In mid-1978, Deng Xiaoping launched a nationwide movement calling on people in China to 'emancipate their mind'. He did this to loosen the mental shackles imposed on the people for decades and to prepare them for a dramatic reversal in the Communist Party's direction from class struggle, which had been the focus of Mao Zedong, to economic development.
The change at the top was immediately reflected at lower levels. On my next trip to Beijing, I discovered that my previously strait-laced guide from the China International Travel Service looked quite different, having permed her hair. 'My mind has been emancipated a bit,' she said.
Instead of the Maoist injunction to 'put politics in command', Deng decided that every policy had to serve economic development. As a result, the country's gross domestic product quadrupled by 2000, and Deng's successors have announced plans for another quadrupling of GDP by 2020.
Deng's successors have recognised the need to continue this liberation. The then president, Jiang Zemin, while addressing the Central Party School in May 2002, called on the whole party to adhere to the ideological guidelines of 'emancipating the mind' as well as 'seeking truth from facts'.
Recent events, however, suggest that the party needs to work harder. Last month, at the closing of the annual session of the National People's Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao gave a press conference. An Associated Press correspondent asked about a letter written by a prominent physician, Jiang Yanyong - who exposed the Sars cover-up - calling on Beijing to declare the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations a patriotic movement and to admit that it had made a mistake in cracking down on the students.
Oddly the interpreter decided to edit the question, presumably to make it less offensive. She left out Dr Jiang's name, using instead the term 'certain persons'. She even left out 'Tiananmen Square'. In his response, Mr Wen did not mention Dr Jiang or his letter, so it is unclear if he understood the entire import of the question. It is unfortunate that the interpreter failed to simply translate the question.