The South China Morning Post of Hongkong published October 9 this report by Frank Ching: "This Chinese nationalist outpost off the communist-held mainland has a split-level existence.
"On the surface, Quemoy, with an area of 62 square miles -slightly larger than Staten Island - is the home of 60,000 farmers, fishermen, shopkeepers, housewives and children, who live in sleepy little town and villages.
"Below ground, in the tunnels with which Quemoy is honeycombed, a large community of military personnel, who outnumber the civilian population but whose exact numbers are undisclosed, continues to dig ever more deeply into the hills, to strengthen its fortifications and to prepare for war.
"Beginning in the fourth century, Chinese from the mainland, fleeing the domination of new dynasties, settled here to wrest a living from the poor, sandy soil and barren hills. Many were driven overseas by poverty and today, it is estimated, more Quemoy people live abroad than on the island.
"Now, spurred by President Chiang Kai-shek's call to turn Quemoy into 'a model county,' irrigation, fertilizers and a vigorous afforestation program have covered it with a coat of green.
"Although Quemoy produces 50 times the amount of food it did 10 years ago, it is not yet self-sufficient, and supplies are flown from Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan.
"During the day it is impossible not to notice the military presence in the towns. Soldiers shop, play pool and eat in the restaurants, but by nightfall they have all disappeared.
"The nightly 10 pm-to-5 am curfew does not apply to the towns, but even in Quemoy City, on the western end of the island, stores begin closing at dusk. The cinemas, of which there are 12, are dark long before 10 o'clock ...
"In the countryside military lorries lumber along neat, tree-lined roads. At intersections soldiers direct traffic from machine-gun and anti-aircraft emplacements that are psychedelically camouflaged in patterns of black orange, blue and green.
"Quemoy City, with 8,000 inhabitants, is the seat of the county, which includes the smaller nationalist - held islands to the west - Little Quemoy, with 3,000 people, Tatan and Erhtan. Tatan is closer to the communist-held island of Amoy than it is to Quemoy, and armed escort ships must accompany all visitors there. There are no civilians on the two smaller islands.
"The clean, winding streets of Quemoy City are lined with bookstores, pharmacies, restaurants and Chinese herbal stores. A fourth of the civilian population are students, and the nationalists stress education as an important tool to win the support of the people. A system of providing nine years of free education was instituted here in 1964, several years before it began on Taiwan.
"Unlike their counterparts on Taiwan, 100 miles to the east, the youths of Quemoy are not drafted. Rather, they, like all men aged 18 to 45, are members of militia units, which train for two months every year.
"Unlike other places where large numbers of troops are stationed, there are no bars or dance halls and no gambling. Nationalist officers, asked what soldiers do for recreation, mentioned table tennis, basketball, badminton and other sports.
"Dependents are not permitted and soldiers stationed here are not allowed to marry local girls. Ten years after the last heavy shelling by the communists, this, in nationalist eyes, is still very much the front.
"Communist shelling continues, though only on odd-numbered days. The shells, lacking explosives, are packed with propaganda material containing quotations from Mr. Mao Tse-tung and calling for the expulsion of United States imperialist' from Taiwan. The latest casualties were two children killed in July when a shell struck their house.
"The nationalists retaliate in kind, loading their shells with pictures of a smiling President Chiang and the happy faces of the people of Taiwan, accentuating economic prosperity.
"Both sides occasionally suspend shelling for 'humanitarian reasons,' the communists on such occasions as May Day, the nationalists on traditional festivals.
"The nationalists augment their propaganda efforts by sending up balloons with packages that contain leaflets and items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes and soap. On a clear day the hydrogen-filled balloons, some trailing the nationalist flag, can be seen floating towards the mainland.
"The nationalists also direct powerful loudspeakers at communist-held islands nearby. At Mashan, on the northern tip of Quemoy, the psychological-warfare effort is directed at communist officers on the islet of Chiao Hsu, 2,300 yards away.
"The voice of the woman announcer, quoting a communist publication to the effect that the 'Mao Gang' considers 90 per cent of party workers unreliable, is magnified by eight loud-speakers...
