Merle Goldman, a leading expert on communist China, dies at 92

A lifelong academic, she stood out for her ability to communicate her ideas about the country to non-academic readers.

In November 1974, a small group of American university presidents spent three weeks traveling throughout China, visiting universities, towns, factories, and even the vice premier's office. Minister Deng Xiaoping, who was still four years away from taking over as head of the Communist Party. leader.

Although the United States had recently reestablished relations with China, it was an insular, even forbidden place, completely foreign to these Western visitors. Fortunately, the delegation had a famous sinologist as its guide: Merle Goldman.

Historian at Boston University, Dr. Goldman was still relatively early in her career, but it was already widely known. considered one of the world's leading analysts of Chinese politics. She was far from being the only eminent China scholar of her generation, but she was notable for her ability to communicate her ideas to non-academic audiences.

She writes opinion articles and a book. reviews for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post, and his reports on his trips to China were required reading for government and business leaders.

Just a few weeks after returning from this trip to China, she wrote for the Times an in-depth analysis of the country's defense strategy.

“Not only there appears to be a real reservoir of goodwill toward the United States,” she concluded, “but China wants American support in its hostility toward the Soviet Union. »

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