Chinese Communism has always depended on youth as the wave of its future. When the Reds usurped mainland power in 1949, they immediately placed maximum stress on their program of indoctrination through education. From Mao Tse-tung down, leaden of the regime said the old order was forever doomed—"the young people will see to it." Youth was supposed to accept Communism as a religious faith, and to fight Communist enemies and opponents to the death.
It hasn't worked out that way. The Communists have been as wrong about young people as they are about everything else. Mao has confessed his concern about the future of Communism, because young people seem to be inclined toward capitalism and such anti-Communist sentiments as happiness. Whether they take the form of Beetle imitator guerrilla fighters, the young people of the mainland are rapidly becoming by far the most dangerous internal threat to the Chinese Communist tyranny.
Attesting to mainland youth's revolutionary preoccupation with freedom is a daring young man who himself escaped from Communism's clutches to tell the inside story of what has been happening. Tung Chi-ping, only 25, was assistant cultural attache of the Peiping "embassy" in Burundi, an African kingdom that since his defection has learned the truth about the Chinese Communist diplomats and thrown them out of the country. Tung took refuge in the U.S. Embassy at Usumbura May 24, 1964, and two months later was able to leave the country and proceed to the United States. He came to Taipei for Freedom Day observances last January.
Tung said that Peiping, once the center of a student pro-Communist movement, now has come full circle. Anti-Communist cells exist in every college and university. Chou En-lai once told Peiping students, "I know there are many anti-party elements among you. But we know how to deal with you." The regime has tried. Millions of students have been resettled in remote and primitive frontier provinces. All college graduates must spend at least a year in compulsory labor service. This has only added bitterness to the intellectual judgment that Communism is a failure.
The authorities have been compelled to persecute education and educators, and thus further alienate themselves from the people, who traditionally respect learning and scholars. Students returning from abroad have had a particularly difficult time. Many have never been permitted to use their knowledge. Those who must be put in positions of responsibility—such as nuclear scientists—are never trusted. They are watched constantly and may be subjected to periodic brainwashing. All must conform to the Communist myths.
Tung told of a U.S.-educated professor who wore a suit and tie and carried a brief-case to his first Peiping teaching assignment. Communist monitors among the students ridiculed him and forced him to confess his "decadent capitalism ways". He changed to Communist garb, put on sneakers instead of his leather shoes, and fell to scratching himself in class. If he hadn't, he would quickly have vanished into labor service.
Severe Penalties
Another point of younger generation resistance involves romance and marriage. The Communists are doing everything within their power to slash the birth rate. Unable to increase agricultural production, which today stands where it was in 1957 but with millions of new mouths to feed, Red bureaucrats can think of nothing better than late marriage, separation of husbands and wives, birth control, and abortion. Permission to marry is required, and for young Communists or low-ranking party members under 25, it is virtually impossible to get. Penalties may include dismissal from the Communist Party and loss of employment. College students and industrial apprentices are forbidden to marry. Those who have already acquired spouses are separated from them.
All to no avail. The birth rate is little affected. Romance still flourishes under the very noses of Mao's social spies. Young people find a way. This applies not only in love and marriage, but even to labor reform. Red China is a huge military camp and a total totalitarianism. Yet youth resistance is so strong that city boys sent to Sinkiang and other faraway places keep turning up again at their old homes. Among youth, no one believes the Communist propaganda about educating the peasant and being taught humility in return. Young people want a better life, not the shibboleths of Communism and the privation of desert wastelands.
Young Tung himself was supposed to be entirely "safe". Otherwise the Communists would never have let him study foreign languages, let alone go abroad. His father is a watch repairman and his mother a housewife. He had no friends or relations outside mainland China. Family origins make little difference in the outlook of mainland youth, Tung said. "If it were possible, most young people would turn their backs on Communism to day, even if that meant leaving their homes," he said.
Communist lies have played a big part in disillusioning young people who cannot be educated for the modern world and at the same time stuffed full of silly, scarcely credible propaganda. Tung cited the official Communist version of conditions in Taiwan. The island bastion of the Republic of China is alleged to be a hell of oppression and starvation. Mainlanders and native Taiwanese are depicted as virtually at war with each other. Tung said he and other young people suspected the story. While in Taiwan, he met with Taipei Mayor Kao Yu-shu to find out for himself. Kao is a Taiwanese leader, who defeated the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) incumbent last year. This was their conversation:
Tung—The Communists say there is no political freedom in Taiwan. Is that correct?
Kao—It's not correct. It is only Communist propaganda. I am Taiwanese and not a member of the Kuomintang, which is the ruling party. If there are no political freedom and justice in Taiwan, how could I be elected mayor?
An in the Family
Tung—It is said that there is friction between the mainlanders and the Taiwanese. Is it true?
Kao—In dealing with some problems, we have different points of view between mainlanders and Taiwanese. However, these problems do not resemble the racial issue in the United States.
I have, visited many places in America and have noticed that there is segregation in schools, on trains, in restaurants, and so on.
Here in Taiwan, the Taiwanese have differences among themselves.
From the historical point of view, we all came from the Chinese mainland. Most of our ancestors came to Taiwan from counties of Fukien province. The earliest settlers came from the Chuanchow areas of Fukien and settled along the coast. Later came the people of Changchow. The late comers had to live inland. Then came the Hakkas (literally "stranger"), who had to live in still more mountainous areas.
Hakka people speak a dialect that is different from the Amoy spoken by most Taiwanese.
