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Satellite as method: China’s Great Leap Forward revisited
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2025
Abstract
This article employs the satellite as a methodological lens to reconceptualize China’s Great Leap Forward, investigating this movement as an aesthetic crusade rather than a mere cause of political and economic pandemonium. Emerging as the movement’s most prevalent entity, the satellite underwent protean transformations—from an epitome of the Cold War to an emblem of socialist utopia, from its initial embodiment in popular science books to its embedment in mythologies, and from a contagious trope in bureaucratese to the most indispensable constituent in the creation of arts for the masses. Nevertheless, due to its belated materialization, the satellite emerged not as other socialist objects whose materiality was taken as a given, but as an object-yet-to-be-made, one that best articulates the paradoxes of Maoist material abundance, likewise suspended between fantasy and fulfilment. In this light, I argue that the satellite becomes a ‘thing’, one that exceeds its physicality, exploits the agency of words, and gained regulative potency. Drawing on newspapers, memoirs, operas, poems, folksongs, and visuals, I delineate the satellite’s encounters with politicians, cadres, writers, peasants, and workers, mapping its sanctification into a fetishized object that encapsulates Maoist China’s struggles, with its ideological contests, political visions, historical legacies, and class conflicts.
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References
1 See, for example, Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts (New York: Henry Holt, 1998); Alfred L. Chan, Mao’s Crusade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Frederick C. Teiwes and Warren Sun (eds), China’s Road to Disaster (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).
2 Manning and Wemheuer take the lead in re-evaluating the GLF from literary, gender, and other perspectives. See Kimberley E. Manning and Felix Wemheuer (eds), Eating Bitterness (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011). Thereafter, Qian deems documentary cinema a visual reification of GLF temporal aesthetics governed by the confluence of revolutionary romanticism and Taylorism. See Qian Ying, ‘When Taylorism Met Revolutionary Romanticism: Documentary Cinema in China’s Great Leap Forward’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 46, no. 3, 2020, pp. 578–604. McConaghy conducts a fissured reading of the New Folksong Movement that was timed to coincide with the GLF. See Mark McConaghy, ‘Where You Labor is Where You Sing’, Modern China, vol. 47, no. 5, 2021, pp. 475–509. Furthermore, Pang shows us how visual artists struggled to concretize and sanctify harsh manual labour. See Pang Laikwan, ‘Making Sense of Labor: Works of Art and Arts of Work in China’s Great Leap Forward’, in Sensing China, (eds) Wu Shengqing and Huang Xuelei (London and New York: Routledge, 2023), pp. 151–173. And Wang investigates the GLF of ‘religious work’ in Wenzhou in 1958. See Wang Xiaoxuan, ‘Solving the “Religious Problem”: The Great Leap Forward of “Religious Work” and Protestant Communities in Pingyang, Wenzhou in 1958’, Twentieth-Century China, vol. 49, no. 1, 2024, pp. 66–85.
3 Mao Zedong, ‘Maozhuxi zai Mosike jichang shangde jianghua 毛主席在莫斯科機場上的講話’ [A Speech by Chairman Mao at Moscow Airport], Renmin ribao 人民日報, 3 November 1957, p. 1. In this article, all translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
4 Chan, Mao’s Crusade, p. 31.
5 Scientific accounts of satellites formed part of the broader dissemination of geographical and astronomical knowledge from the late Qing onwards. For instance, as early as 1908, Yang Zhaolin 杨兆麟 compiled the Textbook of Intermediate Geography, based on a Japanese textbook. This work offered a systematic explanation of elementary astronomical knowledge, so that ‘readers may come to understand the natural phenomena of heaven and earth and thereby dispel superstitions’. In this textbook, satellites were defined as ‘stars that revolve around planets’. Yang went on to list the satellites of each planet in the solar system and provided a detailed description of the moon. See Yang Zhaolin (ed.), Zhongdeng diwenxue jiaokeshu 中等地文學教科書 [Textbook of Intermediate Geography] (Shanghai: Huiwen xueshe, 1908), pp. 1, 7, 8. In the early years of socialist China, a similar definition of satellites appeared in popular science books. For instance, Zhu Jing’s 朱憬 Dictionary of Natural Science Terms defines a satellite as ‘a celestial body that revolves around a planet […] its orbital motion is maintained by the gravitational pull of the planet it orbits’. See Zhu Jing (ed.), Ziran keci shu 自然科詞書 [Dictionary of Natural Science Terms] (Shanghai: Wengong shudian, 1954), p. 657. Likewise, in Nautical Science, Yang Zaigeng 楊載庚 examined the observability of satellites and their significance for navigation. See Yang Zaigeng (ed.), Hanghai shu 航海術 [Nautical Science] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1953), pp. 127–128. Therefore, prior to the GLF, the term ‘satellite’ generally referred to natural celestial bodies orbiting planets. Knowledge about satellites was primarily disseminated through educational materials, and also had practical applications in fields such as navigation.
