Beijing's so-called economic reforms, he believes, were a desperate attempt to sustain the power of the Communist Party. And most Chinese social achievements, so dazzling to some in the West, are mere surface glitter. Meanwhile, huge projects such as the Three Gorges Dam are being under-taken -- "massive and wasteful Stalinist schemes devised by party leaders for their own glory," he claims. Taiwan and Japan, by contrast, have undertaken developments that are more genuinely in tune with the interests of their populations.
This is a typical Dikotter approach: Things centralized and emanating from the state are frequently counterproductive, while those local, diverse and rooted in people's actual needs are usually much more beneficial.
Dikotter's presence at SOAS has attracted generous funding for historical research there via the UK's Research Assessment Exercise, an assessment by the government in which it is essential for departments to get high grades in order to attract further funding.
Frank Dikotter is both a strongly individual mind in his own right, and the representative in China studies of a new phase in the writing of history. With his enthusiasm for Taiwan, his skepticism regarding China, and his belief in the unpredictability of what the archives will reveal, he stands for an anti-dogmatic intellectual freedom that infuriates many but is manna from heaven to many more. Will he one day, then, write about Taiwan?
"I'm a purist," he replies with a smile, clearly aware of the political implications of his words. "My area is China, albeit China in the early 20th century. Seeing that this is the case, why should I write about Taiwan, since it is a different country altogether?"
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