Peiping radio took 70 minutes to read the list of the 2,198 persons on hand - the biggest attendance ever. Twenty-seven party and administration leaders were listed. The joint editorial in People's Daily, Red Flag and Liberation Army Daily emphasized unity, internal struggle, production and the movement against Confucius and Lin Piao. Nothing was said about the long-delayed fourth "people's congress".
London reports attributed to Western businessmen who visited Peiping recently said Mao suffered a severe stroke in late September and was no longer a factor in Chinese Communist affairs. Mao will be 81 years old in December.
With the power struggle between Chiang Ching, Mao's wife, and ailing Chou En-lai intensifying, an article in the Shanghai periodical, Study and Criticism, received more than passing attention. The mouthpiece of Chiang Ching's leftist faction of the Chinese Communist party strongly denounced "blind worship of foreign technology and machinery." Several foreign industrial exhibitions have been held in Peiping during the last year. In March, the regime bought a cold-rolling steel mill from West Germany for 500 million marks.
The article said that "some people" regard what is written in foreign documents as golden law and reject the reforms and creations of the masses because they did not originate abroad. Such "self-belittlement" is a return to the thinking of the past, the article said. As evidences of Chinese Communist modern accomplishment, the author took note of construction of 10,000-ton freighters (Taiwan is ready to build 450,000-ton tankers), the making of atomic bombs and the launching of a satellite.
"Self-belittlement is something of low taste," the article said. "The existence of this mentality is most harmful to socialist revolution and construction today. It seriously suppresses the socialist initiative of the masses, dissolves the revolutionary will to fight and causes many things which could have been done to be left undone."
Highlights of Chinese Communist and peripheral affairs in the period from August 16 to September 15 are presented in the following chronology:
AUGUST 16 - Chou En-lai's illness continues to prevent him from handling official duties, according to Komeito, one of Japan's major political parties. A party spokesman said Komeito (Clean Government) members who arrived in Peiping were received by Teng Hsiao-ping, who said Chou's poor health prevented him from appearing.
Two refugees were severely mauled by sharks when a group of eight was making their bid to escape to Hongkong from the mainland by swimming across Mirs Bay. Another who was among the group when they started out from the coast of Po An, Kwangtung was missing and believed to have drowned or been killed by the sharks.
AUGUST 17 - Street posters attacking heads of factories, communes and educational institutes were on display at Canton. There were repeated references to a massacre of July 16, 1968, alleged to have been ordered by former "armed forces chief of staff" Huang Yung-sheng.
AUGUST 18 - The campaign to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius will plunge the Chinese Communist economy into further disaster this year, according to mainland watchers in Taipei. "The Chinese Communists have been using the campaign to purge those in the production line who are indifferent to Maoist leadership," one said.
AUGUST 20 - George F. Kennan, long one of America's leading experts on Communism, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it is an illusion to believe the Peiping regime can become "a suitable ally or associate" of the U.S. in world affairs.
Hongkong leftwing newspapers launched a campaign against a European film entitled "The People's Liberation Army in Paris." They alleged that a small group of anti-Peiping elements was trying to show the film in an effort to "tarnish" the image of Red China.
AUGUST 21 - Peiping is "either holding or actively making preparations" for its fourth "people's congress," said Central News Agency of the Republic of China. The report, quoting intelligence sources in Hongkong, said the long-delayed congress probably will be held secretly somewhere in Central China. The sources said Mao Tse-tung and his wife, Chiang Ching, may have moved the seat of the congress from Peiping to Central China to avoid the attention of outsiders.
AUGUST 22 - Without having been called off or pressed to any obvious conclusion, the ideological campaign on the Chinese mainland appears to be idling. The campaign intensified from the start of the year until last month when it was overtaken by appeals for revolutionary unity and labor discipline. Ritualistic reference is still made to Confucius and the late Lin Piao, the ostensible targets of the movement, which has been presented as an attempt to revive the values and spirit of the "cultural revolution." But for six weeks little has been heard about the need for revolutionary mass criticism and struggle, which were demanded when the campaign was gaining momentum. On the contrary, party officials who earlier seemed to be taking the brunt of the attacks are now exhorted to exert their authority.
The Moscow-Peiping border talks have reached deadlock, Clare Hollingworth, the London Daily Telegraph correspondent in Peiping, reported.
