Chinese Communist "premier" Chou En-lai may visit the United States after Washington and Peiping establish liaison offices in each other's capitals, Peiping diplomatic sources said.
President Nixon appointed veteran diplomat David Bruce as head of the U.S. liaison office in Peiping. Bruce is a former U.S. ambassador to Britain, West Germany and France and served as chief delegate to the Paris peace talks. He was recalled from retirement.
MARCH 17 - Peiping placed an order for a large number of Rolls-Royce aircraft engines, the chairman of Rolls-Royce, Sir Kenneth Keith, said on his return from Peiping.
South Korea's opposition New Democratic Party called on the Seoul government to study the possibility of improving relations with Peiping.
Peiping is tightening control over racial minorities, particularly in Sinkiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia through kinsmen, the Central News Agency reported from Hongkong. The report said Peiping was training youths of ethnic minorities to work as regional party representatives and weaken resistance.
MARCH 18 – Peiping appeared at the Leipzig Fair, traditional marketplace for Communist-capitalist trade, for the first time since East Germany closed out Chinese Communist representation seven years ago.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra arrived in Peiping for a five-concert tour.
MARCH 19 - Peiping drastically cut supplies of livestock and other foodstuffs to Hongkong. Prices in the colony soared. Supplies of vegetables were down 31 per cent.
Peiping has set up an anti-missile early warning system against any pre-emptive Soviet strike, Western defense experts said.
The Republic of China's chief representative in Japan warned that a civil aviation agreement between Tokyo and Peiping could "seriously affect" Japan Air Lines flights to Taiwan. Mah Soo-lay, head of the Tokyo office of the East Asian Association of Taipei, gave the warning during a meeting with leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Peiping wanted Japan to agree to ban China Airline planes from flying to Japan.
A six-man delegation of editors and officials of Peiping's state-run press and information services left for a tour of Britain, West Germany and Italy.
MARCH 20 - Combined production of soybeans, groundnuts, cottonseed, and rapeseed on the Chinese mainland dropped further below the 1971 level than indicated earlier, according to estimates of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Peiping's 1972 soybean production was placed at 6.3 million metric tons, 200,000 tons less than previously forecast and 400,000 tons below estimated 1971 output.
Groundnut production was revised to 2.4 million tons, 160,000 tons less than anticipated and 180,000 tons below the 1971 crop. The 1972 crop of rapeseed was estimated at 1 million tons, up 170,000 tons from the 1971 level. Cottonseed output was estimated at 2.75 million tons, down about 465,000 tons from 1971.
Nine members of a fishermen's commune on Hainan Island, who fled to Thailand on a small boat, arrived in Taipei for resettlement. They were headed by 72-year-old au Chuan-li. They described themselves as "lucky ones" among 700 million Chinese people who long for freedom and early return of the government of the Republic of China.
Peiping called on the U.N. Security Council to get the United States out of the Panama Canal Zone and the Guantanamo military base in Cuba. Chinese Communist "representative" Huang Hua also supported the claim of a number of Latin American nations to a 200-mile limit at sea.
MARCH 21 - Chinese Communist agents have been infiltrating the United States through Canada, according to Frank Faso and Paul Meskil of the New York Daily News. On the basis of a secret FBI report, the two reporters wrote that Peiping had been sending agents under cover of the Hongkong Seamen's Union.
HKSU places Communist seamen on Western ships for purposes of sabotage and infiltration of free countries, the story said. Former members of the Red Guards trained in guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics are included. They have helped organize street gangs in New York's Chinatown.
Peiping said the United States and Soviet Union "are out to preserve their position as fishing overlords" and that the Soviet Union "is a greedy pillager of the world's fishery resources."
MARCH 22 - The Thai government is watching closely the activities and operations of 46,000 Chinese Communist engineering troops constructing strategic roads toward the Thai border, Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn said. Intelligence reports indicated the Communists were building roads in Laos bordering Chiang Rai Province of northern Thailand.
The Soviet Union has increased its armed forces along the China frontier, the newspaper Le Monde said in a report from Inner Mongolia. Le Monde said: "Lately, the (Red) Chinese have learned that Moscow has completed the construction of five new storage areas for tactical nuclear weapons along the frontier. The Soviet Union has 19 hard silos which are shielded from (Red) Chinese retaliation. Even if there is no nuclear war, a conventional conflict may erupt."
