The Baltimore Sun (7/24/78) published this article by Stanley Karnow from Washington:
"Evidence emerging from (Red) China indicates a growing body of literary protest against the Communists that is every bit as critical of the regime as the intellectual dissident movements in the Soviet Union and East Europe.
"Unfortunately, Americans who wax indignant over the persecution of Soviet bloc dissenters tend to pay insufficient attention to similar violations of civil liberties in (Red) China.
"Indeed, some of the most outspoken supporters of the demand for human rights behind the Iron Curtain seem to be curiously silent when the same subject is raised about (Red) China.
"This is not to suggest, as Senator Barry Goldwater and other members of Congress have, that the establishment of formal U.S. relations with the (Chinese Communists) ought to be predicated on its conversion to New England town hall democracy. If approval were the criterion for diplomatic links with foreign countries, we would have ties with only a few.
"But, in my view, Americans who are now visiting (Red) China in increasing numbers should be aware that a good deal of dissatisfaction lies beneath the surface of that land. Its expression is just beginning to seep out.
"Some of the most fascinating insights into this discontent is contained in a new book, 'The Execution of Mayor Yin,' by Chen Jo-hsi, a Chinese woman writer who was allowed to leave (Red) China in 1973 and currently lives in Canada.
"The book is a collection of short stories, but her fictionalized approach is more realistic than a journalistic account would be in depicting the profound tensions that nag a society that has pretended to be the beacon light for all mankind.
"As a veteran of former President Nixon's spectacular trip to (Red) China six years ago, I was especially intrigued by the story entitled 'Nixon's Press Corps,' which tells of the frantic preparations that took place in Nanking in the expectation that the American contingent would stop there.
"Months in advance, Communist party officials went to great pains to explain why, after years of denouncing U.S. imperialism, the Peking regime was inviting the American President to (Red) China. Officials also briefed the population on the 'appropriate answers' to be given to American newsmen who might pose questions. Dubious citizens were under instructions to remain at home during the event.
"The drama in the story revolves around the refusal of one woman, obviously the author, to take down the bamboo laundry rack that the (mainland) Chinese put outside their windows and which the authorities considered an eyesore.
"The Communist officials exert enormous pressure on her, but she stands firm, an individual challenging the power. In the end, the American reporters bypass Nanking. The petty bureaucratic fuss had been unnecessary and demeaning.
"Another story concerns the fear of a couple whose four-year-old daughter is accused by a member of her nursery school class of having referred to Mao Tse-tung as 'a rotten egg.' The school authorities, alarmed by this 'reactionary slogan,' send investigators to interrogate the child on tape.
" 'Only four years old' the author writes, 'and already she had all of this recorded against her. The tape would be filed away, and if in the future she did anything out of line it would be brought out to prove that she had been reactionary since childhood.'
"The title story focuses on an episode during the Cultural Revolution, when a group of young Red Guards determined to demonstrate their zeal, make a scapegoat of a local mayor by condemning him to death.
"But the mayor, a loyal Communist, disconcerts the firing squad by shouting, 'Long Live Chairman Mao!' Finally, a Red Guard stuffs a handkerchief into his mouth, and the executioners shoot. There is feeling of shame and disgust sarcastically summed up by the narrator's quotation of a Mao axiom: 'People die all the time.'
"Chen Jo-hsi was lucky to have been able to get out of (Red) China to publish her stories. But inside (Red) China, stories of that kind could never be printed, and dissident literature is often passed around in the form of unpublished manuscripts.
"Fox Butterfield, the New York Times correspondent in Hong Kong, reported not long ago on one of these underground novels, 'The Siang River Runs Red,' which is about a provincial Communist official and his Red Guard son.
"The son denounces his father during the Cultural Revolution. But the Red Guards ·are soon repressed for their excesses. The father is promoted after a brief period of harassment, and the disillusioned son drowns himself in the Siang River.
"Another surreptitious novel circulating inside (Red) China is about a woman worker who becomes a parttime prostitute and picks up a client who turns out to be the Communist party boss in her factory. Her revulsion for the Communists is reflected in the contrast between his sexual behavior and his pretentious conduct in public.
"Oddly enough, much of this covert literature is being written by former Red Guards, thousands of whom have been sent out to remote rural areas as punishment for the havoc they caused during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao urged them to overthrow his Communist party rivals and then cracked down on them for going too far.
"Many of these writers therefore criticize the regime from a left-wing viewpoint, alleging that it has betrayed the revolution. Many are also bitter at having been used by Mao.
"The present Chinese (Communist) government under Mao's successor, Hua Kuo-feng, has been displaying relative flexibility, mainly in order to encourage economic production. But it has not hesitated to crack down on dissenters when they are uncovered.