6 To take the satellite as method is to extend the conceptual lineage of ‘X as method’ in the field of Asian studies, a tradition that can be traced back to the Japanese sinologist Takeuchi Yoshimi’s ‘Asia as method’. In recent years, more entities have been taken as methods to reflect on issues both within and beyond Asia, and this article is no exception. See Yoshimi Takeuchi, ‘Asia as Method’, in What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, (ed. and trans.) Richard F. Calichman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005 [1960]), pp. 149–165; and Carlos Rojas, ‘Method as Method’ Special Issue, Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature, vol. 16, no. 2, 2019.
7 See Laurence Coderre, Newborn Socialist Things: Materiality in Maoist China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021); Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Y. Ho (eds), Material Contradictions in Mao’s China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022); Oxford China Centre, ‘The Mao Era in Objects’, published online in 2019, available at https://www.chinacentre.ox.ac.uk/the-mao-era-in-objects, [accessed 20 October 2025].
8 Jean Baudrillard offers a sophisticated theorization of simulacra by famously stating that ‘The simulacrum is never what hides the truth—it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.’ Situating simulacra within a longue durée of representational regimes, Baudrillard traces how the copy’s relation to the original deteriorates across historical phases, culminating in the ‘precession of simulacra’—a condition of hyperreality in which the distinction between representation and the real collapses altogether. My use of simulacra is inspired by Baudrillard, particularly in thinking about how the signifier weixing circulated during the Cold War and regulated the GLF, epitomizing either the Soviet/American satellites or the Chinese fabrications. Yet, in a move that diverges from Baudrillard, I am not concerned with the simulacrum as a symptom of late-capitalist hyperreality, rather with its function as a socialist fantasy-object, one that concealed the absence of the real and was actively mobilized to fabricate a reality that had yet to materialize. Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, (trans.) Sheila Faria Glaser (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1995), p. 1.
9 Boris Arvatov, ‘Everyday Life and the Culture of the Thing’, October, vol. 81, 1997, p. 122.
10 The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Guanyu jianguo yilai dang de ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi 關於建國以來黨的若干歷史問題的決議’ [Resolution on Certain Historical Issues Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China], published online on 23 June 2008, available at https://www.gov.cn/test/2008-06/23/content_1024934_6.htm, [accessed 20 October 2025].
11 Laurence Coderre, ‘The Problematics of Plenty’, in Material Contradictions, (eds) Altehenger and Ho, pp. 146–160.
12 Bill Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 28, no. 1, 2001, p. 5.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 10, emphasis in original.
15 Ibid.
16 As an environmental philosopher, Morton urges a reawakening to the presence of objects, a rediscovery framed, crucially, ‘in light of the ecological emergency’. Yet the resonance of this rediscovery reaches well beyond the domain of environmental critique. It gestures towards a transformation in our very habits of thought—a philosophical reorientation that, as Morton claims, ‘profoundly change[s] how we think about any object’. In this light, even the satellite of socialist China comes into view. Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), p. 201.
17 Ibid., p. 1.
18 Ibid, p. 86.
19 Ji Fengyuan, Linguistic Engineering: Language and Politics in Mao’s China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004).
20 Ibid., p. 46.
21 John Wesley Young, Totalitarian Language: Orwell’s Newspeak and Its Nazi and Communist Antecedents (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991), p. 211.
22 Coderre, ‘The Problematics of Plenty’.
23 Qian, ‘When Taylorism Met Revolutionary Romanticism’.
24 Sigrid Schmalzer, ‘Self-Reliant Science: The Impact of the Cold War on Science in Socialist China’, in Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, (eds.) Naomi Oreskes and John Krige (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2014), p. 79.
25 Ibid., p. 79.
26 Chan, Mao’s Crusade, pp. 17–34.
27 ‘Sulian kuachule xingji lüxing de diyibu: Diyige renzaoweixing fashechenggong 蘇聯跨出了星際旅行的第一步: 第一個人造衛星發射成功’ [The Soviet Union Makes the First Stride into the Space: The First Satellite Launched Successfully], Renmin ribao, 6 October 1957, p. 1.
