A different Liang Zhongtang essay from the same year as his book names Song Jian only once, as an incidental informant, not as a causal claim to rebut

chinapopulation-policyone-child-policyhistoriographycontested-causationliang-zhongtangsong-jianchen-muhua

A Liang Zhongtang essay dated 2014-09-16, "艰难的历程：从一胎化到女儿户" ("The Difficult Journey: From One-Child-ization to Daughter Households"), covers the 1979-1991 policy history almost entirely through internal Party leadership dynamics — Hua Guofeng, Chen Muhua, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang, Qian Xinzhong — and names Song Jian exactly once: "According to Song Jian and others close to Chen Muhua in early spring 1980, Hu Yaobang doubted the feasibility of 'one-child-ization' at the time, while Zhao Ziyang explicitly expressed opposition." Here Song is an incidental informant relaying leadership gossip, not an antagonist whose causal claim needs rebutting. (The sentence carries Liang's own footnote 48, citing Susan Greenhalgh, Just One Child, pp. 245 and 274 — so even this one mention reaches Liang secondhand, through Greenhalgh's scholarship, rather than from Liang's own sourcing.) The essay's own attribution of the policy is direct: it "gradually arose on the basis of the State Council Family Planning Leading Group, headed by Chen Muhua, implementing the spirit of Hua Guofeng's 1978 and 1979 government work reports."

This contrasts with Liang's 2009 essay, which makes Song's causal role its explicit target, rejecting it in the "arrow loosed from the bow" passage already in the vault (see claim-liang-zhongtang-2009-rejects-song-jian-causal-self-credit). Both essays agree on the verdict — Song did not originate the policy — but this 2014 essay shows a shift in salience: five years on, Song no longer needs naming as an opponent to be argued down.