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Intellectuals of the
Austrian School
– In China –
by Ken Schoolland
ISIL rep Dean Peng (l) and ISIL Director Ken Schoolland pose in Beijing.
ISIL Director Ken Schoolland plays the part of a modern Marco Polo in his
recent visit to Beijing where he meets with Dean Peng, the man who just became ISIL's first rep in
China.
Ken is the author of The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible
– a free-market fable that has been translated into 32 languages and which has won two gold
medals at the Freedoms Foundation in Valley Forge, and the Foundation for Economic Education's first
Leonard E. Read Award for excellence in public education. It has also been endorsed by Milton Friedman.
DEAN PENG
In April 2003, Dean Peng took a break from translating numerous works
of renowned Austrian economists Friedrich A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, Eugen Bohm-Bawerk, Peter J. Boettke, and
Mark Skousen.
That was the moment he ran across an article by Toshio Murata, Japanese
translator of von Mises' Human Action. Professor Murata had written about a project in Japan
that has been popularizing free-market ideas through the serialization of a new book in the Keizai
Seminar Magazine.
Curious, Dean wrote to me saying, "I want to make a simplified Chinese
version of your wonderful book The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible for mainland China readers.
I know there is one for Hong Kong, but it is difficult for mainland readers to understand because of
the difference between language habits ... I look forward to hearing from you."
In 1997, during the turnover of Hong Kong to the Peoples Republic of
China (PRC), Jonathan Gullible (JG) had been serialized in The Hong Kong Economic Journal, but
this was a chance to reach the greater China market. I was especially thrilled to run across someone
who was so well-versed in the ideas of the Austrian School.
JEROME MA
 Jerome Ma (l) and Ken Schoolland in Shanghai.
A few months later, Jerome Ma learned about JG through the Foundation
for Economic Education (FEE) and sent a letter to Small Business Hawaii asking for permission to
publish the book in China. Jerome worked for an esteemed government publishing house, the Century
Publishing Group of Shanghai and Horizon Media Co. Ltd. While it seems odd to have the government
publish a book about free markets, there are no options as yet in the PRC. So I put him in contact
with Dean, and the two were able to manage an agreement for translation and publication.
Dean and Jerome had both been introduced to the ideas of liberty through free-market clubs at their
universities. Dean was a physics major at Beijing University and learned of Karl Popper and the Austrian
School of economics through his interest in the philosophy of science. Jerome was a mathematics major at a
university in Shanghai when he discovered the Austrian School.
Soon after, Jerome became an ardent publisher of free-market works. He
wrote, "I am delighted to tell you that Professor Rothbard's America's Great Depression,
translated by Xie Huayu and edited by myself, was published last year. In my plan, I want to publish
The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises, Austrian Economics and the Political
Economy of Freedom by Richard Ebeling and The Economics of Liberty by Lew Rockwell, Jr."
Jerome's current endeavor is to learn German so that he can read the Austrian publications from the
original text. Jerome has also added another book to his list of projects, my book Shogun's Ghost: the Dark
Side of Japanese Education.
SHANGHAI
My wife and I were sad to miss so many good friends at the ISIL
conference in New Zealand this past summer, but it was time for us to take our daughter, Kenli, for her
first visit to see relatives in Japan, Hong Kong, and China. For me it was an ideal opportunity to meet
with both Dean and Jerome.
First in Shanghai, we spent a day with Jerome and a couple of his
close associates, James Wang (a television sports reporter) and Hoy Xie. Jerome is a deeply thoughtful
scholar who is sometimes depressed by the bureaucratic jungle that is all around him. Yet he is devoted
to his studies of philosophy and economics, and is keenly aware that China is poised for great change.
While the whole of our visit was enjoyable, one moment stands out. As
I was admiring the stunning architecture of Shanghai's spectacular new skyline, Jerome reminded me,
rather gloomily, that these were all government projects. It brought me back to my libertarian senses –
thinking of parallels with the Roman forum. Government projects always mask the massive taxation on the
general populace, opportunities lost to free people, and the inevitable waste and corruption that
rewards rulers. All the more incentive to be a part of an economy that is rapidly being liberalized.
BEIJING
We then traveled to Beijing and were greeted by Dean at a corner restaurant
for breakfast. All the variations of black liver and tripe stew still give my wife, Zhao Li, delicious
memories for her dream feasts. Dean introduced us to a couple of his close friends and supporters –
all part of his internet network of free-market discussants. The vigor, stimulation, and intellectual
challenge over the internet, with brilliant characters like Dean, are unrivalled anywhere in the world.
Not only is Dean an independent economic consultant and prolific
writer, but he is a courageous activist. He described a current challenge to local officials. "There
was a 22-year-old student of psychology from Beijing Normal University named Liu Di who wrote some
satirical papers on the Internet with the net name Stainless Rat. She was detained by the police last
November – one day before the 16th Party Congress and was arrested one month later. It has been 8
months since she was detained while Chinese law allows police a maximum of 7 months before bringing the
case to court. I am working on a campaign against the police. That cost me some time. And there is a
possibility that I shall be detained as well – although I don't think it is likely to happen."
As it turned out, Dean was illegally placed under house arrest, with
guards posted at his door, to prevent him from attending a press conference. Fortunately he knows the
law better than the police, much to their embarrassment. Dean retaliated by inviting foreign journalists,
foreign diplomats, and many of his local supporters to a press conference on his doorstep. Says Dean,
"Principles of liberalism must be carried out in real life, otherwise we are hypocritical. I engaged in
a hunger strike to create as much trouble as possible. We are airborne..."
Dean is surely one of the greatest spirits of the new China and I feel
fortunate to have met him. He invited us to his home to meet his wife, a television producer, and his
son – the light of his life! Surely the nicest people one could ever meet. Dean has become the
China Representative for ISIL and plans on hosting a future ISIL world conference in China.
KATE ZHOU
 Kate Zhou in Beijing.
Dean was also kind enough to give us a tour of the Imperial Summer
Palace and to translate a talk that I gave for Kate Zhou at the International Culture Exchange Summer
Camp, hosted by the Education Advancement Fund International (EAFI) and Beijing Union University.
Kate is another remarkable scholar and high-energy activist from the
University of Hawaii who had a harrowing escape from China years ago and is now determined to return in
order to set up a number of private freedom schools throughout China. She has expressed an interest in
buying as many as nine thousand copies of the Chinese edition of JG for more than a hundred other
schools. For this effort, funding assistance (tax-deductible) would be greatly appreciated.
EAFI facilitates international education exchange, cultural
understanding, global education reform, and gender equity in education by assisting poor, minority, and
learning-disabled students to overcome financial barriers to appropriate education. The Fund provides
scholarships and tuition assistance to poor, rural Chinese children.
Kate has also set up a network for free- market thinkers in China.
She is organizing the first Chinese free-market thinkers' conference next August in Shanghai. For more
information about her extraordinary projects, please contact her in Honolulu
or see her website
CONTACTS WELCOME
Ideas are shaping China as much as anywhere in the world. If you would
like to be a part of the transformation in China please lend your support. Donations through ISIL are
deductible in the USA.
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