28 ‘Wei Sulian de weida chengjiu huanhu 為蘇聯的偉大科學成就歡呼’ [Acclaim the Soviet Union’s Great Scientific Advancement], Renmin ribao, 7 October 1957, p. 1.
29 Zang Kejia, ‘Yike xinxing 一颗新星’ [A New Star], Renmin ribao, 8 October 1957, p. 8.
30 Zhu Kezhen 竺可楨, ‘Qingzhu diyike renzaoweixing fashechenggong 慶祝第一個人造衛星發射成功’ [Celebrating the Successful Launching of the First Artificial Satellite], Renmin ribao, 7 October 1957, p. 7.
31 Zang, ‘Yike xinxing’, p. 8.
32 Guo Moruo, ‘Ah Q jingshen 阿Q精神’ [Ah Q Mentality], Renmin ribao, 28 November 1957, p. 6.
33 Ibid.
34 Such as the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and the success of the Korean War (1950–1953).
35 Wendy Larson, ‘Realism, Modernism, and the Anti-“Spiritual Pollution” Campaign in China’, Modern China, vol. 15, no. 1, 1989, pp. 37–71.
36 Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1961), p. 75–77.
37 See Kexuepuji chubanshe 科學普及出版社, Renzaoweixing wentijieda (yi/er) 人造衛星問題解答 (一/二) [Answers to Questions on Artificial Satellites (Volume One/Two)] (Beijing: Kexuepuji chubanshe, 1957). See also Li Shu 李術, Kepuziliao: Renzaoweixing 科普資料人造衛星 [Popular Science Materials: Artificial Satellites] (Shanghai: Shanghai kexuepuji chubanshe, 1958).
38 Kexuepuji chubanshe, Renzaoweixing wentijieda, no pagination.
39 Ibid., p. 58.
40 Ibid., no pagination.
41 Sigrid Schmalzer, The People’s Peking Man (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 6–7.
42 Richard P. Suttmeier, Research and Revolution (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1974), p. 126.
43 Kexuepuji chubanshe, Renzaoweixing wentijieda, no pagination.
44 Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, p. 5.
45 For example, Lu Hui 盧暉, ‘“Weixing” shi ruhe shangtiande “衛星” 是如何上天的—鄉村基層幹部和 “大躍進”’ [How Were ‘Satellites’ Launched into Space], Kaifang shidai 開放時代, no. 5, 2008, pp. 116–126. See also Xu Hongwei and Geng Tian, ‘Is Lying Contagious? Spatial Diffusion of High-Yield “Satellites” during China’s Great Leap Forward’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 126, no. 3, 2020, pp. 632–672. The news report is ‘Weixingshe zuoshangle weixing, wu mu xiaomai muchan 2105 jin 衛星社坐上了衛星 五畝小麥畝產2105斤’ [The Satellite Commune Rides on a Satellite: Five-mu Land Reaches Wheat Yield 2105 jin per mu], Renmin ribao, 8 June 1958, p. 1.
46 ‘Weixing nongyeshe fachu dierke “weixing”, ermujiufen xiaomai muchan 3530 jin 衛星農業社發出第二顆 “衛星” 二畝九分小麥畝產3530斤’ [The Satellite Commune Launches a Second ‘Satellite’: Two-point-nine-mu Land Reaches Wheat Yield 3530 jin per mu], Renmin ribao, 12 June 1958, p. 1.
47 ‘“Weixing” hanghang kefang “衛星” 行行可放’ [People from Every Walk of Life Can Launch ‘Satellites’], Renmin ribao, 26 August 1958, p. 2.
48 ‘Yikao “xiaotuqun” gangtie dayuejin, Shandong pingjun richan gang baqianduo dun 依靠“小土群” 鋼鐵大躍進 山東平均日產鋼八千多噸’ [Relying on ‘Little Mounds’ to Attain a Great Leap Forward of Steel, Shandong Produces More Than Eight Thousand Tons Steel per Day], Renmin ribao, 24 October 1958, p. 2.
49 Jiang Hongzhou, ‘Changchang zhengshangyou, shishi fangweixing, yingjie 1959 nian gengda de yuejin 場場爭上游, 事事放衛星, 迎接1959年更大的跃進’ [Make Every Progress and Launch Every Satellite: Welcome a Bigger Great Leap Forward in 1959], Zhongguo nongken 中國農墾, no. 18, 1959, pp. 18–20.