AUGUST 23 - Nothing better illustrates Peiping's continuing political instability than the failure to elect a new legislature and fill cabinet posts vacant for years, Hongkong reports said. The convening of the fourth "people's congress" is almost six years overdue. At least three "cabinet" posts - and maybe more - are vacant. These include the important "ministries of defense and finance."
A commentary issued by the "New China News Agency" said the Soviet Union failed to realize targets for industrial production set in the five-year plan for the past two years. Plans for most of the major industrial products in 1972 were not accomplished, whereas in 1973, petroleum, cars, tractors, combine harvesters, textiles and leather shoes fell short of targets, the commentary said.
A young refugee from the mainland was fatally injured by sharks during his attempt to escape to Hongkong by swimming across Mirs Bay east of the New Territories. Along with ten other male and two female freedom swimmers, the 22-year-old youth managed to get ashore on one of the outlying islands with both legs badly mauled. He died on the way to the hospital.
AUGUST 24 - The Chinese Communist moribund wall poster campaign came to life again with the appearance of five new series of posters opposite the "city council" offices. All repeated well-worn themes and lacked the crowd-stopping quality of many earlier contributions.
Peiping is sending specially trained agents to engage in subversion against the Mongolian regime, East European sources claimed. The agents, it was said, are infiltrating in the guise of merchants to spread propaganda and ferret out military information.
AUGUST 27 - Likening Soviet party leader Leonid Brezhnev to Hitler, Peiping stepped up its anti-Soviet attacks with a new denunciation of Moscow's stand at the current law of the sea conference. An article in People's Daily called the Soviet position on the straits issue "utter non- sense." Moscow is seeking free passage through international straits for its warships. The article said, "Brezhnev resembles Hitler historically in many ways."
The Philippines government unveiled some details of an alleged arms smuggling plot linked to Chinese Communists. The Defense Department said it had arrested 36 persons - 11 described as "ranking Communist" officials and 25 others - in an operation codenamed "Seahawk" and linked with the disappearance into Chinese mainland last February of 12 Filipinos. One of the arrested men was identified as Manuel Chiongson, alias "Generoso Villasenor." The government said he was the Communist party's "project manager of the arms-smuggling vessel Donna Andrea II."
An estimated 25,000 refugees arrived in Hongkong in the seven-month period ended July 31, the Sing Tao Evening News reported. Refugees holding Communist "exit permits" were admitted through the Lo Wu border bridge at the rate of 3,000 a month. Refugees arrested by Hongkong police numbered 3,516. This does not include those not apprehended. Police estimate they catch only 1 of every 4 arrivals.
AUGUST 28 - For the second straight day, the Philippine martial law government revealed an internal Communist plot linked to Peiping. Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile announced the government had arrested 19 persons in connection with an "explosive movement" in which local Communists manufactured explosives "for sabotage and other anti-government operations."
The military strategy of Lin Piao has become the new target of the current campaign against him. The criticism has stripped off Lin Piao's disguise as an "all-victorious general" and a "military genius," NCNA said.
The Shanghai monthly review Studies and Criticisms has attacked those who consider that "the moon is rounder abroad" and that "the (Red) Chinese are a nation of incompetents." The review, which is considered "radical," criticized "certain people" who are struck down with an illness, the symptoms of which consist of "worshipping things foreign."
At least 111 bodies of refugees who drowned while swimming to Hongkong from the Chinese mainland have been recovered by Hongkong marine police so far this year. Many more bodies could have been swept out to sea.
AUGUST 29 - Tight control over the posting of "big character posters" on the Chinese mainland has rendered the wall slogan campaign a mere clamoring of little significance, according to travelers returning to Hongkong.
The Chinese Communist press mentioned for the first time in years the continued existence of Tibetan rebels. People's Daily published an NCNA report from Kathmandu on measures taken by the Nepalese government to disarm Tibetan irregulars who were using Nepal as a base for activities on the Chinese mainland.
A senior member of the Chinese Communist party Politburo acted as "prime minister" during the illness of Chou En-lai, according to Hongkong arrivals from Peiping. He is Chang Chun-chiao of Shanghai, who rose to power during the "cultural revolution" and who is generally regarded as a leading member of the "leftists."
AUGUST 30 - The Republic of China's ambassador to the United States, James Shen, said in New York that the rift between Moscow and Peiping is not permanent and that their differences are essentially strategic and tactical.
Parading in public with handcuffs, a practice once commonly employed by Red Guards to humble political foes, is being used again by the Communists in Canton in an apparent effort to reduce mounting crime rates, according to Hongkong sources.
