French journalists reported from Peiping that Red Chinese officials broke precedent and invited foreign reporters to the news conference at which Hua Kuo-feng announced "normalization of relations" with the United States.
The abrupt reopening of America's door to Red China was achieved by old-fashioned secret diplomacy of the kind Jimmy Carter once scorned, and possibly a secret agreement as well, Washington reports said.
DECEMBER 17 - Vietnamese Vice Foreign Minister Phan Hien accused Red China of pursuing a "hostile policy" toward Hanoi and denounced Peiping leaders for supporting Cambodians in the border dispute with Vietnam.
A group describing itself as "the largest Maoist organization in the United States" condemned the recognition agreement between Red China and the United States.
DECEMBER 18 - A joint statement issued by 166,995 freedom fighters who escaped the Chinese mainland condemned the Carter administration's "perfidy and unfaithfulness" in establishing diplomatic relations with the Chinese Communist regime.
The U.S. decision to establish diplomatic relations with the Peiping regime is "a mistake of historic dimensions," government spokesman Ding Mou-shih told a Taipei press conference for foreign correspondents.
DECEMBER 19 - The Soviet Union lashed out at Red China for attempting to "play the American card" against Moscow. The first direct Soviet reaction to the announcement of diplomatic ties between Red China and the United States appeared in the Soviet Communist party daily Pravda.
The United States has contracted to buy Red Chinese crude oil with possible options for long term imports, a Tokyo newspaper reported. Industry sources said Coastal State Gas of Houston, Texas, signed an agreement with the Red Chinese to purchase 3.5 million barrels (500,000 tons) from Taching.
President Carter is sending Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal and Commerce Secretary Juanita Kreps to Red China in February to explore trade and investment prospects.
An influential Muslim member of parliament said Indonesia should not hastily restore diplomatic relations with Red China. Nuddin Lubis, chairman of the Muslim faction in the 460-seat Legislative Assembly, said the U.S. decision to reopen diplomatic ties with Red China "should not influence Indonesia's attitude."
DECEMBER 20 - A major reshuffle has taken place in the leadership of Kwangtung province in southern mainland China. Hsi Chung-hsun, former second secretary of the Kwangtung Communist party committee, has become the top provincial leader while the recently rehabilitated Yang Shang-kun, accused of spying on Mao Tse-tung by the Red Guards, was named to the second spot.
Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee said President Carter should delay action to end the U.S. -ROC mutual defense treaty. And before formal notice is given to terminate the treaty, the Senate should be given time to consider its role, he said.
Li Ta, one of the 12 founding members of the Chinese Communist party, was publicly humiliated and denied medical treatment before he died years ago of massive internal hemorrhaging, according to the Kwangming Daily.
DECEMBER 21 - Most Chinese Communists would agree today that Mao Tse-tung knew nothing about economics but it now seems he was also out of his depth in cultural and defense matters, People's Daily said.
DECEMBER 22 - One of Red China's newspapers has demanded writers and artists be given more creative freedom. They must no longer be forced to follow narrow political guidelines laid down by a handful of Communist party cultural bureaucrats, the Kwangming Daily said.
Red Chinese soldiers fought alongside the Vietminh against the French in the early stages of the war in Vietnam, according to the Hong Kong leftist magazine Wide Angle.
DECEMBER 23 - The Chinese Communist party announced a reinforced central committee held its third plenary session in Peiping December 18 to 22. It elected Chen Yun as the party's sixth vice chairman and added nine people to its 333-member central committee. Three new members, including Teng Yin-ehao, widow of Chou En-lai, were elevated to the politburo. The session cleared the names of Peng Teh-huei, Tao Chu, Po I-Po and Yang Shang-kun.
Red China has acquired two late-model MIG23 fighter aircraft in a quiet military exchange with Egypt, U.S. government sources said in Washington. The sources said Red China may have obtained the planes in a bid to copy advanced Soviet weapons technology.
Thousands of people are pouring into Peiping demanding rehabilitation from false charges lodged by purged politicians, Kyodo news service reported.
Senior Kremlin official Mikhail Suslov told a visiting Japanese delegation that the "normalization" of U.S. relations with Red China made the Soviet leadership wary, Japanese sources said.
DECEMBER 24 - The Soviet Communist party newspaper Pravda said White House adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was trying to get the United States to come down on Peiping's side in the conflict between Moscow and Peiping.
The price the United States government has paid in recognizing Red China has not only diminished American credibility in the world but has darkened the prospects for peace, said George Bush, former chief of the U.S. liaison office in Peiping.