50 These planting techniques were adopted as part of learning from the Soviet Union. For more details, refer to Becker, Hungry Ghosts, pp. 135–188.
51 Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 235–278.
52 Xue Pan’gao, ‘Yu nongmin jingsai fang “weixing” 與農民競賽放 “衛星”’ [To Compete with Peasants in Launching ‘Satellites’], Keji ribao 科技日報, 14 and 21 November 1993, no pagination.
53 Ibid., no pagination.
54 Qian Xuesen, ‘Liangshi muchan huiyou duoshao 糧食畝產會有多少’ [How Much Food Can One-mu-Field Produce], Zhongguo qingnianbao 中國青年報, 16 June 1958, p. 4.
55 Xue Pan’gao, ‘Yu nongmin jingsai “fang weixing”’, no pagination.
56 The ‘anti-rash advance’ campaign (1956–1957) was an economic policy initiative led by Zhou Enlai 周恩來, intended to restrain tendencies towards overexpansion and undue haste in China’s development strategy. Supported by key figures such as Chen Yun 陳雲 and Li Fuchun 李富春, the campaign advocated balanced, incremental economic growth in opposition to the radical developmental schemes that would later culminate in the GLF.
57 Chan, Mao’s Crusade, p. 40.
58 Ibid., p. 63.
59 Song Qihong 宋其洪, ‘Zhengzhi jinsheng yu biaoyan: Macheng Jianguoshe “fangweixing” shimo 政治晉升與表演: 麻城建國社 “放衛星” 始末’ [Political Promotion and Performance: The Macheng Jianguo Commune ‘Launching Satellite’ Incident], Xuchang xueyuan xuebao 許昌學院學報, vol. 35, no. 6, 2016, pp. 92–95.
60 Ibid., p. 92.
61 Similar reflections on how news reports worked to intensify the fangweixing competition between counties can be seen in Henan province, as discussed in Li Guangzhao 李光照, ‘Yi “dafang weixing” nianyue de xinwen baodao 憶 “大放衛星” 年月的新聞報導’ [Reflecting on the Media Coverage of an Age of ‘Launching Satellites’], Zongheng 縱橫, no. 1, 2001, pp. 40–44.
62 Xu Hongwei and Geng Tian, ‘Is Lying Contagious’, pp. 632–672.
63 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 2006 [1983]), p. 33.
64 Qian, ‘When Taylorism Met Revolutionary Romanticism’, p. 595.
65 Zhao Shuli 趙樹理 and Tao Dun 陶鈍, Jianguo shinian wenxue chuangzuoxuan: Quyi 建國十年文學創作選: 曲藝 [Literary Writings from 1949–1959: Quyi] (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1959), p. 1.
66 Qi Jianxin 齊建新, ‘Xu 序’ [Preface], in Guanting hupan qianjiashi 官廳湖畔千家詩 [Poetry from Thousands of Houses], (ed.) Hebei Huailai Chinese Communist Party (CCP hereafter) County Office (Tianjin: Baihuawenyi chubanshe, 1958), no pagination.
67 Ma Shaobo 馬少波, Shi Tian 石天 and Qin Zhiyang 秦志揚, Hongse weixing naotiangong 紅色衛星鬧天宮 [Red Satellites Make an Uproar in Heaven] (Beijing: Baowentang shudian, 1958).
68 Ibid., no pagination.
69 Liu Lianlun 劉連倫, ‘Hongdongyishi de Hongseweixing naotiangong 轟動一時的《紅色衛星鬧天宮》’ [A Sensation: Red Satellites Make an Uproar in Heaven], Zhongguo jingju 中國京劇, no. 5, 2018, p. 30.
70 The colour of Soviet satellites is always manipulated into red. Another example is Sputnik 2 which is described as a ‘red moon’. See ‘Youyige “hongse yueliang” shengqilaile 又一個“紅色月亮” 升起來了’ [Another ‘Red Moon’ Rockets into the Space], Renmin ribao, 4 November 1957, p. 1.
71 Shikanshe 詩刊社, Xinminge baishou: Dierji 新民歌百首: 第二集 [Hundreds of New Folksongs, Vol. 2] (Beijing: Zhongguo qinnian chubanshe, 1958), p. 60.
72 Ma, Shi and Qin, Hongse weixing naotiangong, p. 21.
73 Yang Kenan 楊克南, ‘Meiguo weixing jian Longwang 美國衛星見龍王’ [American Satellite Meets the Dragon King], in Qunzhong wenyi chuangzuoxuan: Quyi 群眾文藝創作選: 曲藝 [A Collection of Mass Arts: Quyi Arts], (ed.) Chongqing Mass Arts Gallery (Chongqing: Chongqing renmin chubanshe, 1961), pp. 180–181.