There is "fivefold" evidence the Chinese Communists are experiencing factory production difficulties, according to Paul Strauss, Hongkong correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce. He enumerated (1) decline in export contracts at the Canton trade fair, (2) travelers' reports of clashes in factories, (3) radio broadcasts telling of sabotage and other problems, (4) reports of coal shortages and (5) a sharp decline in the number of provinces announcing fulfillment of quotas.
AUGUST 31 - Chinese Communists have set up a secret training school for foreign subversive agents on Hainan Island, Maj. Gen. Li Chang-hao, spokesman of the Republic of China's Ministry of National Defense, said. The center has the cover name of "Wen Lai Forest Reserve." Located in Wen Chang county, the school enrolled a number of Filipino agents last spring.
Twenty-two escapees from Chinese mainland hijacked a Chinese Communist fishing junk in a small port in Kwangtung and forced the two-man crew to sail to Hongkong. A police spokesman said the refugees left the boat upon arrival in Hongkong waters and asked the crew members to sail the junk back to the mainland. He said police had rounded up 19 of them and were looking for the rest.
SEPTEMBER 1 - Slips of paper carrying anti-Mao slogans in English are being mysteriously inserted into mail received by foreign ambassadors stationed in Peiping, the diplomatic correspondent of the London Sunday Telegraph reported. "Down with Mao Tse-tung and the old gang," said one of the messages. He quoted others as saying: "Let the Red Guards reap their just rewards" and "Beware of the rightists and capitalist roaders now restored to power by Chou En-lai."
SEPTEMBER 2 - Chou En-lai has not recovered his health since he was stricken with a heart attack more than three months ago, a Peiping broadcast indicated. The indication was contained in the text of a speech made by Gen. Eyadema, president of Togo.
SEPTEMBER 3 - Liu Shao-chi, deposed "president" of the Chinese Communist regime, is dead, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei. The report did not give details or the time of Liu's death. The same report said several of Liu's chief lieutenants will probably surface again after a long stretch of political limbo.
Wang Hai-jung, a distant relative of Mao Tse-tung, is one of the few women in Chinese Communist regime to reach the upper echelons of leadership. She was recently promoted to the rank of "vice foreign minister." Her promotion apparently reflects the powerful position she has built up over the last few years as one of the few people with ready access to Mao.
Confucian classics that have been used for hundreds of years to teach youngsters to read are being denounced as "poisonous weeds" and old proverbs are being subjected to rigorous class analysis in a Chinese Communist campaign to eradicate the remnants of Confucian thinking. Groups of workers, soldiers, students and teachers as well as peasants have been holding rallies at which severe criticism has been made of the San Tzu Ching or Three Character Classic, a primer for schoolchildren that has been popular since it was compiled in the Sung dynasty 700 years ago.
SEPTEMBER 4 - Collective leadership is operating in Peiping as a result of the poor health of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai, Taiwan intelligence authorities said.
SEPTEMBER 5 - For the first time in at least several years, Chou En-lai did not see a foreign head of state visiting Peiping. Gen. Eyadema, president of Togo, left without meeting him. Chou was absent from a meeting between Mao Tse-tung and Eyadema. Also absent for the first time in a year from such a meeting was Wang Hung-wen, youngest member of the Politburo and one of five "vice chairmen" of the party.
The medical condition of Chou En-lai has reportedly worsened. The Mutual Broadcasting System quoted Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey as saying in an interview, "The vice premier told us Chou's condition was worse."
American conductor Leonard Bernstein said he found the Chinese Communist campaign against Beethoven, Schubert and Respighi "hilarious but very sad." Speaking of Peiping's denunciation of "Western bourgeois music," the former director and now laureate conductor of the New York Philharmonic said the reasons for it were "factitious" and "made-up nonsense."
SEPTEMBER 6 - The Chinese Communists have deployed an estimated 1.5 million men along the border with the Soviet Union, according to intelligence sources in Eastern Europe. They said antiaircraft guns had been installed in many industrial areas. Air raid training was carried out at big factories.
Chinese Communist leaders are making efforts to prevent the mainland political struggle from disrupting production, Hongkong sources said.
SEPTEMBER 8 - "Vice premier" Teng Hsiao-ping told visiting Japanese the illness of Chou En-lai has become "a little more serious," Asahi said in a dispatch from Peiping.
