Quotation

The Man Who Loved China

The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
In 1942 — when he jotted down “Sci. in China — why not develop? ” — the West was prejudiced against China for all the old, well-known reasons. China was thought to be backward, cruel, rigid, a place cut off from what Hegel had termed the world spirit. The prejudice was really quite simple, based essentially on racial dislike, fear, and cultural arrogance. Political ideology played little or no part in the antipathy: the Chinese were disdained because they were Chinese. === There was thus a second reason for loathing China. Old-fashioned prejudice had now been joined by vehement anticommunism, a strident antipathy to Mao, to Zhou Enlai, and to their revolutionary cadres. Anyone supporting Red China was now seen as innately hostile to America. Supporting China had long seemed merely eccentric and wrongheaded. Supporting Communist China was, on the other hand, downright treachery.