The Peiping regime has hurled a series of new charges at Nikita Khrushchev, bringing the Moscow-Peiping rift to another climax.
On December 11, the Peiping regime accused Khrushchev of betraying Communism and of seeking Soviet-American domination of the world.
In a slashing indictment, the official Red New China News Agency quoted two major Peiping newspapers as warning Khrushchev he was courting disaster in seeking cooperation with "U.S. imperialism."
The attack was Peiping's apparent reply to an appeal from Khrushchev for an end to polemics. Earlier, the two regimes had attempted unsuccessfully to agree on a truce.
Peiping was understood to have demanded that Russia make advance concessions to Red China's hard line of Communism.
The Kremlin refused to budge from Premier Khrushchev's line of peaceful coexistence and his interpretation of Marxism-Leninism.
An article running 20,000 Chinese characters in the Peiping People's Daily and the magazine Red Flag said:
"The heart and soul of the general line of peaceful coexistence pursued by the leaders of the CPSU (Soviet Communist Party) is Soviet-U.S. collaboration for the domination of the world."
It said the Kremlin leaders' "ceaseless advocacy of peaceful coexistence ... amounts to a demand that all the Socialist countries and the Communist parties must submit to their long-cherished dream of Soviet-U.S. collaboration. "
But Peiping warned, "He who betrays the people of the Socialist camp and the world and dreams of dominating the globe by collusion with U.S. imperialism is bound to end up badly."
"It is very mistaken and dangerous for the leaders of the CPSU to do so," the article said.
The Red Chinese said that "Since 1959 Khrushchev has become obsessed with summit meetings between the Soviet Union and the United States."
They charged Khrushchev and his aides "begged favors" from the "U.S. imperialists," put pressure on other Socialist countries and practiced "tricks and deceptions" on those countries "solely in order to beg for friendship and trust from U.S. imperialists."
In paragraph after paragraph, the Peiping articles leveled charges at the Soviet chieftain.
—"Khrushchev has changed the policy of peaceful coexistence into one of class capitulation."
—"Like a conjurer, Khrushchev plays one trick after another, first reducing major issues to minor ones, and then minor issues to naught."
—"He denies the basic antagonism between the Socialist and capitalist systems. He denies the fundamental contradiction between the Socialist and imperialist camps, and he denies the existence of international class struggle. "
—"In manufacturing the lie that (Red) China opposes peaceful coexistence, the aim of the leaders of the CPSU is to draw a veil over their own ugliness in betraying proletarian internationalism and colluding with imperialism."
Earlier, on November 18, Peiping also attacked Khrushchev's "dangerous practice of recklessly playing with nuclear weapons or fawning before imperialist nuclear blackmail." In his relations with the West, the Red Chinese blast said, Khrushchev was a "Bible singing buffoon."
This 18,000-word article of unprecedented bitterness and ridicule was carried in both the People's Daily and Red Flag. It was broadcast in full by the New China News Agency.
Headlined "Two Different Lines on the Question of War and Peace," the article said:
"In fact it is not we but the leaders of the CPSU who have frequently boasted that they would use nuclear weapons to help the anti-imperialist struggle of one country or another.
"What need is there for a socialist country to support the people's revolutionary struggle by nuclear weapons? How would a socialist country use nuclear weapons to support the revolutionary struggle of an oppressed people or nation?
"Would it use nuclear weapons in an area where a war of national liberation or a revolutionary civil war was in progress, thereby subjecting both the revolutionary people and the imperialists to a nuclear strike?
"Or would it be the first to use nuclear weapons against an imperialist country which was waging a conventional war of aggression elsewhere?
"Obviously, in either case it is absolutely impermissible for a socialist country to use nuclear weapons. When the leaders of the CPSU brandish their nuclear weapons, it is not really to support the people's anti-imperialist struggles.
"Sometimes, in order to gain cheap prestige, they just publish empty statements which they never intend to honor.
"At other times, during the Caribbean crisis for instance, they engage in speculative, opportunistic and irresponsible nuclear gambling for ulterior motives.
