Only a year or so ago, as President Carter prepared to recognize the Chinese Communists, Teng Hsiao-ping and others were touting the "four modernizations" to the skies. The Chinese mainland was to be modernized in just a few years with the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Rarely has a dream faded faster. By early 1979, the Chinese Communists were confessing that they couldn't do it. With their new lines of credit grossly overextended, they were canceling orders in Japan and elsewhere.
First, Red China doesn't have the money. Its per capita income is around US$300, or less than a fifth of Taiwan's. Foreign exchange reserves of the Chinese Communists were estimated at between US$2 billion and US$3 billion in 1979, compared with more than US$6 billion for Taiwan (which has 14,000 square miles versus 3.7 million for Red China and 17 million people versus 900 million).
Second, the Chinese Communists lack the educated and trained engineers and technicians to carry out modernization. Education has been suspect since the Communists came to power on the mainland in 1949. The remnants of the old system were destroyed during the "cultural revolution." From 1966 until after the death of Mao Tse-tung in 1976, advanced education ceased to exist in any meaningful form.
Third, although Red China is now prepared to accept loans and foreign participation in some industrial projects, suspicion and chauvinism are still the rule on the Chinese mainland. Foreigners who involved themselves in the "four modernizations" quickly discovered that cooperation with their hosts was difficult, if not impossible.
Fourth, power struggle has not ended. The "modernizations" are not accepted by all. The view from the Republic of China is that there can be no economic modernization without political modernization.
Fifth, the people of mainland China have be gun to assert their basic anti-Communism. This has been revealed in the posters along Democracy Wall in Peiping, in armed conflict in various parts of the mainland, in the return of "young intellectuals" and other malcontents to the cities and in the demand of the people that Communist leaders learn to "modernize" by following the Taiwan example.
Sixth, the heavy loss of prestige by the Chinese Communists in their Vietnam adventure. Red Chinese invaders penetrated North Vietnam on a limited scale and suffered heavy casualties. The people have begun to realize that their tyrants have feet of clay.
The truth about life on the Chinese mainland is now coming not only from escapees but from correspondents and tourists.
The Chinese Communists are showing the best they have. This is still shocking to those who can't understand how whole families can put up with life in one small room. Correspondents are asking why the Communists have built hardly any housing in 30 years.
Life in the countryside is worse and not many visitors get a first-hand look. It consists of mud huts, dirt floors and the sharing of shelters with domestic animals - of endless monotony and frequent hunger.
The Chinese mainland is a rich land - rich in agricultural productivity, in minerals and in human resources. Whether there are too many people is debatable. At the least, the land is capable of supporting a vast population. In terms of resources, continental China is much better off than India.
But today's peasant on the Chinese mainland has only the incentive to produce that mayor may not be given him by a private plot. At times, up to nearly a third of the mainland's food has come from such tiny personal farms.
When politics closes them down, starvation stalks the land. The supposedly pragmatic forces of Teng Hsiao-ping recently have expressed fear that the private plots would destroy Communism. In fact, they already have.
People of the mainland are speaking and writing of freedom, democracy and human rights. They know what they mean, but the Communists maintain that they know what the people really have in mind about the "four basic principles" of "socialism, proletarian dictator ship, Communist party leadership and Marxism Leninism-Mao Tse-tung thought."
Those who demand freedom, democracy and humal1 rights are not seeking the "production order, work order and public order" on which Teng Hsiao-ping insists. The party central committee has described such people in these words:
"Those who depart from the constitution and talk about democracy and freedom, who have abandoned the idea of increasing production and think about improving their own livelihood, who neglect collective interests and think only of themselves, have abandoned Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung thought."
The supposed realism of Teng is really the same old Communism of Mao. Capitalism is a "corrupt system" whose prosperity is ephemeral because, the Chinese Communists say, the capitalists cannot resolve antagonisms between social classes, prevent economic crises, solve unemployment or change the "corrupt social atmosphere."
The Chinese Communist honeymoon with the United States has already ended. Red China protested vehemently against the Taiwan Relations Act of the U.S. Congress because it spoke of Taiwan rather than "the 'people of Taiwan" and opposed Chinese Communist military action against the island.
When Teng Hsiao-ping went to the United States, all was sweetness and light and pro-American propaganda. This has been transformed into a picture of America as a land of inflation, unemployment, drug addiction and race discrimination.
Youths who were briefly allowed to wear jeans and long hair and to demand human rights are being put in their place. "A glass of cold water is healthier than Coca-Cola," the Communists say. Young people couldn't afford Coke in any event; those who dare stick to "outlandish dress" are asking for trouble with the authorities.
In the first half of 1979, the flood of escapees into Hongkong reached record proportions. The exodus was a response not only to the desire for a better life but also a reaction against the clamp down that followed momentary relaxation of Communist discipline late in 1978 and early in 1979. The bamboo curtain lifted just long enough for people to learn that life on the outside was rich with promise and long on liberty.
