Watching China Change

Gary Watson is a former lecturer in Chinese studies at Queen’s University and is now a multimedia developer in Mississauga.

Visitors’ tales from China became a literary growth industry in the
1970s when, after years of travel restrictions, the Chinese government
gradually opened the country to tourism. Strict visa screening initially
limited access to various foreign “friendship” groups whose members
would report positively on what little the chaperoned tours allowed them
to see. Though there were exceptions, many of these travelogues naively
repeated the same roseate view of Chinese socialism that the government
vigorously propagandized until Mao’s death in 1976.

Watching China Change is a rarity: a China travelogue with historical
context. Unlike other authors, Cosbey is very much aware that the China
he first saw in 1976 was a scrim that masked abiding problems. Although
the post-Mao period ushered in a “second” revolution of sweeping
economic reform that did raise living standards for many, Cosbey remains
skeptical of the likelihood of political reform that would challenge the
privilege of the reformist elite. Gains in material well-being, in his
view, were insufficient to offset the demands for “democracy” that
were violently rejected in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Since then,
Cosbey observes, the tension between a waning socialist idealism and
material self-interest has remained a key dilemma to China’s leaders.
Indeed, the rise of the “market” in most spheres of Chinese life has
come at the expense of the “state” whose influence, once pervasive,
is now retreating throughout society.

Watching China Change is brimming with undogmatic insights and
thoughtful observations. Cosbey’s highly personal and affecting
account stands as a valuable guide to the sweep of change that has
engulfed China since 1949.