"As soon as their nuclear blackmail is seen through and is countered in kind, they retreat one step after another, switch from adventurism to capitulationism and lose all by their nuclear gambling."
Communist Congress
The fourth session of the "Second National People's Congress" of the Peiping regime was held between November 17 and December 3 in Peiping.
More than 1,000 delegates, including Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-chi, and Chou En-lai, pledged support for the regime's anti-Russian and anti-American foreign policy.
Liu Shao-chi, in his capacity as the "chairman" of the Red regime, presided at the opening session. "Vice Premier" Li Fu-chun made an administrative report, claiming improvements in the national economy.
The meeting, which first was scheduled for April, had been delayed because of the economic crisis on the mainland.
The Chinese Reds gave little detailed information about the proceedings.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the New China News Agency said the congress adopted a report by its "national committee" promising to "strive for the liberation of Taiwan."
The report also said Red China continues to uphold "the banner of revolution and the banner of proletarian internationalism and Marxism-Leninism. "
This was an outright endorsement of Chinese Communist boss Mao Tse-tung's policy of "hard line" Communism, which has brought him into increasing conflict with the Soviet Union.
According to the Red news agency, delegates were told that Red China had overcome the economic catastrophe that followed the introduction of Mao's "great leap forward" in 1959 and that it had almost completed repayment of foreign aid granted by the Soviet Union.
The Peiping People's Daily also used the occasion to assail the Russians for their withdrawal of economic aid and technicians. The paper said editorially December 4: "The three successive years of serious natural calamities from 1959 to 1961 greatly reduced the output of food grains and industrial crops, causing enormous difficulties (to Red China)...
"In this period, we also encountered an unexpected difficulty. This was caused by the Soviet authorities, who in July, 1960, seized the opportunity to bring pressure to bear upon us and extended the ideological differences between the Chinese and Soviet parties to the sphere of state relations. They suddenly and unilaterally decided to withdraw all their experts, totaling 1,390, who were assisting (Red) China in its work, tore up 343 contracts and supplementary provisions concerning the experts, and annulled 257 items of scientific and technical cooperation. After that, they heavily slashed the supply of whole sets of equipment and crucial parts of installations.
"This caused heavy losses to (Red) China's construction work and dislocated its original plan for the development of the national economy, greatly aggravating our difficulties."
In conclusion, the paper said "We are convinced that socialism will grow vigorously and imperialism will perish. We are convinced that Marxism-Leninism is assured of victory and modern revisionism is doomed to defeat."
Trade With Japan
The Peiping regime and Japan have reached basic agreement on a two-way trade program scheduled to total $122 million during 1964.
The outlines were drawn when a Japanese "private business" mission headed by Kaheita Okazaki visited Peiping in September.
According to the Japanese Mainichi Shimbun of November 15, the program worked out by the Okazaki mission calls for Japan to sell the regime "about $20 million" worth of plant equipment in 1963.
The type of plant was not specified, nor were the credit terms.
Japan's decision to grant the Peiping regime the right to buy a vinylon factory on easy payments over a period of five years has brought down the wrath of free China on Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda's government.
Mainichi said the agreement calls for Japan to export 1,040,000 tons of chemical fertilizers to Red China in 1964. The Chinese Reds need the fertilizer to help jack up their lagging food production.
The target for fertilizer shipments this year was 275,000 tons.
Meanwhile, the Peiping regime also stepped up efforts to increase trade with West European countries, including France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Predictions are that French-Red Chinese trade, which for the first nine months of this was running ahead of last year's figures, might be doubled.
France sold Red China $32.3 million worth of goods during the first nine months this year.
The Chinese Reds are reported eager to buy French Caravelle jet airliners.
The latest trade figures show that Britain sent 9.74 million pounds worth of goods to Red China during the first 10 months of this year, a 40 per cent increase over the same period in 1962.
Aircraft accounted for 2.36 million pounds, the biggest single category.
The reports said one contract, signed by Humphreys and Glasgow, was for supply of a synthetic fertilizer plant. Other British contracts involve scientific instruments, tinplate, and steel sheets.