"Some months ago, for example, a well known Chinese (Communist) journalist, Chan Lung, was convicted on charges of writing an unauthorized historical novel and was sentenced to six years in a 're-education' camp.
"As far as I know, there have been no outcries in the United States against his detention or that of others like him in (Red) China. Perhaps, if American correspondents are permitted to be based in Peking as they are in Moscow, the double moral standard may end." (Full text)
New York Times - Land of paranoia
The New York Times (7/21/78) published this article by Walter Goodman: "No twentieth-century despotism has been without its admirers in this country. Visitors have returned from Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, even Idi Amin's Uganda, with reports of millennial advances. If a properly inclined journalist or movie actress could get into Cambodia today and get out again, we would doubtless be treated to descriptions of new wonders of social organization.
"In recent years, numerous such accounts have emerged from the (Chinese Communist regime). Whatever turmoil swept the land, some visitors managed to find that the Chinese (Communists) were whistling as they worked. In these portraits, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a kind of acupuncture prescribed by Professor Mao to get the juices flowing. The villainous bunch that would later be exposed as the Gang of Four was at the time merely a benevolent and protective order.
"What actually happened during the Cultural Revolution is not altogether clear - except that it produced nothing usually connected with the word culture. The wall posters on which the (mainland) Chinese and their watchers rely for news are written with broad brush strokes; all we know for sure now is that the revolution's therapists are enjoying some therapy of their own.
"So we are fortunate to have 'The Execution of Mayor Yin,' a book of short stories set in (Red) China during Cultural Revolution; they bear the mark of reality. Their author, Chen Jo-hsi, was born on Taiwan in 1938 and attended universities in this country. In 1966, she and her husband went to mainland China, intending to settle there as dedicated Maoists. They arrived just as the Cultural Revolution was beginning, and lived through it. In 1973, the couple were permitted to leave, along with their two children, born in (Red) China.
"The stories of Chen Jo-hsi, written with controlled anger, tell of the Cultural Revolution's crushing effects on individuals: the old soldier who cannot keep up with the inexplicable twists of the party line and is executed crying, 'Long Live Chairman Mao!'; the three-year-old girl who is taken from her bed for a nighttime interrogation because she has been heard to chant, 'Chairman Mao is a rotten egg'; the woman who is not permitted to marry a scientist because her father was a landlord and her former husband the son of a warlord.
"These tales portray a land where a mix of misty ideology, malicious gossip and brute power destroys love, friendship and trust; where the clumsy hand of the state comes between neighbors, between lovers, between parents and children. Paranoia is in the saddle and it rides mankind.
"In an elegant introduction, Simon Leys, whose own book, 'Chinese Shadows,' is a potent remedy for the effusions of U.S.-(Red) Chinese Friendship Societies, emphasizes that to treat these stories as merely anti-Maoist essays does them a disservice; they are well-crafted works of considerable sensibility created out of deeply felt experiences.
"But the politics is there. 'The Big Fish,' for example, tells of an old man who buys an unusually tempting fish for his ailing wife but is forced to surrender it so that it can be put on display for a foreign journalist.
"The theme of this collection, a major theme of our century, is the clash between the cravings of ordinary folk for ordinary pleasures and the implacable intrusions of a totalitarian regime. One must hope that the picture given here is now changed, or changing; but (Red) China remains shut to full view. What we do hear is not encouraging. Amnesty International notes that Li Cheng-tian, a (mainland) Chinese writer arrested in 1974 for denouncing repression, remains in prison. If he and others were permitted to speak, then we might be better able to tell one sort of fish story from another." (Full text)
Christian Sc. Monitor - Dangerous business
The Christian Science Monitor (7/18/78) published this article by David F. Salisbury from Los Angeles: " 'Playing the (Red) China card' is a dangerous diplomatic gambit, Ronald Reagan warned in a speech here July 17.
"In an address to the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association after his return from Taiwan, Mr. Reagan planted the seeds of a subject that he may attempt to work into a major campaign issue for the 1980 presidential election.
"This issue is the normalization of U.S. relations with the (Peiping regime). In recent months President Carter has moved toward closer ties with Peking. When Mr. Carter's security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, visited there in May, he carried the message that the United States would treat sympathetically the Communist Chinese leaders' desire to buy European military equipment and advanced U.S. technology. Since then, the sale of a geological scanning device previously denied because of its potential military use had been OK'd by the Carter administration.
"Although Mr. Reagan said that America's friendship with the people of the Chinese mainland can be developed 'with care,' he argued that this can only be done slowly and without jeopardizing this country's close ties with Taiwan.