The former Chinese Communist "ambassador" to Italy, Shen Ping, who was recalled to Peiping following the Antonioni affair earlier this year, has been replaced by Han Ke-hua, "ambassador" to Hungary in 1964. Shen and a number of others returned to Peiping June 26 after Peiping raised a spate of protests against the screening of Antonioni's film on "China."
Workers on the Chinese mainland are "much the same" as the workers in the United States - both want better pay or other material incentives. This is the observation of Paul Strauss, Hongkong based correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce. Strauss voiced doubt that the young people on the Chinese mainland are dedicated to Communism. "At least 50 million young people absolutely refuse to give their loyalty to any leader or doctrine," he said, citing one estimate made in Hongkong.
SEPTEMBER 9 - Chou En-lai's worsening health has given rise to concern over the future course of detente with Peiping on the part of U.S. officials, Washington reports said.
SEPTEMBER 10- Subtle changes of emphasis in Peiping's "foreign policy" have been noted by foreign diplomats in Peiping since Teng Hsiao-ping assumed control early in June after Chou En-lai's heart attack. The London Daily Telegraph correspondent in Peiping, Clare Holling-worth, said "foreign minister" Chi Peng-fei has been much in the background. Teng has expressed even more strongly than Chou En-lai Peiping's opposition to U.S. detente with Russia.
The Chinese Communists have suspended approval of exit applications from former overseas Chinese who returned to the mainland more than 10 years ago. The Communists have also imposed strict censorship on outgoing letters.
The Angolan National Liberation Front received 450 tons of war materials as a gift from Peiping.
Peiping has dispatched at least 17 new "ambassadors" to overseas posts in the last few weeks in a major reshuffle. Eight of the new envoys were posted to African nations and four to the Middle East. Three went to Western Europe and one each to Latin America and Asia.
Mao Tse-tung is building up the radical faction headed by his wife to inherit his power after he is gone, a Chinese Communist affairs expert said in Taipei. Professor Chang Chen-pang of the College of Chinese Culture said Mao made the decision for a dual purpose - to prevent others from dethroning him while he is alive and to forestall probable de-Maoization after his death.
"Vice premier" Li Hsien-nien, Chinese Communist top economic official, urged countries of the Third World to continue using "petroleum and other raw materials as a weapon" against the United States and the Soviet Union. Li, speaking at a Peiping banquet in honor of Gen. Yakubu Gowan, Nigerian head of state, said "Both superpowers are having a tough time."
SEPTEMBER 11 - The London Daily Telegraph reported from Peiping that Chou En-lai resigned in all but name after suffering a second heart attack. Chou plans to retire before the end of the year because of illness and turn over the reins to a collective-type leadership, diplomatic sources in London said.
SEPTEMBER 12 - Chinese Communists will have a leadership crisis in their military forces in five to ten years, a Peiping watcher said in Taipei. Fan Chih-yuan, a researcher of the magazine Chinese Communist Affairs, said all key military posts of the Peiping regime are held by men of advanced age.
Diplomats in Tokyo said Chou En-lai's condition has worsened but added that there is no evidence he intends to step down in the immediate future.
If Chou En-lai dies soon, the prospect is for major internal disruption accompanied by serious dislocation of Peiping's foreign relations, European sources said.
SEPTEMBER 13 - The British weekly The Economist said Chou En-lai is not expected to resume his normal schedule. The magazine said Chou's job is being performed by Teng Hsiao-ping and Li Hsien-nien. Teng is generally regarded as the front runner for Chou's job, but Li is still one step up in the party hierarchy and a strong contender.
SEPTEMBER 14 - Chou En-lai will remain "premier" of the Chinese Communist regime until his death, Central News Agency reported from Hongkong. CNA said Mao Tse-tung made the decision when the ailing Chou entered the hospital for the second time in recent weeks.
A collection of anti-Mao Red Guard works written after the "cultural revolution" and smuggled into Hongkong by refugees will be published at the end of September. The poems, letters, a diary and short stories record the young people's disillusion with Chinese Communism and Mao's leadership.
SEPTEMBER 15 - Peiping has branded the Soviet Union's policy of detente as a fraud and a "smoke screen" designed to cover up its aggression and contention for world hegemony. People's Daily said that people were "sick and tired" of the policy and were dealing it repeated setbacks.
A Soviet commentator said Peiping, in a new strategy to undermine Soviet-American detente, is trying to convince the Western powers that they have a lot to fear from the Soviet Union. V. Vasilyev said Chinese Communist leaders had failed to convince the West that an easing of tension in Europe would lead to an increase in Soviet troops on China's northern border.