Richard Baum
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Richard Dennis Baum (; July 8, 1940 – December 14, 2012) was an American
China watcher China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the e ...
, 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 (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
, 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 The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
with inspiring his interest in linguistics.


Fang Lizhi incident

On February 20, 1989, Baum and fellow scholars Harry Harding, Larry Krause, and
Michel Oksenberg Michel Charles Oksenberg (October 12, 1938 – February 22, 2001) was an American political scientist and China watcher who moved between academia and policy work. As a senior member of the National Security Council, he was closely involved i ...
met with
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
, 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 universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
, 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 and other high-profile individuals from China who are known for their criticism of the Chinese government or its policies. Deta ...
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 Fang Lizhi (; February 12, 1936 – April 6, 2012) was a Chinese astrophysicist, vice-president of the University of Science and Technology of China, and activist whose liberal ideas inspired the pro-democracy student movement of 1986–87 and ...
as an example of a dissident that should not be singled out as
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...
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, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
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'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' 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 Eugene Perry Link, Jr. (; born 6 August, 1944 Gaffney, South Carolina) is Chancellorial Chair Professor for Innovative Teaching Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages in College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of ...
, 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 Michel Charles Oksenberg (October 12, 1938 – February 22, 2001) was an American political scientist and China watcher who moved between academia and policy work. As a senior member of the National Security Council, he was closely involved i ...
*
Sidney Rittenberg Sidney Rittenberg ( Chinese: 李敦白; pinyin: ''Lǐ Dūnbái''; 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, Zh ...
*
Deng Pufang Deng Pufang () (born 16 April 1944) is a Chinese politician, who is the eldest son of former Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.Pearson, Veronica. Royal College of Psychiatrists. 995(1995). RCPsych Publications. . p. 88 He is mostly known fo ...


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