Peiping on Kennedy
Chinese Communist chieftains have shed no tears over the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
The Peiping regime reported the tragedy briefly November 23 in a four-paragraph dispatch eight hours after it occurred. Next day, it blasted the new president, Lyndon Johnson, as a reactionary and a follower of Mr. Kennedy's "trickery policy."
The New China News Agency in a Chinese-language commentary said:
"Since the emergency of the Kennedy regime, Johnson has positively supported various reactionary policies of the Kennedy Administration, and participated in formulating and promoting such policies.
"He was one of the central figures in the Kennedy government and has made frequent trips abroad.
"Johnson has supported Kennedy's trickery policy and called for the maintenance of such a policy in a series of his speeches."
Three days later, on November 27, NCNA carried a 200-word dispatch on the funeral and followed it with a new barrage of diatribes against the United States.
"Kennedy is dead but the imperialist policy of the United States will remain the same," the agency said.
"Kennedy could find no way out of the crisis. Contradictions between the different monopolist groups and between the Republican and Democratic Parties had become even more acute. To bring down an opponent by ballots or bullets is a stunt in the 'free world.' "
Peiping charged that Kennedy was "the mastermind behind U.S. double-dealing on world issues. If one were asked, will there be a change in U.S. policy after Johnson became President, our prompt answer would be: the U.S. policy will not change.
"The U.S. imperialists will continue their policy of intervention and aggression in Laos and become more inflexible. No matter how the U.S. imperialists may pretend to express support for Laotian peace and neutrality, they will continue to sabotage the tripartite national union government, the Laotian policy of neutrality and the Geneva agreements."
The agency predicted defeat for the United States in Asia, Africa, and Latin America under President Johnson.
Surprise Attack
Amid reports of stepped-up guerrilla activities on the Red-held mainland, Chinese intelligence sources disclosed November 20 a successful hit-and-run operation against a Communist-held isle off the Ming River.
The sources said the guerrillas, belonging to an anti-Communist national salvation army operating in the coastal areas of Fukien, successfully landed on Langchi islet off the estuary of the Ming River November 18.
The raiders attacked Communist police stations and production brigade headquarters, seizing large quantities of documents and goods and placing a Communist cadre under arrest, the sources said. All the guerrillas returned to their base, the sources added.
According to the sources, the anti-Communist commandos braved stormy seas the night of November 18 and landed on Langchi at 10 p.m.
When the commandos pushed forward to a Communist police station, they found only three carpenters there. The building had been vacated for renovation. The guerrillas set fire to the station and continued to push forward to the Houlung production brigade area, when they had an encounter with Communist troops.
Communists blindly opened fire but fled in panic when the commandos returned the fire with automatic weapons. More than 10 Communist soldiers were killed.
The guerrillas entered the office building of the Houlung production brigade and left a time bomb. They also hoisted the national flag in front of the building, distributed leaflets, and put up posters.
The raiders destroyed communication lines and bridges to cut off possible Communist reinforcements. On their way back, they attacked fishermen's production brigade headquarters and made the leader of the brigade prisoner. They also seized Communist documents and weapons.
The sources disclosed later that the prisoner brought back by the guerrillas was Yeh Hua-chiang, 33, who joined the Chinese Communist Party seven years ago.
Meanwhile, reports from Kwangtung said that to counter free Chinese guerrilla raids and the sabotage of anti-Communist elements, the Chinese Reds have been carrying out a "remove the time bomb" movement in the seaboard province of Kwangtung.
The reports said the campaign, started in April of this year, had reached a climax in recent months.
According to the reports, the Chinese Reds stepped up the campaign because tension in many cities in Kwangtung was heightened after September by the many explosions set off by anti-Communist agents.
Victims of the movement, the reports said, are mainly former landlords and rich merchants, those suspected of anti-Communist inclinations, and those caught trying to flee the mainland.
Those who mentioned the possibility of government counterattack correspondence with friends or relatives also are purge targets.
Those arrested by the Reds are given minimum sentences of three years.
As a part of the campaign, Communist cadres are busy organizing study meetings. In Canton, armored cars have been patrolling Communist military installations by day and night. Most strategic points are heavily guarded, the reports said.