The Central News Agency in Taipei reported that war clouds were casting their shadows over north and northwestern China, where the Communists are digging underground shelters and conducting air defense exercises. The report said air defense exercises are held frequently in Heilungkiang, Liaoning, Kirin, Inner Mongolia, Kansu, Shensi and Sinkiang, all along the border with the Soviet Union, and Mongolia.
John Roderick reported from Hongkong that Chou En-lai has dropped out of the public eye. "He may be taking a holiday. He could be ill, or have decided to sharply cut back his activities," the AP report said.
MARCH 23 - A Chinese Communist airliner flew into Japan for the first time. The Soviet-built Ilushin IL-62 jetliner spent a few hours at Haneda airport, then returned to Shanghai. It carried a crew of 12.
The Soviet magazine Novoye Vremya (New Times) said Peiping was sparing no effort to draw Japan into its camp and undermine Soviet-Japanese relations.
In another report on the activities of Peiping agents in New York City, Frank Faso and Paul Meskil of the New York Daily News told the story of Kwa Lin, a Hongkong hatchet man who littered New York's Chinatown with corpses. He used a score of aliases and worked as a seaman and oilier, in restaurants as a cook and dishwasher, and in offices and shops.
MARCH 24 - Components for Rolls-Royce aircraft engines may soon be manufactured under license on the Chinese mainland, British newspapers reported. An assembly plant eventually may be established.
Foreign correspondents in Peiping received an invitation from Chou En-lai to attend a dinner in honor of Ahmadou Ahidjo, president of Cameroon.
Western diplomatic sources in Paris tipped Huang Chen, 66, Peiping's outgoing "ambassador" to France, as the first head of Peiping's mission in the United States.
MARCH 25 - The Chinese Communist Party magazine Red Flag charged "capitalism" was being restored on the Chinese mainland. The restoration of "capitalism" has seriously affected Peiping's "collective economy," the periodical said. "Under the instigation of the class enemies, capitalistic influences in the community have become rampant, giving rise to wrong crazes, destroying the collective economy and halting the revolution and production," Red Flag asserted.
Cameroon President Ahmadou Ahidjo flew into Peiping to be met by Chou En-lai, "vice premier" Li Hsien-nien and "foreign minister" Chi Peng-fei.
Appeasement of the Chinese Communists could lead the world into a new dark age, said Dr. Robert Morris, chancellor of the University of Plano, Texas. Dr. Morris called for increased mass media coverage of the flight of Chinese refugees to Hongkong.
The Japanese Export-Import Bank is expected to announce a decision to offer financing for vinylon plant sales to Peiping, Tokyo reports said.
MARCH 26 - Republic of China Ambassador to the United States James C. H. Shen said Peiping is a weak regime hiding behind a facade of stability. "Even within its own ranks, the Communist Party is disastrously rent by feuds and purges," he said. "Was there ever a government that left the posts of the chief executive, the defense minister, chief of the general staff and half the positions of the central committee of the ruling party vacant for two, three or four years? "
Mainland youths have turned against Mao Tse-tung, a former Red Guard said. Lin Yi, 23, who traveled to many places on the mainland during the "cultural revolution," swam to Kinmen (Quemoy) from Amoy. Youths sent to the countryside lead the lives of slaves, he said. Because "re-education" is indefinite, rusticated youths have adopted measures of passive resistance. Many pretend illness. Others try to slip back to their homes. Bolder spirits try to escape.
Red Flag magazine analyzed the youth situation and found: (1) Conflict between individual aspirations and the requirement of "red and specialization" (red means implicit faith in Communism.) (2) Conflict between education and employment on the one hand and rustication on the other. (3) Incompatibility between intellectual life and political indoctrination. (4) Disturbing thoughts of love and marriage against the backdrop of cold reality. (5) Rampancy of anarchist thoughts.
An estimated 60 million youths are toiling in the countryside under Mao's "re-education" program.
Chinese Communist "charge d'affaires" Shih Chiao arrived in Wellington with eight members of an advance party to establish an "embassy."
President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon met with Chou En-lai. Chou was accompanied by Lo Hsu, Chi Tsung-hua and Cha Ching-tien.
MARCH 27 - Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, told the Senate Military Appropriations Subcommittee that Chinese Communist missiles soon will pose a threat to the heartland of the Soviet Union. Before the end of the 1970s, he said Peiping's missiles will be capable of reaching almost any point in the United States.
