Chapter 32 postscript

First of all, I must thank Teacher Wu Jinglian for giving me this opportunity to complete the recording and arrangement of his oral history. In this book, I try to accomplish multiple "tasks".I want to describe the mental journey of a patriot and a public intellectual. At the same time, I also want to record the economic theory and line debates that have occurred in China in the past 60 years. As I described in the book, there seems to be a mysterious inheritance flowing through Wu Jinglian.His uncle was one of the initiators of the "Road Protection Movement" in the late Qing Dynasty, which directly triggered the Wuchang Uprising that overthrew the Qing Empire; his mother was the well-known Deng Jixing, the hostess of "Xinmin Daily" The first "female hero".Wu Jinglian was a radical "left-wing" youth when he was a teenager. In the early 1950s, Wu Jinglian, who graduated from university, entered the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where a group of equally young and passionate young scholars gathered.However, what makes people sigh is that in the following 20 years, their youth and the country fell into a whirlpool of chaos.Wu Jinglian had a legendary relationship with the two most important economic thinkers at the time—Gu Zhun and Sun Yefang. Before their death, they both handed over the work of sorting out their posthumous works to this handsome and thoughtful younger generation.

From the age of 47, Wu Jinglian really entered the period of academic explosion.With the overthrow of the "Gang of Four", China has entered a new era of reform and opening up. In the following 30 years, Wu Jinglian has become the most well-known and most famous in China with his independent thinking, outspoken intellectual temperament and pragmatic and profound economic thought. Respected economist. In the history of contemporary Chinese economic reform, Wu Jinglian’s importance lies in that he participated in almost all the controversies of economic theory after the founding of the People’s Republic of China—I made a rough count, from 1964 to 2009, he participated in 12 important debates.Since the mid-1980s, he has been the protagonist of many controversies, some of which were even initiated and led by him.The themes of these debates cover many reform dilemmas, show the thinking and efforts of several generations of politicians and economists for the progress of the country, and also present the twists and turns of China's modernization road.Some of his theoretical thinking and policy suggestions have greatly affected the path of China's reform, and the pros and cons of his gains and losses are left for later generations to study carefully.In his long oral narration, Wu Jinglian reviewed the details of these debates and his own reflections meticulously and candidly, leaving valuable materials for sorting out the history of reform.

My research on Wu Jinglian is not just to satisfy my curiosity about a person. My wish is to find some enlightenment that can take us further.In Wu Jinglian, I not only saw a full and vivid life, but also witnessed the long trajectory of several generations of Chinese people looking for economic freedom, revisited all the joy, distress and hesitation of the reformers, and touched the "inherent nature of Chinese reform". The characteristics of "—its national character, inertia and possibilities of change. I seem to be a diver, trying my best to dive into the deep water area of ​​my thoughts again and again. I can feel the thinness of the air, the gradual increase of black pressure, and the "reef of theory" hidden in the tranquility around me.Many times I had to give up, return to the surface, rest for a while and then dive as hard as I could.The writing time of this book exceeded my expectation and was delayed by a whole month, so that I had to explain it to Wu Jinglian on a forum.Today, when the manuscript is finally completed, I am still not satisfied with myself. There must still be room to dive into this deep water area of ​​thought, where it is thicker, darker and even more dangerous. However, because of my lack of skill and courage, I cannot arrive.

"Looking back at the place where the eagles were shot, the clouds are flat for thousands of miles." The people and events described in this book already have a "classical" charm when I read them today, such as Deng Jixing's independence, Gu Zhun's integrity, Sun Yefang's magnanimity, Jiang Yiwei's "tuogu", and even the "Wu Li Controversy". ", the love between Wu Jinglian and Zhou Nan, and so on.Over the past few decades, thousands of youths have been burned into unsightly pieces of scorched earth, and those bumpy ideals have been scattered into folk songs between white mountains and black waters. However, the enthusiasm for the country has always been cared for by everyone.During the oral history, a photographer came to take photos for Mr. Wu, and a group of people walked on the quiet and elegant lawn of Central Europe. I was very moved by the wonder of the times.A generation may really have the mission of a generation. Its blood inheritance has subtle twists and turns, but it never changes its stubborn nature. The future of China does not lie in how many machines, how much gold, and how many tall buildings there are, but what kind of people we have in each generation. For more than 100 years, the blood vessel of independent thinking and national rejuvenation is still running enthusiastically. This is probably the greatest hope.

The completion of this book is thanks to Dr. Zhou Xuelin, Tian Shan and Li Ji from CEIBS, Zhang Qian and Zeng Jie from China Business News, and my assistants Lu Bin, Cui Cui and Zhu Lin.Thanks to Bazaar Homme for the photo of the book cover.Thanks to my responsible editors Jiang Lei and Shen Jiale.In the book, I refer to part of the contents of "Wu Jinglian" and "My Father Wu Jinglian", and I am grateful to Liu Hong and Wu Xiaolian. Thanks to my wife Shao Bingbing and my daughter Wu Shuran, who once again accompanied me through the boring "writing production period".

Finally, what I have to record is a shot outside the camera. In that oral history interview, the most moving scenes actually appeared outside the camera.In each conversation lasting more than three hours, Zhou Nan, who is also nearly 80 years old—she is only 9 months younger than Wu Jinglian—sat silently two meters away. At this time, he will involuntarily turn his head to her. In 1952, Wu Jinglian, who was studying at Jinling University in Nanjing, was hospitalized due to illness. In the nursing home, he met a petite and delicate female patient named Zhou Nan.For nearly 30 years, Wu Jinglian has been busy with state affairs, either doing research in Beijing and giving lectures to doctoral students, or doing research, giving lectures and giving speeches in various places. Zhou Nan has been behind him, silently taking care of all the chores for him.

Thinking back to a certain day more than 50 years ago, two handsome young men came together. I don't know if they had any commitment to each other.For more than half a century, they have never been separated. "Hold your son's hand and grow old together with your son", just like a Chinese fairy tale that has gone through wind and rain but has never been broken.