"They still occasionally dispatch frogmen to undertake mainland missions. They are known to have landed on communist territory and, at times, to have seen a movie 'before returning to Quemoy." (Partial text)
Human Events - Scrutable East
Human Events of New York published this report by Victor Riesel from Taiwan: "This East is quite scrutable. Trouble is too many specialists view it at a 10,000-mile range from some air-conditioned safe haven on some bucolic campus. Or there is casual interest when Vice President Spiro Agnew speeds into Sun Moon Lake's Evergreen Hotel down the road a bit to talk with the still sturdy 82-year-old 'Gimo,' President Chiang Kai-shek.
"But when the Orient is scrutinized at close range, you find that Mao's mainland China is as close as the local high school or factory. For it is the mainland state trust which annually is dumping some $800-million worth of pure opium into the world market, making the contorted Chinese Communist regime the globe's heaviest supplier of narcotics. That's of sharp concern to America, if America is at all worried about crime-laden streets.
"And there is evidence here, as well as in some big-city police departments, that Maoist money is supporting revolutionary campus cadres assigned to turning garden variety collegiate demonstrations into bloody orgies. This is no Fu Manchu fiction. It is in hard-nosed, factual reports which are in the hands of our federal intelligence agencies.
"And there is the Middle East - in which a tough section of Mao's foreign service is heavily involved. If the Middle East is the cockpit of the next thermonuclear war threat, then Mao's intervention there makes Asian study even more vital.
"Mainland 'watchers' who put intelligence teams and frogmen onto the land they call 'Chi-Com' (Chinese Communist) occupied territory and we 'call Mao's China, report that at least 500 top Al Fatah terrorist leaders have been trained by Peking's guerrilla specialists. And they invented the game.
"Under these 500 terrorists now operating on Israel's borders, there is at least a 12,000-man force of 'blitz guerrilla' groups trained and equipped by Peking. They carry long-barreled 7.62mm sub-machine guns. They use land mines, demolition equipment and other materiel supplied by Maoist army officers and ammunition depots. Syrian army and political leaders visit the mainland regularly.
''There is no doubt of this. The Israeli army has captured (Red) Chinese equipment in the Gaza strip. The Jewish high command has caught Peking-trained Arab commando chiefs on Jordan's West Bank. The documentary evidence is in the hands of U.S. Army intelligence, Central Intelligence and in knowledgeable circles here too.
"So the inscrutable East really is about as subtle as a latter-day Swedish sex film. Mao's huge continent is in trouble. Terrific trouble. He and his jittery regime must feed, clothe, house and keep 750 million people under tight control. He can't. He isn't. They are hungry. They are resentful. They are in rebellion. So Mao has to start diversionary fires around the world.
"There are hundreds of reliable intelligence reports here or over in Hong Kong where the Mao watchers just haven't room in their files any longer on the revolt inside Chinese Communist territory. For example, in one day reports came of peasant revolt in Fanyu and Shunteh counties. They attacked a government granary and hauled off over a thousand tan of rice.
"Or, one morning recently other farm workers at Chiebyang and Feng-shun counties simply ambushed a government convoy of 14 trucks on an open highway, stole the freight and killed the army guard. Last July 10 a trainload of military supplies was blown up soon after the train left Canton for Fushan. The cargo was looted. The convoying soldiers were wiped out.
"Or on July 3, farm workers on the 'East is Bright' commune, one of 74,000, struck against local work rules. The commune is in Lienchiang county. They rushed out to a forbidden governmental reservoir and made off with thousands of fish so they could eat.
"There is sabotage. Last June, I note as I flip through report after report, an electric generator was destroyed with dynamite at an important mine in Mashan (Horse Mountain). The troops garrison (which, is standard these days at factories and mines) arrested 40 workers and charged them with sabotage.
"Then some 500 miners there revolted. The soldiers opened fire. Some 30 workers were killed and wounded. Multiply this by thousands and you get a picture of the ineffectiveness of the so-called production brigades, 'independent local industrial systems' which have been launched to undo the damage of the Red Guard cultural revolution.
"There's a scrutable reason for all this. Mao Tse-tung is fighting for power. He's 76 and there is a generation gap. He told the brainwashed youth in the past four years they could literally urinate on the old party opposition to him, take the property of the leaders, take anything they want, desecrate the system, stop attending school and college, ride free, eat free, the hell with discipline at home or in the universities. Down with parental respect and down with exams.
