Doug
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Is a Maoist Pen Mightier Than A Reformist Sword? --- Editor Takes Capitalist Road And Sues Book's Authors Over Copyright Violation By Matt Forney
01/11/99 The Wall Street Journal (Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
BEIJING -- Back in the 1960s, when China's hard-line Marxists felt their grip ebbing, they launched the Cultural Revolution that plunged their country into chaos -- and regained power.
Times have changed. Now they hire lawyers.
The issue, as it always has been for the Marxists, is property. The intellectual property, to be exact, of Duan Ruofei , a man who champions public over private ownership.
In 1996, Mr. Duan, a scholar on Marxist theory and editor of Contemporary Thought, China's leading ultraleft publication, wrote an article dubbed "The 10,000 Character Essay," a reference to the number of Chinese ideographs used to compose it. It argued economic reforms were "turning China into a suzerainty of international capitalism."
Though Mr. Duan's essay was unpublished, and only China's political elite got to see it, it created a stir. Word of its existence began circulating shortly before an important Communist Party meeting that would set the course of economic reforms. People began to wonder if a leftist backlash was coming.
Then last March, a book supportive of political reform asked on its back cover, "Do you want to know about the `10,000 Character Essay' that has shocked Beijing?" The book, "Crossed Swords," written by two editors at the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, People's Daily, included long excerpts from "10,000 Characters" and argued the essay was the drivel of an ideological has-been. "It was a vicious attack on the leftists," confirms co-author Ma Licheng. In addition, he says, publishing the article for the first time in China "was a decent scoop."
But Mr. Duan sued the authors, contending they had violated copyright law. They had published his material without permission, he says, while he still was revising it. A judge heard the case in November, and both sides are awaiting a decision. Meantime, amid a crackdown on dissent, the government has banned further publication of "Crossed Swords" and has threatened to close the publishing house that released it.
But Mr. Duan also is demanding an apology, that the book cease publication, and about $24,000 in compensation. Few observers miss the irony. "He's a leftist," says Mr. Ma, the co-author. "His theories never supported copyrights." Mr. Duan, who wears a coat, tie and pork-pie hat even when receiving visitors in his immaculate two-room apartment, says he has been misrepresented. "Marx talks about public ownership of the means of production," he says. "That doesn't mean everything belongs to everyone."