own earnings.

Mandarin promotion is the only "language reform program" undertaken by the national government in its half century of existence. The Chinese Communists, however, have devoted efforts to large-scale drastic change.

The Communist program received its impetus from Mao Tse-tung himself. As early as 1940, he advocated in New Democracy that "under certain conditions the Chinese written language must be reformed."

A National Written Language Reform Conference was convened in Peiping October 15-23, 1955. It decided that the written language should be revolutionized so as to be made into a phonetic, alphabetic system. Three major steps were outlined: simplification of the characters, standardization of the spoken language, alphabetization or Latinization of the written language.

Aside from their own attempt at Mandarin promotion in trying to standardize the spoken language, the Communists have undertaken remake of the written language. The national government has carefully avoided any such goal for fear of destroying traditional Chinese culture.

Other Changes

The Communists also have been pushing a series of minor adjustments.

First, there is a different line arrangement. All newspapers and magazines on the mainland are printed with the lines arranged for horizontal reading from left to right, in contrast to the traditional manner of vertical arrangement from right to left.

Writing with a brush has virtually disappeared. Artists, calligraphers, and high officials signing documents are the only ones using the brush.

A Committee for Reforming the Chinese Written Language was formed by the Red regime in 1952, and simplification of the characters was its first task. By simplification is meant (1) reduction in the number of strokes, and (2) abolition of multiple characters with the same sound and meaning.

By selecting one character from multiples, the Committee claims to have abolished more than 1,000 characters. Of the 517 complex characters simplified, the number of strokes supposedly has been cut in half.

Publishing houses are instructed to use the new characters in all publications except ancient classics and in special cases.

In promotion of the Mandarin dialect, Communist teachers have been trained to teach the Putunghua (common language) and radio broadcasts are made on the teaching of the phonetics of the common language. But Chou En-lai once had to admit it is a tremendous task to eliminate the dialects of 600 million people.

Drastic Step

By far the most drastic step in Communist language reform is the attempt to phoneticize the written language by using the Latin alphabet. The idea is not new. Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit scholar who had close connections at the Ming court, is believed to have made the first attempts—in 1604—to Latinize the Chinese written language. Other attempts by missionaries and Chinese educators followed since. The most useful was published in 1867 by Thomas F. Wade, one time British Minister to China. The Wade system is still widely used in English-Chinese dictionaries.

Beginning in 1890, Chinese scholars began to study the possibility of introducing the Latin alphabet for the written language. Support was never given by the national government, and the movement made no serious headway until after Communist seizure of power.

Communist Claims

The first problem studied by the Communist Committee for Reforming the Chinese Written Language was whether to adopt the Latin or Russian alphabet. Finally, with the approval of the "National People's Congress," the Committee adopted the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet on February 11, 1958.

Accordingly, there was supposed to be uniformity in the spelling of Chinese characters based on their pronunciation in Putunghua. The Communists alleged that the new phonetic script would have the following uses:

1. To indicate the pronunciation of the Chinese characters.
2. As an aid in teaching and learning Putunghua.
3. To serve as a basis on which various minorities could create written languages.
4. To solve the problem of translating names of persons and places, and scientific terms.
5. To help foreigners learn Chinese and thus promote international cultural exchange.
6. To compile indices.
7. Eventually to transform Chinese into a phonetic written language.

At first the Communists wouldn't admit that alphabetization of the written language was their final goal.

Chou En-lai declared in 1958 that "the adoption of a scheme for a Chinese phonetic alphabet does not mean the transformation of the Chinese language into a phonetic language." Two years later, he admitted that he was "convinced" that Chinese would become a phonetic language. "Like the languages of all other countries," he said, "the Chinese language is bound to become a phonetic language."

Used on Signs

Many observers believe the Red regime will try to take the final step as soon as the transitional period is over. The process would be similar to those in the establishment of communes-from land reform to cooperatives, then to collectives and on to communes.

A vigorous campaign to popularize the phonetic script is still under way. In most schools, special classes have been set up. Evening classes are conducted by most large organizations.

In cities, the signboards of shops are annotated in Latin. Similarly with street signs and rail station directions. Newspapers and magazines print their Latinized names alongside the Chinese characters. Labels on consumer goods bear Latin script.

目彔

(目錄)

以农业为基础发展工业

(以農業為基礎發展工業)

关于資本主义

(關於資本主義)

生产劳与非生劳

(生產勞動與非生產勞動)

Samples of simplified characters now in use by Chinese Communists. Traditional characters are presented in parentheses

Chinese-language dictionaries, formerly arranged by the number of strokes, are published with characters arranged in alphabetic order, or supplied with a supplement so that characters can be located if their pronunciation is known.

