A large proportion of the reports published by visitors to the "People's Republic of China" have been disappointing to serious students of modem China. Only too often a visitor who has had unusual opportunities for acquiring information through talks with leading Chinese (Communist) officials and far reaching travel publishes a report that adds almost nothing to what one can learn by reading Peking Review and China Reconstructs. Senator Mansfield's report follows this pattern.
What is most disquieting about the report is the way in which Senator Mansfield ignores or distorts the evidence to favor the Chinese Communists on points where it seems fairly certain that he knew the truth. For example, he writes, "Cited as an example of how the Taiwan problem arises to inhibit the unfolding of U.S.- China relations was the controversy concerning the planned press preview of the Chinese Archeological Exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. 'This,' it was pointed out, 'is only a small example. Until the Taiwan question is resolved, these issues will always crop up'" (pages 29-30). Senator Mansfield must have known that the Chinese authorities did not merely bar Taiwan journalists from the press preview in Washington but also excluded journalists from South Korea, South Africa and Israel.
Again, he writes, "The Jackson amendment, relative to freedom of emigration, would appear to have little relevance to (Red) Chinese-U.S. rapprochement. There is considerable movement of people back and forth between the People's Republic and Hongkong and then outward migration from the latter" (page 28). It is hard to believe that Senator Mansfield had never read any of the newspaper reports about the large illegalmovement to Hongkong by people who risk, and often lose, their lives in getting out of the "People's Republic. "
The section on (Communist) "China's Foreign Policy" discusses the views of the Peiping authorities on Indochina, Thailand and India but avoids any mention of Burma. It is likely that a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would have seen some reports about the large scale Chinese (Communist) assistance to a Communist insurgency in Burma.
As far back as 1967 the diplomatic community in Vientiane considered that Phong Saly province in northern Laos was effectively under Chinese (Communist) control. It is disingenuous to present this situation by writing that the Chinese (Communists) "have provided aid to the Laotians, notably in the form of a road network which is gradually being extended southward from the Chinese (mainland) border" (page 32).
Senator Mansfield's itinerary included a briefing from the staff of the U.S. Liaison Office and meeting with the French ambassador. It is, there fore, reasonable to suppose that he knew about the restricted conditions of the diplomatic com munity in Peiping, that the Chinese speaking members of the Liaison Office staff had never been able to have an informal, unofficial conversation with an ordinary Chinese (Communist) citizen, and that the staff of the U.S. Liaison Office had received somewhat better treatment than the diplomatists of some countries with full relations and regular embassies. However, he writes, "As it is now, our official relations with the nation containing one-quarter of the world's people, are conducted by means of Liaison Offices in the two countries. They add up to something less than our formal relationship with a small country in Eastern Europe" (page 30) - ignoring the fact that the Peiping authorities do not allow any diplomatic mission to function as much more than a liaison office for contacts with Chinese (Communist) officials.
What strikes one about the general tenor of the report is the absence of any critical analysis or thought. Senator Mansfield is quite willing to criticize his own country, and does so at several points in the report, but shows himself to be completely uncritical towards the "People's Republic of China."
He quotes figures of extremely high productivity in agricultural communes which he visited but never tries to reconcile the claims for the success of collectivized agriculture with the figures based on official statements which show that, since 1952, the increase in grain production has little more than kept up with the increase in population.
He notes, correctly, that there has been great material progress since 1949 but never questions the choice of 1949 as a base for comparison. In fact, it is a very low standard. Government was bad in the late Ch'ing dynasty. The Revolution of 1911 only produced endemic civil war between rival warlords. The Kuomintang government produced some progress between 1928 and 1937, though it failed to end civil wars, but these gains were far more than lost during eight years of war with Japan and four years of large scale civil war. It apparently never occurred to Senator Mansfield that there would have been great material progress after 1949 under any sort of government which ended civil war and provided even moderately competent and honest administration. He never asks the crucial question: How far has material progress in the "People's Republic" taken place because of or how far in spite of the influence of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought?
While the report says a great deal about Taiwan as an obstacle to further rapprochement be tween Washington and Peiping, Senator Mansfield has apparently never considered Taiwan as a standard of comparison for judging the perform ance of the "People's Republic." One has to make allowances for a better initial infrastructure left by Japanese rule and much greater foreign aid on one side, and for inferior natural resources and much larger defense expenditure on the other but, even so, the comparison can be useful. It suggests that, in a Chinese society, land reform based on family farms can be more productive than collectivization and that a mixed economy of government owned and private enterprise can produce a greater rate of economic progress than the system of the "People's Republic;" also that these greater gains can be realized with much less regimentation of the people.
