ABSTRACT
Both Ma Hsu-lun and Wu Yu-chang in their reports had indicated approval of the system in terms that left it unclear as to whether they were speaking only for themselves or were reflecting the views of Mao Tse-tung. The Committee for Research on Chinese Writing Reform, which had among its responsibilities that of reviewing various proposed schemes of phonetic writing and developing a new one, elaborated a preliminary draft of a new Chinese phonetic alphabet and submitted it to Mao Tse-tung for his consideration in 1953. Such a restricted use of Pinyin may have been influenced by Mao Tse-tung's directive reported by Wu Yu-chang to give priority to simplification of characters. If the selective and incomplete quoting of Mao Tse-tung's views makes it difficult to reconstruct the evolution of his thinking, his influence on writing reform is even more difficult to gauge.
