1989: Fou Ts'ong Interview: I wept for China

'The hell with China. That's the attitude!' The famous pianist talks about the tragedy of a country led by 'gangsters'

by Lek Hor Tan

First Published: September 1, 1989 Index of Censorship, 08/89, Volume: 18 issue: 8, page(s): 20-21

It was exactly ten years ago that I first interviewed Fou Tsong, the Chinese pianist, for Index's special issue on China (Index on Censorship 1/1979). On that occasion he was full of enthusiasm and hope for China. It was shortly after his first return to his native land after 22 years of exile in the West. The new Chinese leaders had just opened up the country to the outside world and promised more liberalisation in the arts and culture after the long years of nightmare during the Cultural Revolution.

When I interviewed Fou Tsong again in June this year, the occasion was dramatically different. This time he was gloomy and full of anger, sorrow and despair for China. In fact, after the massacres in Tiananmen Square, Fou Tsong was not the only famous Chinese abroad who felt that he had to tell the Chinese government exactly what he thought of them. Others, like the actress Tsai Chin and the architect I M Pei, to name only two, did the same. They have publicly condemned the Chinese government's action on television and radio and in newspaper articles. Fou Tsong said bluntly that he would never return to China so long as the present 'gangsters and criminals' in Peking still ran the country.

Fou Tsong has good reason to feel bitter and betrayed by the Chinese leaders. His personal life and sense of commitment to the mother country have suffered many painful blows. In 1957, while a music student in Warsaw, he was told by his parents and friends to stay put in Poland. If he returned to China he would be arrested like his father, Fou Lei, the famous professor and translator of French literature, who had just been arrested and detained as a 'reactionary and rightist element'. It was the time of the 'Anti-Rightist Drive' after the shortlived Hundred Flowers Movement. Thousands of other intellectuals were also accused of being 'rightists' and purged. All this gave rise to Fou Tsong's first serious doubts about the role of the Chinese Communist Party'in China's cultural life.

'When the Hundred Flowers Movement started, I felt exalted and excited. My father sent me the complete text of Mao's speech: "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend". It was such an exciting document. I thought the Chinese Revolution was so different, so fresh, in comparison with Stalinist Russia. We all spoke up, even in Warsaw, feeling that it was safe to do so. Later we were all branded as "rightist elements". It was a watershed'. In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution came, both Fou Tsong's parents committed suicide, unable any longer to bear humiliation and persecution at the hands of mindless teenaged Red Guards. This was the last straw for Fou Tsong's relationship with the Chinese government. Years later, however, the pianist was able to forgive and be reconciled with his country, acknowledging that the Cultural Revolution was a great national tragedy for China as a whole and for millions of Chinese families.

'Up to 1966,1 still had a lot of faith in China. When the Cultural Revolution came, I was completely lost. I no longer understood what was going on in China. I lost all hope for the country. Living abroad, I felt terribly depressed. Even to this day, I still can't understand how the Cultural Revolution could take place', he said.

Since 1979, Fou Tsong has been going to China every year, at his own expense, to be in touch with like-minded people — some of them his former schoolmates, and, as he put it, to do some sort of cultural underground work, which has nothing to do with the government! He also gave piano master classes to talented young music students at his old school, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and in Peking. This, he says, was his way of saying thank you to the Chinese government for giving him a good education and for sending him abroad. It also reflected his sense of duty and responsibility towards the Chinese people. To this day, Fou Tsong still admires and respects those who fought and sacrificed their lives for the Chinese revolution.

'I was much too young to take part in it. A lot of people of my generation had gained a lot from the Revolution. That's why we all feel a certain "burden" for not having made enough sacrifices for the nation', he said.

Over the past few years, however, Fou Tsong had begun to feel rather depressed about what he was seeing in China. He explained: 'With the relative success of the economic modernisation, the Chinese people had become so materialistic, so selfish, cynical and dispirited. It seemed as though they no longer had any aims and ideals in life'.

Then came the pro-democracy movement with millions of Chinese demonstrating in Peking's Tiananmen Square. 'When I saw. those crowds on television, my spirit was uplifted. My heart was filled with joy. It was an explosion of life itself. A gigantic purification. For the first time in forty years, the Chinese people had stood up like human beings. They had recovered their self-respect', he enthused, then added: 'These people behaved in such an admirable way, not only in the demonstrations, but in the way they related to each other. Everything changed. It was as though a new people had been born overnight. It was something fantastically beautiful. It also showed what humanity could be'.

When the repression against the demonstrators came on 4 June, 'I wept for China', Fou Tsong said. 'It was the darkest period in the history of Communist China. What happened in the 1950s and 60s was not as clearcut as what happened in 1989. Before, there were always grey areas. One could quibble about them. But this time it was clear as day and night. It was really a case of a minority of gangsters being determined to cling to power despite the will of the great majority of the Chinese people. These gangsters still think that China belongs to them because they fought and made sacrifices during the revolutionary struggle. They behave very much like China's past emperors. They are just a geriatric gang who are determined to cling on to power until they die. The hell with China. That's their attitude.'

After this outburst of anger, Fou Tsong began to reflect on what he has thought and felt for a long time — about the nature of Communist rule in China itself. 'I'm now convinced that communism is a form of fascism, because it's more totalitarian and more hypocritical. The Chinese leaders always talk about the interest of the people. But it's just double talk, full of lies. It has been a great deception.'

Fou Tsong feels very strongly that government and companies who have been investing in and doing business with China should all boycott the country. 'They should continue to denounce, condemn and isolate the Chinese government, so that these gangsters cannot stay in power!' He even went as far as to suggest that the Chinese people should take up arms and overthrow the present regime if this is the only way to bring the regime down. 'I will take part in this armed struggle if it happens', he said emphatically. I told him this sounded like a bit of a bravado on his part, but he said that was how he felt. And considering the temper of the occasion I could perfectly understand him.

Later on I gently reminded Fou Tsong of what Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, had said in another context about victims and violence: 'When I was a boy I used to idealise the people who returned from political imprisonment. Then I discovered that most of the oppressors were former victims. The dialectics of the executioner and his victim are very complicated. To be a victim is often the best training for an executioner. The desire to punish injustice is not only a desire for justice, pure and simple, but also a subconscious desire for new evil'. Fou Tsong was impressed by this quote and nodded in agreement. Then we went on to talk about the lives of the present party leaders who are all veterans of the Long March and revolutionary struggle. And recalled in despair that most of them, including Deng Xiaoping, had themselves known imprisonment, party purges, and torture.