"So the inner party opposition and infrastructure was destroyed along with the opposition to them. Now the Communist party of China, once the world's biggest with 17 million members, is practically leaderless.
"There is a new constitution under which Mao and his military chief, Lin Piao, attempt to reconstruct the organization. But they can't. There are 2,100 counties. But new party committees, actually Communist party organizations, have been set up in only 20 of them. And only two out of 170 major municipalities have functioning party structures. There are no - repeat, no -party committees on regional or provincial levels (similar to our states).
"There is no chief of state in Communist China, no general secretary (official boss) of the party and Mao actually controls only one of the four field armies.
"The Soviets, being more sophisticated than we are, believe Mao is a paper tiger. They stand up to him. We run scared." (Full text)
Indianapolis Star - Example of France
The Indianapolis Star published on September 29 this report by Alice Widener: "Anyone advocating U.S. recognition of Red China ought to take a close look at what is happening now in France. 'Les Maoistes' are terrorizing vacation spots from the northern seaside resort of Deauville to the southern international playground of the Cote d'Azur. In the few years since France recognized Red China, while De Gaulle was President, and the Red Chinese were able to set up an embassy and cultural centers in Paris, dozens of Maoist terrorist groups have sprung up there.
"The French police have their hands full in trying to deal with 'les Maoistes,' who are even more aggressive and lawless than the anarchists and Leftists led by 'Red' Danny Cohn-Bendit during the 1968 May-June rebellion in France. While I was there, last winter, the newspaper Paris Presse L'Intransigeant ran a story about five Maoists convicted in a Versailles court of having perpetrated crimes of violence at Mantes. The five young Frenchmen convicted were the extremely aristocratic young Comte de Choisseaul-Praslin; Jean-Noel Darde, 21, a geography student; Serge July, 28, a professor of philosophy; Michel Petite, 25, a mathematics student; and Julien Pepin, 25, a department store employee.
"During the Maoist violence at Mantes, six Molotov cocktails were hurled into the marketplace, injuring shoppers, several policemen, and innocent bystanders. The young Comte de Praslin, after having been questioned by the judge, declared himself to be a 'Maoist' and said he took part in the violence because 'I wanted to find out what is behind the smoke screen that the middle class has put up in front of me.'
"One of the prosecution witnesses at the Versailles court, a housewife who was at the Mantes market when the explosions took place, testified, 'I was doing my shopping when suddenly there was a terrible disturbance. Then some policemen struggled with some young people. Among them were some Chinese.'
"'Chinese?' said the judge.
"'Yes, your honor, Chinese,' said the housewife. 'At least, I took them to be. They were very Asian types and landed out tracts with the picture of Mao Tse-tung. Happily, the police called for aid and eventually were able o get the upper hand.'
"In our country, we have thousands upon thousands of Chinese- Americans. They are without doubt the most law-abiding minority group in our nation. There is virtually no juvenile delinquency among them though they live in very crowded big city areas. In New York City, for example, where a million people are on welfare, the number of Chinese-Americans receiving relief is too small to be recorded as an official statistic.
"Most Chinese-Americans are so freedom-loving that they abhor Communism. They are passionately opposed to the Mao Tse-tung regime on the Chinese Mainland. So far on our campuses, though hundreds of students have been arrested during violent demonstrations, there have been no Chinese-Americans among them, though the percentage of college students among the Chinese-American minority is exceptionally high. In all the press photos of such riotous affairs, I have not seen a single picture of an arrested Chinese-American student.
"If our country were to make the same mistake as France did and were to enter into diplomatic relations with Red China, then that nation's Red regime would be able to set up an embassy in Washington, D.C., and consulates and cultural centers in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago and other big cities with a substantial Chinese-American minority population. Soon thereafter, most probably, we'd have trouble similar to those France has with 'les Maoistes.' Seems to me we already have trouble enough without adding to them. To avoid more youth trouble, let's not recognize Red China." (Full text)
Courier-Journal - How to escape
The Courier-Journal & Times of Louisville, Kentucky, published October 4 this report by Donald Bremner from Hongkong: "Chang Chen-hua was carrying out two of Chairman Mao Tse-tung's most important instructions - 'learn from the masses' and 'sum up experience.' But the things he was learning weren't exactly what Mao had in mind.