Japan will stand firm against pressures from Peiping regarding the air agreement between Taipei and Tokyo, Masato Kawazoe, publisher of the Kyukoku Jiho, said in Taipei. Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira regards the agreement as a private accord between two airlines, Kawazoe said. Japan Air Lines will insist on continuing its lucrative nights to Taipei, he added. Haneda International Airport may schedule carefully separated arrivals for China Airline nights and those from Peiping, Kawazoe said.
The Maoist regime heaped more accusations on deposed "defense minister" Lin Piao, charging him with Soviet revisionism. Intelligence sources in Taipei disclosed that the CCP authorities distributed more secret documents denouncing Mao's former "closest comrade" 18 months after his downfall.
These were major accusations hurled at Lin: Advocating reconciliation with the Soviet Union and hostility toward the United States and Japan. Free competition in agriculture and industry in imitation of Soviet revisionism. Attempting to seize Chou En-lai for public trial during the "cultural revolution."
Chou En-lai said personnel would be dispatched to the Chinese Communist liaison office in Washington in April.
Peiping's first "ambassador" to Japan, Chen Chu, arrived in Tokyo under the eye of 2,000 riot police. The 56-year-old Chen was aboard a special direct flight from Shanghai. He was accompanied by a party of 11.
MARCH 28 - Reuters reported Peiping may be nearing operational deployment of a missile that could reach deep into the Soviet Union.
Peter Walker, British secretary of state for trade and industry, said Britain and Peiping had agreed to an extensive exchange of trade missions over the next two years.
Peiping announced the ending of the remnant of its aid program to Mongolia, a member of the Soviet camp. The move indicated the deteriorating relationship between Peiping and Moscow. There has been a Soviet troop build-up in Mongolia.
Chou En-lai expressed satisfaction with the accord between North Vietnam and the United States on the release of U.S. prisoners of war and the withdrawal of remaining U.S. troops from South Vietnam.
MARCH 29 - Peiping is embarked on a policy of "containment of the Soviet Union," the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported.
More than 60 million young men and women are working as slave-laborers in Red China, according to Taipei intelligence sources. Twenty million were banished to the countryside for "re-education" under Mao Tse-tung's directive of December, 1968. Red Flag said youths "have frequently violated work discipline."
The first "Communist Youth League Congress" was convened in Peiping since Red Guards seized the political initiative from the CCP's junior branch during the "cultural revolution." It was the 6th congress in the CYL's history and the first since 1964.
MARCH 30 - Chou En-lai is more dangerous than Mao Tse-tung, a Hongkong Standard book review of "Heirs Apparent" said. "His smiles are carefully calculated," said the book by Dennis Bloodworth and his wife Ching Ping.
Peiping announced the appointment of former "ambassador" to France Huang Chen as "chief' of the liaison office in Washington. Han Hsu will be "deputy chief" Huang served as "ambassador" in Paris from 1964. After President Richard Nixon visited Peiping in February, 1972, Huang held follow-up consultations in Paris with U.S. Ambassador Arthur K. Watson. Han has been director of the Chinese Communist "foreign ministry protocol department" since November, 1971.
Peiping called for a new convention on maritime law, claiming the oceans were being used by the Soviet and American superpowers for "aggression, threat and plunder." Addressing a United Nations committee preparing the groundwork for the third international conference on the law of the sea to open in November, "ambassador" Shen Wei-liang said agreements concluded 15 years ago in Geneva were outmoded.
The United States will become Peiping's second largest trading partner, next to Japan, by the end of next year, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Marshall Green said. Green said U.S. sales to the Chinese mainland this year probably would total between US$300 and $400 million, roughly double last year's figure.
MARCH 31 - Taipei observers interpreted Huang Chen's assignment to Washington as indication that Peiping is shifting the emphasis of its smiling diplomacy from Europe to the United States. They said Peiping no longer regards France as its only European friend. Paris is showing interest in the Moscow-sponsored European peace conference. The Chinese Communists may make London the center of their peace offensive in Europe, these observers said.
A five-man advance group headed by Alfred Jenkins left for Peiping via Hongkong to prepare for the opening of the American liaison mission. Jenkins, chief of the Asian Communist affairs section of the State Department, was accompanied by Charles Freeman, the department's China desk officer, who speaks and writes Chinese. Jenkins and John Holdridge, a member of President Nixon's National Security Council, will share the title of deputy chief of mission.
