H-PRC

I have a question for the collective archival brain of H-PRC. A couple of years ago, the retired diplomat Chas Freeman wrote that the famous Zhou Enlai quote "It's too early to say" was in response to a question not about the French Revolution but about the events of 1968. Which makes more sense to me.

Freeman argued that the quote was taken out of context... but does anybody have the context? Zhou supposedly said it during the Nixon visit (or maybe the Kissinger visit). Is there any Chinese report/transcript/evidence of that exchange? 

For those who will be in attendance at the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Philadelphia:

Program Officers from the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) will be available to advise prospective applicants for NEH grants at the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Philadelphia, March 27-30, 2014.

20-minute appointments are available on Saturday, March 29, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in Meeting Room 406 of the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, 1201 Market Street (i.e., the main conference hotel). A limited number of walk-in appointments may be available.

A colleague recently asked me where, if anywhere, one might find contemporary Chinese records of visits by foreigners (including tourists, professional delegations, journalists, “foreign friends,” etc.) to Mao’s China? What he had in mind, I believe, are such things as notes on questions that foreign visitors posed (as well as on what they were told in response, I guess) while visiting this or that People’s Commune, neighborhood committee, factory, or kindergarten.

The PRC History Group presents the second installment in the Document of the Month Series, curated by Michael Schoenhals.  View the entire series at prchistory.org

March 2014

What Is to Be Done? A Note from the Communist Underground (1961)

中国共产主义研究小组”的纲领性文件《我们的方针和任务》