Five years after start of the Communist reform campaign, results can be summarized as follows:

Standardization of the spoken language has taken place. Putunghua has become the common language of everyday speech.

Use of simplified characters has become widespread. However, there is still a noticeable tendency of the older generation to write complex characters, and this is no longer discouraged.

Simplification of characters has many shortcomings, as even the Communists admit. In some cases, simplifications have been so drastic that simpler characters of different meanings but with approximately the same pronunciation were used in place of the more difficult words. Thus the character tou 斗 (a measure) was used for 鬪 (struggle); fan 凡 (general, all) for 磐 (alum).

Wu Yu-chang, director of the Committee for Reforming the Chinese Written Language, admitted that "in simplifying Chinese characters, not enough consideration was given to the result, especially the substitution of some characters by the simpler form of their homophones. They are either inappropriate in use or likely to cause ambiguity."

Mao's Violations

A reader has written to the People's Daily of Peiping that from time to time newspapers use characters which nobody knows, even after consulting dictionaries and "racking one's brain for the pronunciation."

Chinese Communist high echelons, especially "Chairman" Mao, do not follow the trend. In his latest poem "To Pestilence," Mao not only uses the most difficult, unsimplified characters, but writes the introduction in the terse classical style and the poem in the seven-character form prevalent among the "feudal" Tang and Sung Dynasties. Apparently the hauntingly beautiful, old-style Chinese literary form with its unabridged characters still has a powerful hold upon Mao.

Strong objections have resulted from the Communist attempt to Latinize the written language. It is clear that the Communists intend to replace the characters. This is intolerable to most Chinese, who are deeply proud of their beautiful written language, and it is just true on the mainland as on Taiwan.

Except for primary and junior-middle school pupils and teachers, for whom phonetics is a required subject, few individuals actually can write in phonetic script. Those who learned the script in hurriedly conducted classes quickly forget it. The Chinese people prefer their characters and ignore the script, even though it stands alongside the characters.

Telegrams are still dispatched by use of numerical code for the characters. Although a propaganda attempt was made to popularize the sending of telegrams in script, the practice never took hold.

Latin script is used in some postal matters but is a foreign language to most employees. The covers so addressed are subject to translation by special officers. A test was carried out by a foreign resident of Shanghai, who dropped three envelopes bearing the same address into the same mailbox at the same time. The envelope bearing Chinese characters was received the next day. The one in English was received on the second day, and the one in phonetic script arrived on the third day. In a second test, the envelope with the phonetic script was undelivered.

Travelers Confused

At mainland railroad stations, passenger cars have their destination displayed in characters and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The Chinese ignore the phonetic script. Nor is it helpful to foreign travelers. The destination signs read: Guangzhou, Beijing, Nanjing, Hanzhou. A puzzled foreigner will have difficulty recognizing Canton, Peiping, Nanking, and Hangchow—names still being used in Communist English-language publications.

One argument for the alphabetic form of writing Chinese is the characters are too hard to learn. This argument is refuted by the Taiwan experience. Illiteracy is being wiped out by universal education.

It is easy to say that the 26 Latin letters are much easier to learn than the thousands of Chinese characters. This is over simplification. After learning the letters, the spelling of the words must be mastered. That may be virtually impossible. The characters were made to represent the language. Sounds represented by the alphabet were not.

Use of the Latin alphabet in place of the characters frequently leads to confusion. In Chinese, words with the same sound but differing meanings are the rule rather than the exception. Without the characters, it may be virtually impossible to ascertain the meaning of the phonetic word. Difficulty is encountered with typical Chinese sounds which are not consciously distinguished even by the Mandarin-speaking population.

Effect on Dialects

The Communists also may discover that Latinization of the language before the total adoption of Mandarin may lead to a revival of provincialism. As soon as the people learn the Latin phonetics, they can use them for their own dialects. Without the Chinese characters as a unifying force, phoneticization might promote a whole series of written dialects that do not now exist.

Culturally, the characters are woven into the giant fabric of Chinese literature, history, ethics, and philosophy—into life itself. Some have said that the Communist Latinization effort is part of an effort to conceal the rich heritage of China. Mao Tse-tung is determined that the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, of humanity and benevolence and individual freedom, must be replaced with the materialistic ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

What are the prospects that Mao will succeed? Emperor Chin Shih Huang tried something similar from 246 to 207 B.C.—burning books and murdering scholars, so it could be recorded that his dynasty marked the beginning of Chinese history. His dynasty lasted only half a century. A similar fate may await the Communists. Dynasties and tyrants—even alien oppressors - have come and gone. Through it all, China has survived and come back stronger than ever. For close to 5,000 known years, the Chinese characters have played an essential role in this vitality. When the Communists are gone and all but forgotten, they undoubtedly still will be doing so.