After suffering nine casualties in a border clash against Vietnam and shooting dead three "invaders," Red China issued an "extremely severe" warning to Hanoi.
DECEMBER 25 - Deep-seated Soviet concern over President Carter's decision to establish diplomatic relations with Red China was seen by some American officials as causing Moscow to balk. at reaching an arms limitation agreement with the U.S. at the last minute, according to Bernard Gwertzman, Washington correspondent of New York Times.
The first group of SO Chinese Communist scholars to undertake advance study in the United States left Peiping.
Despite the agreement between the United States and Peiping that commerce will be important in the renewal of diplomatic relations, most American business interests forecast only moderate growth in bilateral trade for the next three to five years, the Washington Star reported.
The Soviet press warned that the arming of Red China by the West would be dangerous to peace and detente.
DECEMBER 26 - Former California Governor Ronald Reagan described President Carter's China policy as the "betrayal of a faithful friend." In an exclusive interview with Human Events, Reagan said he did not believe a president of the United States could "simply abrogate, without cause, a treaty with such a staunch friend and ally.”
DECEMBER 27 - Quoting the U.S. Declaration of Independence, a 29-page wall poster in Shanghai demanded equality and human rights for mainland Chinese.
Japan protested to Red China against a nuclear test explosion conducted December 14.
DECEMBER 28 - The Russian Communist party newspaper Pravda predicted "new upheavals" in Peiping's top leadership and major purges in the Chinese Communist party.
DECEMBER 29 - Red China will probably purchase a telecommunications satellite from the United States, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Agency said.
Vietnam accused China of "stepping up armed intrusions" into its territory, ruing at civilians and soldiers and kidnapping civilians, soldiers and militiamen.
DECEMBER 30 - A group of young people who came to Peiping to report a general strike by 50,000 youngsters in southern mainland China plastered Peiping's "democracy wall" with complaints about officials in Yunnan province.
Red China charged Soviet expansionism is intended to undermine the U.S. position in the Western Pacific, threaten oil supply routes to Japan and encircle mainland China.
DECEMBER 31 - Red China picked the New Year to substitute its own spelling system for Chinese sounds for the Wade-Giles system long used in the West. Thus Hua Kuo-feng became Hua Guofeng in dispatches by the Hsinhua - now Xinhua - news agency, and Peking became Beijing.
JANUARY 1 - Wang Kuang-mei, the widow of Liu Shao-ehi, is still in jail, according to leftist sources in Hong Kong. Cheng Ming magazine said it learned of Wang's continued incarceration in an interview with her daughter.
The United States and Red China recognized each other formally.
Many Red Chinese got their first glimpses of Taipei street scenes as the central television station showed a special on Taiwan and the United States.
JANUARY 2 -Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro denounced U.S.-Red China ties as an attempt to divide the world revolutionary movement by "intimidation and bribe." It was Cuba's second sharp attack in two days. The rust was by President Fidel Castro.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations should not show any leaning toward Peiping or Moscow, Philippine Foreign Minister Carlos P. Romulo said.
Sources close to the Japanese government say Red China has asked unofficially for 7000 billion yen (US$35.9 billion) in economic cooperation, the newspaper Yomiuri said.
Even before the champagne stopped flowing, Red China's top man in Washington was boasting that his regime's new diplomatic relations with the United States serves as a warning against Soviet aggression. Chai Tse-min alluded several times to his regime's struggle against the Soviets. Vice President Walter Mondale called for "patience, wisdom and understanding" in the new diplomatic relationship.
JANUARY 3 - Sinologist Simon Ley said power struggle is a permanent trait of the Chinese mainland and that most of the people are "living on the brink of famine."
A Chinese Communist delegation headed by Li Hsien-nien left for Africa to launch the year's first diplomatic offensive to counter Soviet-Cuban influence in the region. Targets were Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Zaire.
Foreign Minister Carlos P. Romulo of the Philippines expressed fear that Southeast Asia's industrialization may not materialize and the region will forever be a supplier of raw materials as a result of Red China's new diplomatic ties with the United States.
Nigel Wade of the London Daily Telegraph reported from Peiping a new open letter to President Carter appeared on "democracy wall" in Peiping saying mainland Chinese should have the right to travel abroad. A nearby poster called for greater sexual freedom and nude scenes in films.
