TOTALITARIANISM AND IDEOLOGY #2: Perry Link on ”China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier”

To lead into the third season of Enduring Interest, we're re-releasing our first two seasons, covering totalitarianism and ideology and liberal education.  We'll be back on September 8 with a new season covering free speech and censorship.

In this episode I speak with renowned China scholar Perry Link, the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California, Riverside, about his now classic 2002 essay “China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier.”

We discuss the origins of the essay and its initial reception, as well as Professor Link’s blacklisting and why this was actually a kind of liberation. We dig into the system of psychological control and censorship that the Chinese Communist Party relies on and contrast that with the more mechanical, ideological training that has been used in other totalitarian regimes. Link explains how the vagueness of the ideological rules and arbitrary application of those rules are essential aspects of this system of control. We talk in depth about his anaconda metaphor and what it communicates about the character of the repression.

Professor Link and I also discuss the repression of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan. Link explains what the leaders of the Party might be thinking in order to justify their actions. We end with a discussion of the great dissident Liu Xiaobo—Link has recently completed a biography with Wu Dazhi tentatively titled Long March Toward Freedom: The Life, Times, and Thought of Liu Xiaobo.