74 See, for example, Tao Dun, ‘Cong quyi zuoping kan xianshizhuyi yu gemingde langmanzhuyi xiangjiehe 從曲藝作品看現實主義與革命的浪漫主義相結合’ [Evaluate the Combining Way of Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism through Quyi Arts], Renmin wenxue 人民文學, no. 8, 1958, pp. 71–73. Zhi Fang 治芳, ‘Lüetan women shidai de geminglangmanzhuyi 略談我們時代的革命浪漫主義’ [On Revolutionary Romanticism in Our Age], Shikan 詩刊, no. 6, 1958, pp. 77–80.
75 Zhou Yang, ‘Zhouyang tongzhi tan geming de xianshizhuyi he geming de langmanzhuyi 周揚同志談革命的現實主義和革命的浪漫主義’ [Zhou Yang on Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism], Juben 劇本, no. 7, 1958, p. 66.
76 For instance, Wan Jiuhe 萬九河, ‘Ruhe tongguo shenhua renshi Zhongguo yuanshi shidai renmen yu ziran de douzheng 如何通過神話認識中國原始時代人們與自然的闘爭’ [How to Learn the Conflict between Human and Nature in Ancient China by Reading Mythologies], Dongbei shifan daxue kexuejikan 東北師範大學科學集刊, no. 1, 1956, pp. 26–38. Yuan He 元禾, Cong renzaoweixing dao yuzhoufeixing 從人造衛星到宇宙飛行 [From Artificial Satellites to Space Flight] (Beijing: Kexuepuji chubanshe, 1958). Further discussions on mythology in Mao’s China can be found in Walter. J. Meserve and Ruth. I. Meserve, ‘Myth and Superstition in Communist China’s Drama and Theater’, in Folklore in the Modern World, (ed.) R. M. Dorson (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011), pp. 125–144.
77 Cao Baohua 曹葆華 (trans.), Sulian wenxue 蘇聯文學 [Soviet Literature] (Shanghai: Shenghuo shudian, 1946); Zhou Yang (trans.), Makesizhuyi yu wenyi 馬克思主義與文藝 [Marxism and Marxist Literature] (Beijing: Jiefangshe, 1950).
78 Maxim Gorky et al., Soviet Writers’ Congress 1934: The Debate on Socialist Realism and Modernism in the Soviet Union (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977 [1934]), p. 28.
79 Ibid., p. 44.
80 Li Zhun’s Lishuangshuang xiaozhuan 李雙雙小傳 is a relevant case. See Li Zhun 李準, ‘A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang 李雙雙小傳’ [Lishuangshuang xiaozhuan], in Heroes of China’s Great Leap Forward: Two Stories, (ed.) R. King (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010 [1960]), pp. 15–62. Discussions on gender issues in the GLF can be found in Richard King, ‘Romancing the Leap: Euphoria in the Movement before Disaster’, in Eating Bitterness, (eds) Manning and Wemheuer, pp. 51–71.
81 Another example that emphasizes the role of technology can be found in Jin Shan 金山, Shisanling shuiku changxiangqu 十三陵水庫暢想曲 [The Caprice of the Ming Tombs Reservoir] (Beijing: Beijing dianying zhipianchang, 1958).
82 Paul R. Josephson, Would Trotsky Wear a Bluetooth? Technological Utopianism under Socialism, 1917–1989 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
83 Yuan He, Cong renzaoweixing dao yuzhoufeixing, p. 1.
84 Volland observes how Soviet science fiction inspired Chinese science fiction writing in the 1950s. While Volland emphasizes Soviet influence, this section posits Chinese mythology as another essential source for China’s socialist imaginary. See Nicolai Volland, Socialist Cosmopolitanism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), pp. 96–123.
85 Qian, ‘When Taylorism Met Revolutionary Romanticism’, pp. 578–604.
86 Ibid., p. 589.
87 Ibid., p. 594.
88 This four-character formula was repeatedly emphasized by Mao during the second session of the CCP’s eighth Congress in 1958. See Mao Zedong, ‘Zai bada erci huiyi shangde jianghua (2) 在八大二次會議上的講話 (二)’ [Second Speech at the Eighth Party Congress (2)], in Mao Zedong sixiang wansui (1958–1960) 毛澤東思想萬歲 (1958–1960) [Long Live Mao Zedong Thought (1958–1960)] (publisher unknown, 1967), pp. 75, 78.
