ABSTRACT
The intellectual climate in China is neither as healthy as the Chinese press would have it, nor as riddled with insoluble contradictions, as reported by Western journalists. In spite of official condemnations of the "outworn prejudices" which reflect the "mentality of small producers," animosity toward intellectuals persists. Official rehabilitation of intellectuals has been accompanied by a re-legitimization of Confucian studies in China. As part of the official campaign to rehabilitate intellectuals, the government has launched another "Hundred Flowers" Movement. Official reforms in the policy toward intellectuals are meant to create optimistic followers of the latest Party goals. The Liberation generation, in collaboration with the Anti-Japanese War generation, is the backbone of China's academic rehabilitation. They are expected to make up lost time during the Cultural Revolution as well as to shoulder the major burden for the graduate students now entering the universities and the institutes. The intellectuals themselves feel a strong responsibility for the fate of China.
