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Zhou Enlai: A Political Life, by Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2006. 397 pp. US$52. ISBN 962-996-244-6
In his memoirs, Theodore White recalls when, as a young correspondent in wartime Chongqing, he was served a whole pig at a dinner hosted by Zhou Enlai. As an orthodox Jew, he was forbidden to eat pork and explained this to his hosts. Zhou, the story goes, didn't miss a beat. He simply informed White that although it looked like a pig, the animal he was being served was, in fact, a duck. White partook of the meal, noting that Zhou "was that kind of a man - he could make one believe that a pig was a duck, because one wanted to believe him...."
Zhou's ability to obfuscate the true identity of White's dinner might be considered a metaphor for the challenge that Zhou's biographers have faced in assessing this major figure in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. Gao Wenqian, who was a researcher in the Central Documents Office of the Communist Party before emigrating to the United States, presents the problem of identifying the real Zhou Enlai in the introduction to his book (published outside mainland China) Wannian Zhou Enlai (The Later Years of Zhou Enlai):
Ultimately, what kind of man was Zhou Enlai? In the end, what kind of role did he play in the Cultural Revolution? In other words, was he a saintly, perfect man, or a wicked, seemingly loyal, but fake Confucian gentleman (junzi)! In disastrous times was he a man of merit (gongchen) who held things together, or was he an accomplice who helped the tyrant engage in evil? Did he play a dual role, a grand master at walking the tightrope of politics, or was he a double-faced person with a split personality? (p. 10)
The official Chinese responses to these questions have been shaped by Deng Xiaoping's 1980 assessment of Zhou in his interview with the Italian journalist, Oriana Fallaci. Deng noted that during the Cultural Revolution, Zhou was "in an extremely difficult position"
... and he said and did many things that he would have wished not to. But the people forgave him because, had he not done and said those...