The Soviet peace program has made headway everywhere except on the Chinese mainland, where Peiping's leaders continue their chauvinist, anti-Soviet policy, Pravda said. The Soviet Union has no territorial or economic claims against Peiping, the paper said.
Japanese specialists on Red Chinese affairs said Peiping is trying to use Japan to prevent the Soviet Union from extending its influence in Asia and to isolate the Republic of China. The Chinese Communists also seek access to Japan's advanced technology and financial resources.
To counter the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communists made public their opposition to Japanese participation in development of oil and gas resources in Siberia.
APRIL 1 - Peiping said Moscow's revisionist policies have doomed the Soviet welfare plan. Russian promises to fill the domestic market with consumer goods were empty talk, the Chinese Communists said.
The Sunday Post Herald said members of the left-wing Hongkong Seaman's Union had organized a spy ring for political infiltration of the United States. Chinese Communist spies jump ship when they reach the United States.
The Chinese Communist regime has completed a luxury guest house in Peiping to further goals of smiling diplomacy, according to Taipei intelligence sources. The International Club is 10 minutes walk from the Peiping railway station. The three-story building has eight dining rooms, a 500-seat theater, conference rooms and exhibition hall. On the third floor are ballroom, reception room, billiards room, ping pong room, barbershop and baths. There are two gyms, tennis and badminton courts and swimming pools.
Japan's first ambassador to Peiping, Heishiro Ogawa, arrived by air from Canton. He was welcomed by Wang Hai-jung, "assistant minister of foreign affairs" and said to be the niece of Mao Tse-tung.
Radio Peiping said that since 1968 more than 300,000 educated youths of Peiping have gone to rural and border areas to "receive re-education" from workers and poor and lower middle peasants. In the same period, about 160,000 youths of Peiping have joined the "Communist Youth League" and 20,000 have become Chinese Communist Party members.
APRIL 2 - Washington-Peiping relations will enter a "new phase" with establishment of liaison offices, Ambassador James Shen of the Republic of China said. He said Chinese diplomats stationed in the United States will redouble their vigilance to cope with the new situation. Shen said there had been "no fundamental change" in Taipei-Washington ties during the last year. On the contrary, he said, there has been progress in economic, trade and military relations.
A 12-man Japanese steel mission left for Peiping for talks on a new steel trade agreement. Japan has agreed to sell nearly one million tons of steel products to Peiping in the first half of this year. Peiping seeks another million tons in the latter half of 1972.
Japan and Peiping agreed in principle to lay an underseas cable by 1975 and share the cost of US$19,230,000 equally.
APRIL 3 - Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka invited Chou En-lai to visit Japan.
Peiping joined the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Peiping announced five principles for seabed exploration, declaring that coastal states must have complete jurisdiction over their territorial waters with an international authority governing marine activities elsewhere.
APRIL 4 - Agriculture on the Chinese mainland is in deep trouble for which bad weather is only partly responsible. Since January, 1972, the Peiping regime has held 11 national agricultural conferences and nearly 30 conferences at the provincial level. Stumbling blocks to increased food production include the shortage of arable land, shortage of fertilizers, lack of enthusiasm among cadres and passive resistance among farmers.
Drought has hit 12 provinces and regions in northern China, while a prolonged rainy season has ruined crops in many southern provinces. Areas affected include Hopei, Shansi, Shantung, Honan, Shensi, Kansu, Sinkiang, Liaoning, Heilung-kiang, Szechwan, Peiping, Tientsin, Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhwei, Hunan, Hupei, Kiangsi, Kwangtung and Fukien.
Food production was down 4 per cent last year and another decrease is in prospect this year.
APRIL 5 - Peiping's first "ambassador" to Japan, Chen Chu, presented his credentials to Emperor Hirohito.
A six-man U.S. advance liaison party led by Alfred Jenkins arrived in Peiping by air.
Attempting to extract a "confession" and military information, the Chinese Communists tortured U.S. Air Force Maj. Philip E. Smith at prisons in Canton and Peiping. He was held for 7-1/2 years after straying over the mainland in a combat mission against North Vietnam. Maj. Smith said he was physically abused and mentally harassed.
Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin said tension with Peiping is unsolved. "Talks have now been going on for four years in Peiping," he said, "but so far have yielded no positive results and there is no ground to say the talks have moved a long way forward."
APRIL 6 - Peiping sources said the Chinese Communists wanted Central News Agency correspondents withdrawn from Washington before allowing correspondents of U.S. news agencies to be stationed in Peiping and sending "New China News Agency" representatives to the U.S. capital.
APRIL 7 - Another massive refugee exodus seemed in the making on the Chinese mainland. More than 400 fled to Hongkong in March. In the first four days of April, more than 100 refugees reached the Crown Colony. For every known arrival, four or five others arrive undetected.
APRIL 9 - Chou En-lai accepted in principle an invitation to visit Japan. He said he hoped "foreign minister" Chi Peng-fei would precede him. Japanese "ambassador" Heishiro Ogawa called on Chou in Peiping.
Telex service between Peiping and Hongkong was opened.
Chinese Communists "mobilized" more than the usual number of peasants for spring farming work and allied operations. Large numbers of urban workers, soldiers and Communist Party officials were sent to the countryside to aid in the spring campaign.
A group of 30 diplomats in Peiping took a train trip through northeastern China. Soviet and Eastern European diplomats except those of Yugoslavia and Romania boycotted the trip.
APRIL 11 - Peiping will put into service this year missiles capable of delivering hydrogen bombs 1,860 miles, the French armed forces magazine said. The Defense Ministry publication said the first Chinese Communist intercontinental ballistic missiles will be ready in 1975.
APRIL 12 - Chinese Communist "vice premier'" Teng Hsiao-ping, former close associate of disgraced "head of state" Liu Shao-chi, reappeared at a banquet in Peiping for the first time since his downfall at the outset of the "cultural revolution." The 69-year-old Teng was "secretary-general" of the Chinese Communist Party before 1966.
Peiping used the annual meeting of the U.N. Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East for a bitter denunciation of the Soviet Union, then staged a protest walkout against the presence of Cambodia. Chinese Communist "chief delegate" An Chi-yuan castigated the Russians for "menacing the peace and security" of the Asian region.
Peiping criticized India for what it called the forcible takeover of Sikkim.
The Chinese mainland is still far behind in the industrial field, said Charles John Small, the Canadian "ambassador" to Peiping. "Chou En-lai is running the country," he added.
APRIL 13 - Sixteen refugees from the Chinese mainland sought help from a British army construction camp in Hongkong when pro-Communist villagers tried to recapture and return them.
Chinese Communist delegates boycotted a speech by South Korea at the Economic Conference for Asia and the Far East. They sat and listened to criticism by the Soviet Union.
Gerd Ruge, representing Die Welt (World) of Hamburg in Peiping, said the Soviet Union recently increased its troop strength on the Chinese mainland borders by two to three divisions pulled out of East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Chou En-lai said the United States must stop bombing Cambodia. He was speaking at a banquet for exiled leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who claimed to have visited guerrilla-controlled areas of Cambodia.
Peiping reiterated support for North Korea's reunification efforts.
Peiping has become a major buyer of Malaysian rubber. Purchases totaled 28,520 tons in January and February compared with 12,229 tons in the same period last year.
APRIL 14 - The Chinese Communists have changed their line on the United States-Japan Security Treaty, Roderick MacFarquhar, a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, said. The treaty is now regarded as defensive in nature, he said, because of Chinese Communist fears of a Russo-Japanese link-up.
Peiping delegates absented themselves from the Tokyo ECAFE meeting during a speech by South Vietnam.
Wu Chun-tsai, director of the Kuomintang Department of Culture and Information, said the reappearance of Teng Hsiao-ping indicates the power struggle is passing out of Mao Tse-tung's hands. Mao and Chou En-lai are reinstating purged leaders to relieve internal unrest, Wu said.
Chinese Communist troops are being marshaled along the Tibet-Sikkim border, CNA reported from Hongkong.
APRIL 15 - Pravda praised the United States for its "deepening" cooperation with Russia and attacked Peiping as an international troublemaker.
Peiping will export crude oil for the first time, it was learned at the Canton trade fair.
Han Hsu left Peiping with two aides to open Peiping's liaison office in the United States. Teng Hsiacr-ping, the once disgraced former "secretary-general" of the Chinese Communist Party, saw Han off. He was seen chatting with "vice-premier" Li Hsien-nien.