89 Ibid., p. 73.
90 Roderick MacFarquhar. The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. Vol. 2: The Great Leap Forward 1958–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), p. 51.
91 Mao Zedong, ‘Zai bada erci huiyi shangde jianghua (2)’, p. 73.
92 It is likely that this passage was part of Mao’s speech, but due to the lack of a complete version of the transcript, it does not appear in some records, such as Long Live Mao Zedong Thought. However, it is frequently cited on official websites related to China’s aerospace industry. See, for example, China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, ‘Mao Zedong yu Zhongguo “Zairen hangtian” shiye de qibu 毛澤東與中國 “載人航天” 事業的起步’ [Mao Zedong and the Beginnings of China’s ‘Manned Spaceflight Programme’], published online on 14 June 2016, available at http://calt.spacechina.com/n488/n755/c5684/content.html, [accessed 20 October 2025].
93 For a detailed account of how the first Chinese satellite was launched, see Zhang Jingfu, ‘Qing lishi jizhu tamen 請歷史記住他們’ [Let History Remember Them], Renmin ribao, 6 May 1999, p. 1, 3. Zhang Jingfu, ‘Woguo diyike renzaoweixing shi zenyang shangtiande? 我國第一個人造衛星是怎樣上天的?’ [How Was China’s First Artificial Satellite Launched?], Renmin ribao, 17 October 2006, p. 14. Dong Rong 董榮 and Ding Zhaojun 丁兆君, ‘“581” zu yu Zhongguo renzaoweixing shiye de qibu “581” 組與中國人造衛星事業的起步’ [The ‘581’ Group and the Beginnings of China’s Satellite Programme], The Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology, vol. 38, no. 1, 2017, pp. 66–77.
94 Dong and Ding, ‘“581” zu yu Zhongguo renzaoweixing shiye de qibu’, p. 72.
95 Andrew S. Erickson, ‘China’s Space Development History: A Comparison of the Rocket and Satellite Sectors’, Acta Astronautica, no. 103, 2014, p. 159.
96 See Dong and Ding, ‘“581” zu yu Zhongguo renzaoweixing shiye de qibu’, p. 72.
97 Ibid.
98 Mao Zedong, ‘Zai bada erci huiyi shangde jianghua (2)’, p. 74.
99 Ibid., p. 78.
100 This article was translated and reprinted in Cankao xiaoxi 參考消息. See ‘Yingguo qian zhu Sulian dashi Kaili de wenzhang “Zhongguo: Shi Weixing, haishi Taiyang”? 英國前駐蘇聯大使凱利的文章: “中國: 是衛星, 還是太陽”?’ [Former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union Kelly: ‘China: Satellite or Sun?’], Cankao xiaoxi, 6 May 1957, p. 2. For Kelly’s article, see David Kelly, ‘China: Satellite or Sun’?, The Sunday Times, 28 April 1957.
101 ‘Zailun wuchanjieji zhuanzheng de lishi jingyan, 再論無產階級專政的歷史經驗’ [Revisiting the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat], Renmin ribao, 29 December 1956, p. 1.
102 It is an uncontested fact that Mao’s authoritarianism shaped nearly every aspect of life in Maoist China. In the GLF, it would be inaccurate to assume that the political elite was entirely unaware of the exaggerated ‘satellite launches’ across the country. Peng Dehuai 彭德懷, for instance, voiced criticism during the Lushan Conference 廬山會議, but his dissent resulted in severe consequences. This episode illustrates how the political system, deeply apprehensive of Mao’s personal authority, fostered a climate of fear and deference. Mao was not merely the centre of power; he was the sun around which all else revolved. The fate of Peng and the broader dynamics of the Lushan Conference underscore the extent to which the entire political orbit was organized around Mao’s gravitational dominance. See, for example, MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 187–254.
103 Qian, ‘When Taylorism Met Revolutionary Romanticism’, p. 602.
104 A detailed discussion of MaoSpeak, also known as New China Newspeak, can be found in Geremie R. Barmé, ‘New China Newspeak’, China Heritage, published online in March 2012, available at https://chinaheritage.net/archive/academician-archive/geremie-barme/grb-essays/china-story/new-china-newspeak-新华文体/, [accessed 20 October 2025].
105 Timothy J. Mitchell, ‘The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics’, American Political Science Review, vol. 85, no. 1, 1991, p. 95.
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