Letter to the Editor by John Derbyshire

Hugo Restall is surely correct (editorial page, Jan. 6) in suggesting that without political liberalization China is headed back into imperial stagnation.  He also says that Deng Xiaoping stole the line "Seek truth from facts" from Mao Zedong.  Actually, the line is a classical tag, common currency among educated Chinese of the older generation.  It first appeared in Ban Gu's history of the Western Han dynasty, written in the latter part of the first century A.D.