As in any big family, brothers and sisters may quarrel. But what does that matter? We are still the same family.
No Class Lines
Tung—Is it true that the upper classes of society are mainly composed of the mainlanders while the lower classes are composed of Taiwanese?
Kao—No. There are no upper and lower classes in our society on Taiwan. Although there are more mainlanders than Taiwanese working in the Central Government, many key positions are held by the Taiwanese.
For example, Huang Kuo-shu, the President of the Legislative Yuan (the Congress); Lien Chen-tung, Minister of Interior; Tsai P'ei-huo, Minister without Portfolio, and many vice ministers are Taiwanese. There are more mainlanders in the Central Government merely because the government represents all of China, not merely Taiwan. These government employees moved to Taiwan with the government. It is not possible to discharge them and give their jobs to the Taiwanese.
Tung—Is it true that a "Great Han" race movement oppresses the minority racial group?
Kao—This is another Communist lie. All the people of Taiwan except the tribesmen in the mountain areas, who make up about 0.01% of the population, belong to the Han race. The Government protects the interests of the aboriginal people and helps improve their livelihood. Yang Chuan-kwang, the Chinese decathlon champion, is a tribesman. With the assistance of the Government, he has had outstanding training at home and abroad. On April 28, 1963, he set a world record with a score of 9,121 points.
The Government helps those with ability regardless of their background.
Views on Japan
Tung—Is it true that some of the Taiwanese would like to see the return of the Japanese?
Kao—Our fathers suffered a great deal under the Japanese oppression. No one would like to see the Japanese rule Taiwan again.
Let me give you one reason why. During the Japanese occupation, elementary education was compulsory. The Japanese built many fine primary schools. Their intention was not to benefit the Taiwanese, however, but to control them. Less than 10 per cent of the Taiwanese young people attended high schools and only a few went to college.
Well-to-do Taiwanese had to send their children to Japan to be educated. The Japanese were happy to have the money this cost, and also welcomed the chance to condition Taiwanese young people.
Now the situation is not the same. Education is compulsory and everyone has the same chance to attain any level of schooling.
I would like to cite one more example to indicate that mainlanders and Taiwanese are getting along well. It concerns marriage. In the 50 years of Japanese rule, fewer than 100 Taiwanese women married Japanese. But since the retrocession of Taiwan to the Republic of China, thousands of Taiwanese women have married mainlanders. We are all Chinese.
During his Taiwanese stay, Tung lost no opportunity to refute the Communist claim that mainland conditions are improving. The people know who to blame for their suffering, he said. They are aware, too, that million3 of dollars are being spent for subversion in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia while they go hungry and ill-clothed.
Food rations are so low as to produce widespread mulnutrition, he said. In the acute shortage period of 1960-62, some of the people of South China were able to escape to Hongkong and Macao. The people of the north and the interior had no such recourse. Many starved. Even today the cooking oil allowance is only 3½ ounces a month.
Dismal Life
People rarely get enough to eat in Red China (File photo)
Country people are permitted 5 feet of cloth a year, city dwellers 7 feet. Laundry soap is not to be had. Trains are jammed; there is no new rolling stock. Schedules mean nothing.
Buses are old and frequently break down. Good roads and streets are rare. Shanghai has two modern thoroughfares, Peiping one. Only martial music is generally to be heard. Motion pictures serve the lone purpose of propagandizing Communism. Chinese opera has been similarly taken over.
An average worker earns JMP$30 (less than US$15) a month. To have a wrist watch is a great luxury. A fountain pen is also highly priced and symbolic of high Communist rank. A watch of medium quality costs around US$150.
Life is hard and monotonous. People need not plan for their futures; their Communist masters have taken care of that. Personal freedom is unknown. If anyone quits his job voluntarily, he will starve, because he cannot get another. Without registration and the approval of the Communists, no one can seek employment or go to a hotel. Travel is supposed to be free. No permit is required to buy a ticket. The catch is what happens when the traveler arrives. He must have an official document to get a ration card and eat in the place to which he has gone.
While working in the fields, farm women on the Chinese mainland are under surveillance of armed militiamen (File photo)
Foreigners who visit the Chinese mainland are guided by official interpreters who have had special indoctrination. They are instructed to say nothing unfavorable. Foreigners cannot learn the true situation unless they can speak the language.
Of the ideological rift between Peiping and Moscow, Tung said the diplomatic effects have been far-reaching. Formerly when Red Chinese diplomats arrived in a new station, the first thing they did was call on their Russian counterparts. Peiping's emissaries frequently echoed their Soviet comrades. Now the two missions may scarcely speak.
Chinese Communists regard the Soviets as misguided revisionists and themselves as true believers and defenders of Marxist-Leninism. Tung said that Chou En-lai told a college rally in Peiping: "You don't have to worry about the United States, the Soviet Union, and India getting together to invade (Red) China. That kind of a united front is impossible. The contradictions are too numerous."
Young Tung speaks for the new anti-Communist China. He is confident that most of the young people on the mainland are like-minded, and that they will be heard from in a mighty chorus before this decade ends. He has returned to the United States now to study and to write, and thus to do his part in shaping the free and democratic China of tomorrow. His visit to Taiwan was a 'part of this" preparation. It taught him such a China already exists and is waiting to move its ideals, aspirations, and achievements back to the continent. He, in turn, taught the people of the Republic of China that Chinese youth has not been changed, essentially, despite the worst that the Communists could do.