"Advocates of 'normalization now,' a policy that would necessarily include acceding to Peking's demands that the United States break all diplomatic and military ties with the Republic of China, are in the minority. But because of their influence in the news media and in Washington they wield considerable power, he warned.
"The issue, as Mr. Reagan portrayed it, comes down to a choice between a free and prosperous society, which has proved itself a friend, and Peking, which has a history of repression and is an unknown quantity.
"Mr. Reagan speculated that should the United States break relations with the Republic of China, the Communist leaders would either retake the island militarily - arguing that it is an internal matter - or destroy Taiwan's economic prosperity by pressuring Japan to halt trade with it.
"'Mr. Brzezinski is impatient to "play the (Red) China card," as the saying goes, hoping to use a Washington-Peking alliance as leverage against the Russians,' Mr. Reagan said. 'That could be a very risky business.'
"Formal ties with (Red) China might prompt the U.S.S.R. to insist on U.S. concessions in arms-limitation talks on grounds that the U.S. and (Red) China are ganging up against the Soviets. At worst, it might prompt the Soviet Union to attack (Red) China before it has fully industrialized.
"'If we had an alliance with the Communist regime in Peking, such a situation would present us with very grim alternatives. If we move to help them, we might be drawn into direct confrontation with the Russians. If we failed to respond, it would show the Russians - and the world - that they can do as they wish virtually anywhere,' Mr. Reagan concluded.
"Because recent polls indicate that a majority in the U.S. does not favor sacrificing Taiwan for closer ties with Peking, the Republican leader feels, he said, that normalization efforts will be held in check until after this year's elections. But then:
"'Depending upon the out come of that election ... I think we can expect the advocates of normalization to begin raising the same arguments again...
"'Now that President Carter has hired a full-time public relations man in the White House, would it surprise you if they began thinking of the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Shanghai communique, next February, as a time to make the final move to normalization?' he asked." (Full text)
Wanderer - Oriental fortress
The Wanderer (7/6/78) published this article by Paul Scott:
"The global strategic military importance of this island-nation of 17,000,000 - the Republic of Free China - becomes apparent from its first sighting from the air.
"Located approximately 90 miles off the southern coast of mainland China and 1,200 miles from the southern tip of Japan, Taiwan rises out of the blue waters of the Western Pacific as an oriental fortress, whose control could hold the balance of naval and air power in this vital region of the world.
''The huge deep water port and massive ship building and repair facilities that spread out before one's view at Kaohsiung at the southern end of this 300-mile long island, can handle and service the Far East fleets of either the U.S. or the Soviet Union with ease.
"This growing military capability along with the island's new industrial might makes Taiwan the major strategic prize in the Western Pacific and a natural naval-air base which both Moscow and Peking would like to control and use against the U.S.
"Japan also has a big stake in Taiwan's future allegiance as this island bastion lies across the sea path of that industrial power's oil life line from the Middle East.
"With the Soviet's fast growing Far East fleet now dominating the Sea of Japan, a Moscow controlled naval base in Taiwan would outflank U.S. naval installations in Japan and the Philippines and force a withdrawal of the U.S. Seventh fleet from the Western Pacific.
"The military significance of this 'unsinkable aircraft carrier,' as General Douglas Macarthur once called the island, comes through loud and clear when one walks through the $1 billion facilities of the China Ship Building Company and associated industrial projects surrounding Kaohsiung port.
"The giant drydock here is the second largest in the world and can handle vessels of more than one million tons, or larger than any now afloat or under construction. No U.S. ship building facility can come close to matching it. The dry dock's size - 950 meters long, 92 meters wide, and an average of 14 meters deep - is exceeded only by one at Nagasaki, Japan.
"Twenty-three vessels of all sizes, including a 450,000 ton supertanker, are under construction and the yards facilities are still not being used to capacity. As the China Shipbuilding Corporation's Vice President, Lin Hung-chun, a graduate of MIT at Cambridge, Mass., reported in a walking interview:
"'Our harbor and ship repair facilities can handle the entire U.S. Seventh Fleet including the repair of half of the fleet at the same time. Communist China has nothing like this. Should these facilities ever be taken over by Peking, the Communists would be able to build a first class Navy within 10 years.'
"Adjoining these ship building and repair facilities is the China Steel Corporation with a capacity for turning out more than 1.5 million tons of steel a year. Plans already are underway to double the company's capacity by 1983.
"This expanding industrial-military complex is part of the Republic of Free China's six year economic development program which includes 10 major projects and in which the new government of President Chiang Ching-kuo is investing more than $7 billion.
