Veteran China watcher tells me about his life in octobre 2009
Sidney Rittenberg is the only American citizen to join the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),
a membership he kept despite his 16 years in solitary confinement. Considered by many of his compatriots to be an ideologist, Rittenberg is actually extremely realistic, pragmatic and
stays constantly optimistic despite the hardship he had to endure at times.
Having just passed his 88th birthday in Washington State, US, Rittenberg was invited to Beijing to give live commentary for CCTV-9 on National Day, facing a wide screen showing the live broadcast of the parade in Tiananmen Square.
Sixty years before, on the same day, he was in prison after three years closely working with the founders of the PRC in Yan’an, the cave capital of the CCP from 1937-1949.
The gift of prophecy
“This is an example of the foresight and prophecy that I have always had,” says Rittenberg. In 1943, Rittenberg was assigned to study Japanese at Stanford to work in Japan, but thinking that China was an ally and not an enemy Rittenberg “thought it probably would take me many years after the war before I could get back from Japan, which I didn’t want to do. I was thinking that if I studied Chinese, they would send me back right after the war.”
“Unexpectedly, from the first day I studied Chinese, I fell in love with the language, the culture, and my Chinese teachers. I didn’t get back home until 35 years later,” he continues, laughing. “So here is my gift of prophecy. But I never regretted a minute of it.”
Philosophy changed my life
“Going to study philosophy changed my life forever. Even since then, I’ve studied philosophy right to this day, and if I hadn’t, my 16 years in prison would have been very hard,” says Rittenberg.
At university in North Carolina, he joined the US Communist Party. Rittenberg says he blames his mother. She told him that his beliefs were just a phase and he would grow out of it. Rittenberg set out to prove her wrong. After his Chinese language training, Rittenberg arrived in China in 1944 with the US army and became a UN relief worker in 1945. He learnt much about the conditions Chinese people had to live under, and in 1946 he went to Yan’an under invitation from the top communist leaders.
“In Yan’an, I found the best place in the world to learn philosophy. Everybody was studying philosophy, from leaders, to soldiers, to peasants,” recalls Rittenberg. “Along with my years in China, my philosophical thinking just got deeper and more practical. I use it to solve my everyday problems. ”
On a trumped up charge, on the eve of the PRC’s founding, Rittenberg was put into solitary confinement. This first incarceration lasted until 1955. “I thought they suspected me because I was not a good enough revolutionary. So I studied, to make myself a better revolutionary,” says Rittenberg, “and I used the strategic philosophy I learned from Mao to analyze my situation then.”
A clear purpose
Following his release, Rittenberg married Yu Lin, then a 23-year-old colleague in China Radio International. They had four children but in the 60s, Rittenberg, along with a number of other foreigners in China at the time, was again swept up in political turmoil during the Cultural Revolution. This time, he was not released until 1977.
“It was hard, not only for me. My children were spat at and bullied, and my wife was beaten and sent to do hard labor. All she had to do to get rid of it all is to say ‘I didn’t know that he was bad, I have nothing to do with his wrong doings.’ My wife didn’t say that, she kept on telling every questioner that I was a good man.” Rittenberg’s voice trembles for a few seconds, recalling the family’s hardship.
At the age of 45 and imprisoned again without any foreseeable hope of release, Rittenberg was confronted by the ultimate questions: “I questioned myself: what’s the most important things about life? It’s a decision everybody has to make,” says Rittenberg. Then what’s your decision, Mr. Rittenberg? He paused about five seconds, lost in thought, a rare break in his conversation.
“I think integrity is important: having a clear purpose, sticking to your purpose, and moving towards it. If you find it’s wrong, change it, but always have some purpose that you are moving towards. I found it’s really the way to happiness also. Men always have difficult conditions, but there is always something you can do, and you must always do something, never giving up. If you give up, you are finished. I call this human reason.”
As he utters the last word, a twinkle appears in his eyes, exactly the same as in pictures taken when he was a young man in Stanford, studying Chinese. Rittenberg turned around and exchanged a gentle look with Yu Lin, whom he has been married to for 53 years till 2009, time of this interview.
“She is my secret,” says Rittenberg, looking lovingly at her. “People wonder how come I don’t resent China for my years in solitary confinement. I don’t want to sound like a whiner but I do think 16 years was a bit too long!”
Don’t underestimate China
After his release, Rittenberg went back to the US with Yu Lin. Their first year was very difficult; they had to be supported by former friends. But a year later money started coming from Yu Lin’s Chinese language and cooking classes and Rittenberg’s consultancy and lecture work. “
I was invited by a lot of American companies to talk about China, and at the beginning I never thought about asking for money. I stayed in China too long, and forgot how a market economy works. I thought ‘how could I ask for money for just talking?’ After a few years of coaching companies about China, we started Rittenberg & Associates in 1989, and since then we become a part of the corporate world,” explains Rittenberg.
“From my mere 64 years staying in China, which is a blink of the eye compared to thousands of years of Chinese history, I learned one lesson, that I believe to be true. This is to never sell short Chinese people, never underestimate what they can do.”
Deeply embedded into Chinese culture, and personally acquainted with top decision makers for over 50 years, Rittenberg is believed to be one of the greatest observers and predictors about Chinese issues, and his daily posting in Chinapol, an email network, provides Western elites insights into China and her society.
Asked what he thinks are the biggest issues for the future, Rittenberg stares straight ahead and says.
“What we are facing now is a big battle that we cannot lose, big in the sense that if we fail, it may be the end for the whole human race possibly. These are, foremost, global warming and environmental pollution, and energy shortage and weapons of mass destruction control. It’s your generation’s task to save our planet and the human race” .
You can download from here this interview originally published by Global Times in 2009