A China Passage By John Kenneth Galbraith Houghton, 123 pp., $5.95 There is only one thing John Kenneth Galbraith found in China that truly disturbed him. Goddammit, the Chinese smoke too many cigarettes, which are bad for the health. Beyond this nagging reservation, one has the feeling, after reading this easygoing little book, that Mr. Galbraith is reporting on the economic organization of an ant colony, and itisofno particular concern to him that very recently the big ants ate up or subdued tens of millions of little ants (“I am not especially well read on Chinese history” Mr. Galbraith says in the preface, and proceeds to write as if he had not heard about the Cultural Revolution). Oh well, ants will be ants.
The traces of skepticism Galbraith shows are temperamental, not iconoclastic. They are hardly intended to induce an organic or principled rejection in the reader of modern Chinese society, the most advanced totalitarian society in the world. “The retirement age is not completely clear: It is described at fifty for women and sixty for men at 70 per cent of the last pay. But apparently healthy workers can and are encouraged to continue in the labor force. This, obviously, could mean many things.” Or: “I doubt that Hsu Hong is a wholly typical commune. There is a tendency in such matters to mislead.” Galbraith would insinuate as much about the Democratic Platform of George McGovern, for whose election he worked so enthusiastically. A meiotic cynicism is a part of his literary and analytical style, and he takes it with him everywhere he goes. It is not here used subtly to impale Chinese society upon reality.
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