A close associate of Teng Hsiao-ping has been appointed to two important posts in a reshuffle of the central organs of the Chinese Communist party. Hu Yao-pang was nominated general secretary of the central committee and took over the duties of a former propaganda director, Chang Ping-hua, a close associate of Hua Kuo-feng. Chang was sacked.
JANUARY 4 - Pravda accused the United States of pushing Britain, France and other Western powers to supply arms to Red China.
A wall poster in Canton asked the authorities for information about the fate of Li Yi-chih, the pseudonym of three authors of a dissident manifesto, who were arrested more than three years ago.
JANUARY 5 - "Big character" wall posters attacking Teng Hsiao-ping appeared in Canton in November, an intelligent report from the Chinese mainland said. One of the posters denounced Teng as "a capitalist roader and renegade."
Teng Hsiao-ping refused to rule out the use of force in dealing with Taiwan. He said he would not discuss human rights with the Carter administration during his U.S. visit.
A U.S. Congressman visiting Red China said the huge population makes the situation there a nightmare. Representative Richard Kelly (Democrat-Florida) said: "Communist China is a nightmare. There are too many millions of people crammed into too little space, living on the edge of disaster, for any rational person to ever believe that Red China is a stabilizing influence. The dynamics of a billion people living under these conditions is the opposite of stability."
Vietnam is clearing everyone out of the border area it shares with Red China in preparation for war, Peiping said.
JANUARY 6 - Red China has begun a "fairly rapid" buildup of military forces along its border with Vietnam, a move possibly designed to counter the growing Vietnamese offensive into Cambodia.
Former Cambodian chief of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk arrived in Peiping by plane, leading a Cambodian government delegation to the United Nations.
The U.S. Agriculture Department announced sale of 250,000 metric tons of maize to Red China for 1979 delivery.
The director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said he expects new U.S.-Red Chinese relations to bring an influx of Communist intelligence agents to the United States and that his agency is ready to cope with the problem. William Webster said the FBI is bolstering its counterintelligence forces to deal with the problem, especially with Communist Chinese agents using student covers.
Many railroads on the mainland have been seriously damaged by anti-Communist organizations recently. Reports from the mainland revealed that sections of the Chekiang-Kiangsi, Shanghai Hangchow, Hunan-Kwanghi and some other railroads were sabotaged.
JANUARY 7 - Pravda said the Soviet Union cannot "abstract itself from realities" and will keep a close watch on relations between Red China and the United States. The paper repeated its charge that Red China is preparing for war and hopes to use normalization of relations with the United States to strengthen its position.
Red China said the fall of Phnom Penh was anticipated and that the Cambodian revolutionary government will continue to fight on.
Red China, the only member of the United Nations ever to go to war against the world organization, called for U.N. intervention in the conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam.
JANUARY 8 - A South African columnist reported that Red China has started cracking down on the new "free speech campaign" launched about 10 weeks ago. In a report titled "Peiping cracks down on new freedom," Miss Aida Parker of the Citizen said a number of persons have been arrested at "democracy wall" in Peiping.
A poster signed by the Chi Meng She (enlightenment society), a labor organization in Kueichow province, appeared in Peiping to demand democracy and human rights, the Jiji news agency reported. The poster asked whether human rights exist only in bourgeois countries like the U.S. It also appealed for protection of the rights of election, speech, demonstration, publication, belief and organization, and proposed that "top leaders of the state" be elected directly by the people and their terms of tenure be fixed.
JANUARY 9 - Peiping does not intend to give foreigners - even U.S. President Jimmy Carter - a say on its policy concerning human rights in Red China. Teng Hsiao-ping told a visiting delegation of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that he does not want to talk about human rights when he visits President Carter. He told the senators that discussion of human rights is not useful.
The New York Times reported that several thousand demonstrators marched in Peiping to demand human rights, democracy and a better life.
JANUARY 10 - Wang Tung-hsing, Red China's No.5 man, escaped a purge by criticizing himself at the party's central committee meeting in December, Kyodo news service reported. Three other high level officials joined Wang in self-criticism. They were former Peiping "mayor" Wu Teh; Chen Hsi-lien, an army commander and former Liaoning provincial committee official; and Chi Teng-kuei, who was active in political circles in Honan province. All four retained their seats on Red China's politburo.
Former Cambodian chief of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk warned that the overthrow of the Cambodian government by Vietnamese-backed Cambodian rebels could result in a Peiping-Moscow war.
People on the Chinese mainland admire the progress made in Taiwan, according to the New York Times. "Red China has recently begun publishing candid accounts of Taiwan's economic progress," Fox Butterfield reported from Peiping.
