Richard Baum
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Richard Dennis Baum (; July 8, 1940 – December 14, 2012) was an American
China watcher A China watcher, or, less frequently, Pekingologist, is a person who reports on the politics of the People's Republic of China for western consumption, especially in a Cold War context. "China watching" was coined by analogy to birdwatching, which ...
, professor emeritus of
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, and former director emeritus of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, noted for his many academic works on Chinese politics. Baum credited Rhoda Sutherland of
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
with inspiring his interest in linguistics.


Fang Lizhi incident

On February 20, 1989, Baum and fellow scholars Harry Harding, Larry Krause, and Michel Oksenberg met with George H. W. Bush, then incoming ambassador to China James Lilley, and others to brief the president on U.S.-China relations. As discussion turned to
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, Baum advised that it would not be wise to single out specific
Chinese dissidents This list consists of activists who are known as Chinese dissidents. The label is primarily applied to intellectuals who "push the boundaries" of society or criticize the policies of the government. Examples of the former include Wei Hui and Ji ...
to bring the issue to the fore and that it would be better to talk about human rights in the most general terms possible. He specifically used Fang Lizhi as an example of a dissident that should not be singled out as
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...
harbored strong personal feelings against him and specifically mentioning him would likely be seen as an affront to Deng. Baum was then informed by Lilley during their break from the briefing that Fang had already been invited to a banquet in
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
the following Sunday February 26, which was not public information at the time. Baum believed this was a great diplomatic misstep and nothing positive could result from it. He talked with his friend and ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' correspondent James Mann about this, unintentionally leaking the information, and the next morning the information appeared on the front page of the ''Los Angeles Times'' with the headline ''Bush, on China Trip, to See Dissidents, Sources Say''. On the evening of the banquet, Fang's name card was placed somewhere as inconspicuous as possible, however Fang never made it to the banquet. The leaked information made its way to China, and Fang, Perry Link, and their wives while driving to the banquet were forced off the road by Chinese security police. They then walked to the hotel where the banquet was being held but were not permitted to enter. The incident led to increased tensions in U.S.-China relations and greater antipathy toward Fang Lizhi, who Beijing would later name the country's most wanted counterrevolutionary criminal leading to Fang's year-long sanctuary at the U.S. embassy.


Publications

*''Ssu-Ch'ing: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–66'' (co-written with Frederick C. Teiwes; U.C. Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1968) *''China in Ferment: Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution'' (Prentice-Hall, 1972) *''Prelude to Revolution: Mao, the Party, and the Peasant Question, 1962–1966'' (Columbia University Press, 1975) *''China's Four Modernizations: The New Technological Revolution'' (Westview Press, 1980) *''Reform and Reaction in Post-Mao China: The Road to Tiananmen'' (Routledge, 1991) *''Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping'' (Princeton University Press, 1996) *''China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom'' (University of Washington Press, 2010)
partial digitization
*''The Fall and Rise of China'' (A series of 48 lectures on DVD, The Teaching Company, 2010)


See also

* Michel Oksenberg *
Sidney Rittenberg Sidney Rittenberg (; August 14, 1921 – August 24, 2019) was an American journalist, scholar, and Chinese linguist who lived in China from 1944 to 1980. He worked closely with Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders of the Chinese ...
*
Deng Pufang Deng Pufang () (born 16 April 1944) is the eldest son of former Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping.Pearson, Veronica. Royal College of Psychiatrists. 995(1995). RCPsych Publications. . pg 88 He is mostly known for being injured by the Red Guar ...


References


External links


Faculty page at UCLA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baum, Richard American sinologists 1940 births University of California, Los Angeles faculty Place of birth missing 2012 deaths University of California, Berkeley alumni