"The grand design provides for an industrial base unmatched on the Asian mainland or elsewhere in the Far East except Japan. It includes a new airport, atomic power plants, a petrochemical industry, and two new deep water ports.
"When we last visited Taiwan in February, 1972 - the month former President Richard Nixon visited the Chinese mainland - the huge ship building-steel complex was a series of rice fields.
''The industrial miracle represents the vast change that has swept this region in the past six years and which has seen Nixon and Premier Chou En-lai, the other signer of the 'Shanghai Communique,' pass from the world political scene in disgrace and death.
"Leaders of the Republic of Free China view these developments as having undercut and invalidated the Nixon-Chou document that set the stage for the present U.S. policy of moving toward normalization of relations with Communist China.
"It is beyond the belief of these free Chinese leaders here on Taiwan that President Carter would ever pay the price Peking is demanding for normalization of relations - the cutting adrift of this industrial-naval base prize and long time ally.
"While they prepare their contingency plans for such a possibility, their policy is still one of trying to convince leaders in the U.S. to sell out the Republic of Free China would be against U.S. strategic interest and could lead to a new World War.
"Foreign policy officials here view this country's position today as that of Great Britain in the late 1940s following the fall of France to Hitler's military forces. They note that the U.S. supported the British then and is now linked to the Republic of Free China with a mutual security treaty.
"Their message to Americans is to come and see the miracle of freedom and industrial potential, which the U.S. helped to create, and compare it with what is taking place on the mainland 6f China. It is the number one success story of our post-World War II foreign aid program - and one that all Americans can be proud of. Instead of moving to cut ties with these free Chinese, the Carter Administration should be defending them and telling the world their remarkable story.
"When a trio of F-5 Freedom fighters suddenly appeared in the skies over our caravan of C-54 transport aircraft, one immediately sensed the continuing defense alert under which the 100,000 military-civilian residents of this offshore island bastion of the Republic of Free China have lived for nearly 30 years.
"Located at one point less than two and one-half miles from the mainland of China, Quemoy (called Kinmen by the Chinese) is some 150 nautical miles west of Taiwan (Formosa) and the most advanced defense base of the island's 17,000,000 citizens.
"Along with nearby Matsu, Quemoy serves as the Nationalists' forward lookout post for control of the strategic Taiwan straits and is a living symbol of the continuing Chinese civil war that most of the world chooses to ignore but soon must face up to again.
"Our caravan, which included three aircraft rather than the usual one arrival a day on Quemoy, apparently triggered the Red Chinese radar alarm system on the nearby mainland. Several Mig-21 reconnaissance and intercepter inquired what the increased air traffic was all about.
"While none of the opposing Jets tangled in the skies above, the emergency measures taken by the two military commands was a stark reminder that this cold war could go red hot at any time that Peking should decide to try to rid itself of this thorn in its side.
"The mainland Asian wars of Korea and Vietnam have come and gone while the tough defenders of Quemoy and Matsu, numbering less than 60,000, have since 1949 taken on and repulsed everything that the Chinese Communists have been able to throw at this island.
"From the lookout posts on Quemoy, one can see that the Republic of Free China has far better reasons for holding on to Quemoy and Matsu than simply to show the flag within sight of the mainland.
"The two island clusters, roughly at opposite ends of the Taiwan straits, provide ideal forward locations for a variety of psychological-warfare and intelligence gathering and espionage operations against the mainland.
"Early warning radar operates around the clock to alert Taiwan of any concentration of invasion ground forces or increased air and naval activities of the Chinese Communists in the Taiwan straits.
"The island garrison, protected by miles of hard-rock, underground bunkers, is the advance projection of one of the best trained 'small armies' in the world. It consists of 550,000 active duty personnel and nearly 2 million reservists on Taiwan.
"In 1972 when I last spent two days on the island, military officers were deeply upset over President Nixon's trip to Communist China and the signing of the Shanghai Communique which set up Taiwan and Quemoy and Matsu as likely sacrificial pawns in the game of big power politics and strategic relationships.
"Six years later Taiwan is still free and the strategic importance of Quemoy along with its fire power has doubled. The offshore island now helps defend an industrial-ship building complex second only to Japan in the Far East.
"Many of the same officers, on their second tour of duty here, are now concerned about President Carter's policy of moving toward normalization with Communist China and its implied abrogation of the U.S.1954 Mutual Defense Treaty with their country.
"Unchanged, however, is their determination and readiness to defend this outpost of freedom, come what may. It is this will to defend freedom that is as refreshing as the cool breeze that blows in from the Taiwan straits, and the force that makes one want to keep coming back to this offshore island." (Partial text)