Unofficial publications critical of the regime have cropped up all over Peiping on the third anniversary of the death of Chou En-lai.
Teng Hsiao-ping won a decisive victory in a fierce power struggle when two major factions in the Red Chinese leadership clashed in a hot debate last November, resulting in a power structure reshuffle, according to a Peiping report. The big loser was Wang Tung-hsing, leader of the pro-Maoist faction, later deprived of his top jobs as party secretary general, director of the general office of the party central committee and commander of Peiping guard unit 8341.
JANUAR Y 11 - Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said the United States will raise the question of human rights with Teng Hsiao-ping.
A Communist official in northwest China's Kansu province said peasants there are poverty-stricken and need some breathing space after the chaos of one political campaign after another. NCNA said Ching Nai-shun, 58, director of commune-run forestry farm, asked in an interview, "How can you expect them to work hard to restore sabotaged agricultural production if they have to continue to live from hand to mouth?"
A Saudi newspaper said the kingdom will never give up its principles to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union or Red China. AI-Medina said: "We are an Islamic nation striving to deepen religious values and morals everywhere. The Soviet Union, Red China and their satellites are endeavoring to destroy religion and annihilate religious nations."
Analyzing Teng Hsiao-ping's "conciliatory offer of autonomy to Taiwan," Fox Butterfield of the New York Times said the move appears to be another Communist united front tactic.
Although the regime in Peiping is trying to develop a formal legal system, it is not about to establish the rule of law in any real sense, said Professor Jerome Cohen of the Harvard University Law School.
More than 600 Red Chinese diplomats and advisers prepared for a sea evacuation from Thailand after fleeing Cambodia.
The Red Chinese press drew attention to the poverty of the peasants and the harmful effects of the contradictory movements launched in the Red Chinese countryside since 1959.
Cambodia's vice premier and foreign minister, Ieng Sary, arrived in Peiping 24 hours after fleeing his battle-scarred country.
Red China's press adopted the opinion of Liu Shao-chi that the "great leap forward" launched by Mao Tse-tung in 1958 was a "great leap backward" in development.
JANUARY 13 - Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, in a recent note to Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti, warned that any sale of Italian arms to Red China would be a "cause of conflict" between the Soviet Union and Italy.
U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming said Soviet leaders seem to expect frequent border skirmishes with Red China "for some time to come." Wallop, one of six Republican senators who returned to the United States after four days in tile Soviet Union, said the Soviets fear nuclear war with Red China.
JANUARY 14 - Some 70,000 mainland Chinese from all provinces have swarmed into Peiping to demand democracy, human rights and a basic livelihood, Kyodo news service reported.
A hundred angry Chinese mainland peasants shouting "we're tired of being hungry" and "down with oppression" tried to storm the residence of Hua Kuo-feng and air their grievances to him.
Three young Chinese mainland political prisoners known by their joint pseudonym of Li Yi-chih have been released on instructions of the Communist party central committee, a Peiping source said.
Police in Peiping have passed from persuasion to dissuasion in efforts to resolve the growing problem of traffic. Tickets for violations of traffic regulations, including those committed by pedestrians and especially by cyclists, are being issued with greater severity.
A demonstration .by a group of raggedly dressed people from different parts of the China mainland to seek redress for grievances from leaders in Peiping faded away. The demonstrators, a handful of whom spent the night huddled together against the bitter cold at the main entrance to the compound where Red China's leaders live, had been calling for such basic rights as food and work. They wanted to present their case to Teng Hsiao-ping.
JANUARY 15 - Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal denied Saudi Arabia had made contact with the Soviet Union or Red China to seek diplomatic relations.
A recent investment analysis shows there is great danger for foreign companies investing in Red China. The study conducted by Drexel Burnham Lambert, investment analysts and money managers, warned that political upheavals of the past may repeat themselves. It said the risk is high for companies investing directly in Red China because they must supply capital in addition to know-how.
President Carter sent to the Senate the nomination of Leonard Woodcock to be the first U.S. ambassador to Red China. Woodcock, former president of the United Auto Workers Union, served as head of the U.S. liaison office in Peiping from June, 1977, and played an important role in negotiating the agreement on diplomatic recognition.
U.S. officials estimated that exports to Red China could total $10 billion over the next five years, considerably less than trade with Taiwan. They cautioned U.S. businessmen that it would be a mistake to expect explosive growth in trade with Red China as a result of "normalization of relations." Red China could have problems paying for massive imports of U.S. goods because of the shortage of foreign exchange, they said.