On the Chinese mainland of today, hundreds of millions of people know they have been cheated of their heritage. They are waiting for the chance to exercise the same "mandate of heaven" that destroyed the Chinese tyrannies of the past.
Chinese Communism faces a fatal dilemma. If it modernizes, it must educate and let in the light of the advancing Oriental and Occidental worlds. In doing so, it destroys itself. If it doesn't, it will be destroyed by backwardness. Mainland students who have gone to Europe and the United States to learn modern ways will be returning to the mainland in a year or two or three. What will they tell their compatriots about freedom and prosperity in the democracies?
The late President Chiang Kai-shek always said that the reunification of China would take place under conditions that were at least 70 per cent political. Today it appears that the content of 30 per cent military action may not be required. The people of the mainland are discovering for them selves that the "Taiwan way" and not Communism is the wave of the Chinese future.
Vice President Walter Mondale traveled to the Chinese mainland late in August and promised his hosts US$2 billion in credits and trade treatment as a most-favored nation.
The belief in the Republic of China was that these bounties were not yet in the bag and that the U.S. Congress would have something to say about them - maybe enough to reduce the credits and frustrate any trade privileges which are not also accorded the Soviet Union.
One commentary on Mondale's visit said that the Carter administration was still playing the Red China card against the Soviet Union, and that this seemed shortsighted in view of the Chinese Communist military failure to "teach Vietnam a lesson." If Red Chinese cannot cope with the Vietnamese, how can they be considered much of an ally against the Russians?
Mondale was criticized for going out of his way to stress the defensive and limited nature of weapons to be supplied to the Republic of China when negotiations on armaments are resumed next year. It would have been enough for the American vice president to point out that Congress and President Carter had agreed the freedom of Taiwan's people was of grave concern to the United States.
The Republic of China is of two minds about U.S. assistance to the Chinese mainland. It is opposed to anything that will help the Chinese Communists tighten their tyranny over the people of the mainland. On the other hand, the Free Chinese do not wish ill for their compatriots, and are aware of the desperate economic situation obtaining in continental China.
As Vice President Mondale was meeting with Hua Kuo-feng, demonstrators gathered in Peiping to protest against their treatment by Chinese Communist functionaries throughout the mainland. Some mainlanders are hungry. Others lack for daily necessities. None has any real hope for a good life or a bright future under Communism. These demonstrations and big character posters reveal not only the tragedies of the past but the dismal prospect of the future.
Life has not improved since the death of Mao Tse-tung and the toppling of the "gang of four." People of the mainland want work, food, fairness and hope - not more Communist slogans. Few people on the Chinese mainland even knew Walter Mondale was among them. Many of them don't even know who Walter Mondale is. Thought control still gets first priority in Red China. In its absence, the throttlehold of tyranny would be quickly broken.
The United States denied most-favored-nation status to the U.S.S.R. because of Soviet disregard of human rights.
People of Free China would like to ask Mr. Mondale and other Americans visiting the Chinese mainland what human rights they have found there. Young escapees to Hongkong are bitten to death by sharks as they try to swim to freedom. That is the measure of the human rights to be found under Chinese Communism: the right to run away at the cost of one's life.
Vice President Mondale remarked that the friendly relations among Red China, Japan and the United States would bring international stability to Northeast Asia.
This is scarcely the realism on which the Carter administration prides itself. Red China has never made a contribution to peace and has no intention of starting now. To the south, the Chinese Communists talk of teaching Vietnam another lesson. To the east, they threaten to cross the Taiwan Straits and impose their tyranny on the Republic of China. To the north and west, they aspire to blast the Soviet Union out of existence. Nowhere in the world is Red China bent on peace. There is no stability in East Asia precisely because of the existence of Chinese Communism.
No one will deny that the Soviet Union is a problem in East Asia, but the Russians are not engaged in overt aggression. Only the Chinese Communists are aggressing now - directly in some cases and through surrogates in such countries as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Burma.
The American people are aware that the Chinese Communists are not their friends. They have not forgotten the Korean War, in which Red China was the principal antagonist arrayed against the United States and the United Nations.
They have not forgotten the Vietnam War, in which Red China supplied manpower as well as weapons to kill Americans. When the chips are down, countries follow their own interest. The interests of the United States do not coincide with those of Red China.
The Chinese Communists did not respond to Vice President Mondale in kind. They turned out large crowds of welcomers they have the muscle to do that. They did not talk in terms of peace, but again renewed their objections to U.S. sale to the Republic of China of the weapons required to defend Taiwan. The Chinese Communists still want the United States to deliver Taiwan to them on a silver platter. What was said to Walter Mondale gives indication of what will be demanded of Jimmy Carter if he makes his projected trip to the Chinese mainland early next year. President Carter has joined the Congress in saying no, but the continuing machinations of the Chinese Communists will bear the most careful watching.