Senator Mansfield ha~ the reputation of being a liberal so it is odd that he uncritically approves the highly regimented society of the "People's Republic." Other visitors who have published favorable reports have at least noted the elaborate apparatus of indoctrination, the tremendous pressure for conformity and the repression of intellectual and cultural life to fit the party line, though they have excused these unpleasant features of life in the "People's Republic" by presenting them as necessary conditions for the positive accomplishments of the regime. Senator Mansfield simply ignores the repressive aspects of life in the "People's Republic."
He makes sweeping generalizations about the views and feelings of the Chinese (mainland) people on the basis of two officially conducted tours totaling under five weeks during which most of his contacts were with Chinese (Communist) of- ficials and all were through an officially provided interpreter. It seems clear that he never asked himself, "What would have happened to those whom I interviewed if they had not expressed enthusiastic support for the regime?" The answer is almost certainly that, at the best, they would have had to produce a self criticism announcing their repentance after an unpleasant series of struggle meetings to correct their erroneous thought.
If Senator Mansfield had not been so completely uncritical he would at least have considered the evidence that the real feelings of the Chinese (mainland) people might be different from those presented to him by Chinese (Communist) officials. When controls were relaxed during the "cultural revolution," very large numbers expressed their dislike for the Communist party apparatus. The evidence of refugees may be biased but it is not worthless. If the regime really has full popular support, why does it show much fear of foreign contacts which it does not fully control? And so on. Also, while Senator Mansfield may not know enough Chinese history to understand the implications of the official praise for Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, the continued official praise for Stalin might have aroused some suspicions.
It is a curious trait of many Western liberals that they are indignant about restrictions on free expression and denial of civil liberties only in countries where people have at least enough freedom to have some ways of expressing disagreement with their government. If a government has so perfected its system of control and repression that no one dares to express disagreement with the regime, this indignation changes to approval. This trait has been well documented for Russia under Stalin. Senator Mansfield shows that it continues for (mainland) China under Stalin's admirers.
If Senator Mansfield had applied his liberal principles in (mainland) China, he would have asked his official contacts, "Why should you insist on extending your rule to Taiwan if the people of Taiwan do not want you? " While he quotes and discusses the Shanghai communique, he does not develop the passage which says, "It (the U.S.) reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves." It is true that he quotes the Peiping leaders as saying that they "hope there will be a peaceful solution" (page 24), but this need only mean that they would prefer to get control of Taiwan without the cost of fighting for it.
In fact, the interest in a peaceful settlement was a proper expression of American principles and it is a pity that these have never been stated more explicitly. The U.S. would have a clear case if it said, "If the people of Taiwan wanted to join the 'People's Republic,' the U.S. would have no right to hinder them. However, so long as it is clear that they do not want to come under the rule of the 'People's Republic,' our principles imply that the U.S. should honor its commitment to help them defend themselves." Official visitors to Peiping could then say informally, "If you want to recover Taiwan the means are perfectly simple. You should give the people under your rule at least as much freedom as the people on Taiwan now have and you should improve your economic performance to a point where your peasants and workers have somewhere near the same standard of living. Peaceful unification would then become easy."
It is, perhaps, too much to expect that Senator Mansfield should take any interest in the fate of the people in Taiwan, but one might have expected him to take a stand for the people of the United States. The reference to the controversy over the press preview to the Archeological Exhibition suggests that he never raised the issue of Chinese (Communist) interference in American internal affairs. Again, official Peiping publications continue to denounce the United States and the at tacks are often completely unfair. There is no suggestion in the report that Senator Mansfield ever tried to defend his own country in his discussions with Peiping leaders or that he ever pointed out that exaggerated and unjustified denunciations of the United States were counter productive if the Peiping leaders really wanted detente.
The long section on U.S.-(Communist) China Relations is almost entirely a discussion of what the U.S. should do in order to conciliate the Chinese (Communist) leaders in Peiping. There is no attempt to show that such conciliation would be likely to produce a response that would bring some advantages to the people of the U.S. If Senator Mansfield had been concerned with the interests of those whom he is supposed to represent, he could at least have asked the leaders he met in Peiping what the "People's Republic" could be expected to do that would be in the interests of the United States.
The conclusion which follows from the considerations set out above is that Senator Mansfield has produced a report which is, in effect, a piece of special pleading for the rulers of the "People's Republic of China." Hillaire Belloc once wrote a piece of doggerel that ran something like this:
"One cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there's no occasion to. "
The Chinese Communist leaders do not need to hire any lobbyists in the U.S. when two conducted tours in the "People's Republic of China" can win them the services of a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.