"Chang, 27, was the supervisor of a detention center in South China for persons caught trying to escape the country. He was supposed to interrogate them on where they had come from, why they wanted to escape, and how they did it.
"In the process, Chang (an assumed name) learned a lot about how to escape to Hong Kong.
"But, as he ruefully admitted in an interview here a few days ago, he hasn't quite clever enough.
"He laid in a supply of food for the trip, and bought the two basketballs that many refugees link together as floats for the long swim to the New territories, which form part of this British colony.
"He had just walked out the door of his office for what he thought was the last time when someone called him back and asked him what all that equipment was for.
"That was how Chang came to be one of the thousands of cadres (government or party officials) serving a term in one of (Red) China's 'May 7 cadre schools.'
"The 'schools,' which take their name from an instruction by Mao called the 'May 7 Directive,' were set up throughout (Red) China beginning in 1968.
"Their purpose is to 're-educate' through manual labor and ideological study those cadres who had either made 'mistakes' during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution - such as joining the wrong side in that struggle or simply carrying out a policy later judged incorrect - or who were displaced by government reorganization and streamlining after the cultural revolution.
"Despite glowing accounts of cadres eager to attend the schools so they can better guide the masses, many view them as punishment. Chang is no exception.
"They told me that I would be tanned by labor under the sun, and the browner my skin became, the redder my heart would be; and then I could carry a bigger load in serving the people,' he said.
" 'Actually I was unhappy. I was afraid that when I returned to my old job after a year at school, people would look down on me and think 1 was a bad cadre because I had to go to the May 7 school.'
"Chang, originally trained in foreign trade, was assigned to a county government committee when he graduated in 1966 as the cultural revolution broke out.
"A year later, he became supervisor of the detention center, which housed as many as 70 prisoners at a time.
"After his escape attempt failed, he was sent to a local May 7 cadre school in the summer of 1969. His school resembled a minimum-security rehabilitation center for minor criminals. There were no fences or barred windows, and cadres were free to go into the nearby town for shopping or a movie.
"Chang's typical day began when he arose at 6:30 a.m. Breakfast was at 7. From 8 to 11 the cadres engaged in ideological study, reading Mao's works, considering their time and historical background, and memorizing the main points.
"For all of Chang's dislike of the school, his lot was not too hard. A bachelor, his salary of 44 people's dollars (17 U.S. dollars) a month was continued, and he got his room free. He paid 18.50 people's dollars a month for his food.
"Afternoons were spent working on nearby roads or in the school's fields, which supplied much of the cadre's food. One hour each evening was given to discussing and summing up what had happened during the day. The rest of the evening was free time. Sunday was a day off, for outside visiting or sports such as table tennis, basketball and volleyball.
"A few months ago, Chang, wiser and more cunning after his abortive earlier attempt, succeeded in escaping to Hong Kong with two friends." (Full text)
Hongkong Standard - Murder in Hongkong
The Hongkong Standard said October 7: "The oystermen of Laufaushan have complained for many years that there is not enough protection for them as they work their beds in Deep Bay.
"Once again, the complaints were yesterday proved to be unfortunately and shockingly true.
"The latest kidnap and murder at our sea border with (Red) China is by far the most sickening and brutal to have taken place there.
"Hongkong territorial waters were invaded by a group of armed murderers. They kidnapped seven Hongkong citizens, then murdered three of them in cold blood.
"This is more than an international incident. This is an international disgrace, an outrage that proves once again that, for all its protestations of peace, (Red) China is prepared to condone the senseless slaughter of anyone who does not happen to agree with the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung.
"No doubt the armed murderers who captured harmless fishermen will be suitably rewarded for their un· heroic deeds. No doubt, such incidents will happen again. No doubt, the commune members of Shea Hau - the headquarters for this bunch of twentieth century pirates - are proud of their actions.
"Nobody else will be. This vicious breach of all the rules of decency and humanity indicates what life must be like for the common people of (Red China. If Hongkong citizens are subjected to such brutal fates, who can disregard as propaganda the tales of executions coming out of the Main land? …" (Partial text)