China lifted state censorship of Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens 37 years ago on February 11, 1978. The move coincided with China’s turn away from the excesses of Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution” and toward loosened state control over citizens’ lives.

To Western eyes, China looks like a pretty repressive place. A one-party state that heavily censors the internet isn’t exactly a bastion of freedom. But a little history helps put things in context. During Chairman Mao’s reign as head of China’s Communist Party, he worried that the country was drifting toward capitalism. (To put his views in perspective, he saw the 1960s-era Soviet Union as having already gone fully capitalist.) His paranoid view led to disaster for average Chinese, when he implemented his so-called Cultural Revolution to root out supposedly subversive people and ideas from Chinese society in 1966.

For a decade, Chinese students, soldiers, laborers, and government workers turned on each other in the name of the revolution. People were thrown into prison for no reason, tortured, or had their property seized. When Mao died in 1976, the ruling Communist Party quickly acknowledged that his revolution had been a disaster. Beginning in 1978, they moved to install economic reforms that have made China the world’s second-largest economy (and still growing). China is still officially Communist, but what Mao feared most…infiltration by market-based ideas…has become official policy. After Mao, foreign investment was encouraged, and price controls were lifted. Much of Chinese industry is still state-owned, resulting in a strange hybrid economy. But the half-steps toward open markets have been a major economic boon for the country.

Of course, China is still known for being a closed society, culturally and politically…which brings us to this anniversary. Right at the beginning of China’s economic reforms came a lesser noted cultural one as well. Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Dickens are so commonly referred to in Western thought that we barely realize it. (I found a piece listing all the common phrases we use that come from Shakespeare, but it’s too long to even meaningfully excerpt here. Moral of the story: Dude said a lot of stuff we still say.)

China’s decision to allow these formerly banned authors into the minds and homes of its people was a remarkable step away from censorship. (The works haven’t gone ignored. This actor is performing “The Revenge of Prince Zi Dan,” a Chinese adaptation of “Hamlet.) For now, China has managed to have it both ways…allowing limited economic freedom to boost the standard of living, while maintaining tight control on many personal freedoms. But the free translation of Western authors might look to future generations like a crack in the dike. (A free internet would be more like a burst dam.) Whether China can maintain a “middle way” between Mao’s total crackdown and an open Western-style society remains to be seen long-term. Bringing Shakespeare to Beijing might be seen as a turning point one day; but if not, it’s still worth celebrating in its own right. They deserve to enjoy “Hamlet” as much as anyone else.

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