In mainland China
Weeping women herded to forced abortions
Following are verbatim excerpts from a Wall Street Journal Dispatch from Canton by Michele Vink.
Imagine a woman drowning her two daughters in a Canton lake so that she can marry her lover and have a legal "first" child by him. Imagine an unwed mother abandoning her days-old baby in a city park because it wasn't allowed under her unit's birth control plan. Imagine pregnant women being hand cuffed, rounded up and taken to hospitals for abortions. Imagine these things, and you've got a pretty good idea of the extremes that can result from (Red) China's draconian birth control program.
Few people would dispute that (Red) China desperately needs to control the population ....
It's hard to believe the crowded conditions could become worse. In Canton, a city of 2.4 million, over population means a lack of housing that forces large families to live together in small homes.
Given such density, theoretically birth control should work well in the city. Political control is tighter than in the countryside and the advantages of having just one child are more obvious. A couple that signs a contract to have one child will have greater living space. It will receive from its unit a wide variety of financial benefits, including extra ration coupons, free education and health care for the child, salary increases - and the approval of the street committee, the important local branch of the Communist party. Factories and offices are encouraged to offer further incentives, such as greater pensions for one-child families.
If a couple has a second or third child, however, the penalties begin. The family will lose all benefits gained under the one-child plan and, in fact, must pay them back. An extra child will receive no free medical benefits or allowance supplements. A third child will receive no ration coupons and his family's rations will be reduced. His parents will suffer a 10% decrease in wages and possible loss of promotional opportunities at work. And because every pregnancy must have the approval of the mother's work unit, a woman who dares have a child outside the accepted birth plan leaves herself vulnerable to criticism from important local cadres ....
Remittances from abroad help make Kwangtung one of China's wealthiest provinces and many people wanting more children can ignore party pressure and the specter of future national poverty. In the first six months of 1981 about 26% of all babies born in Kwangtung were at least third children.
Most of them were born in the countryside, where 55 million people live. Political controls are looser in rural areas, the desire for sons is stronger, population density is less acute than in Canton and, most important, more sons mean more labor for private garden plots.
Since peasants can now farm small private plots again, the pressures in favor of larger families are stronger. A recent Xinhua news agency report quoted a woman peasant as saying, "With more children, there will be more manpower and a better life because production quotas today are contracted to individual households in the rural areas." Of course that opinion conflicts with the one-child policy, so "a leading cadre of the commune sat down to have a heart-to-heart talk with her," reported Xinhua, "and cited several examples of families that haven't benefited financially despite their large families. Later the woman happily accepted birth control surgery."
That she accepted sterilization "happily" is open to doubt, given recent reports that authorities in the countryside sometimes use force and scare tactics in pursuit of family planning goals. In Tungkuan County in eastern Kwangtung, for example, a reporter for Hongkong's left-wing newspaper Zheng Ming Ribao saw pregnant women herded into vehicles and taken to hospitals for abortions. "The vehicles were filled with wailing noises, and the scenes were really bitterly distressing," he reported.
One woman, already nine months pregnant, arrived at the hospital, he wrote, and immediately received an injection. "Three hours later the baby was born - but then it stopped breathing," the reporter said. Some pregnant women reportedly were handcuffed, tied with ropes or placed in pig's baskets. Mass rallies and criticism sessions were held in the country and extremist officials "vainly attempted to discredit people's reputations and ruin their mental and physical health," the paper said.
The reaction to the Hongkong report came at a family planning meeting in Canton, where provincial leaders praised the work of Tungkuan cadres. Improving birth control in the countryside has become a major theme at such meetings, Canton Radio reports, and at one session, a high ranking Communist party official was quoted as saying, "We must mobilize all those whose pregnancies aren't covered by the plan to take remedial measures," an obvious reference to abortion.
Thus abortion has joined contraceptives and financial rewards as a normal part of birth planning in Canton and surrounding Kwangtung Province. In 1980, 37,000 abortions were per formed in Canton, a population official said. And in the first three months of 1981, 11,108 abortions were performed, while there were 16,000 births, he added. This means that for every 1 1/2 births or so, one abortion took place.
Although doctors aren't supposed to perform abortions past the eighth month of pregnancy, they do, a (main land) Chinese source reported. "Every day hundreds of fetuses arrive at the morgue," he said. A woman with an unauthorized pregnancy is likely to receive an injection from hospital doctors before labor, resulting in a stillborn child or a baby so ill that it dies in a few days, the source added. There are even reports of infanticide in city hospitals, with doctors killing babies immediately after birth if they are third children.
In the countryside, sterilizations sometimes are forced rather than accepted voluntarily. A peasant from Domen County in Guangdong reported that since 1976, women who bear three children "must" be sterilized. "Now if you conceive a second child, the brigade requests that you have an abortion," another peasant said. Some women move to other areas so that they can continue illegal pregnancies, but they can be caught.
Such stories vividly illustrate the conflict between national goals and individual impulses. Would the woman mentioned earlier murder her daughters if she were free to have a third child by her new husband? Probably not. The story, reported in the Guangzhou Ribao. failed to mention this point.
Would the unwed mother, whose baby later was adopted by an American couple, have left her child to possible death if the state didn't disapprove so strongly of its birth?
Monsignor Tang reports
Jailed Catholic Bishop still alive
The former Bishop of Shanghai, Msgr. Ignatius Gong Pingmei, is still alive in prison, an old colleague of his reported.
Peter Humphrey, writing in the South China Morning Post, said Msgr. Dominic Tang, a Jesuit whom the Vatican appointed Archbishop of Canton in June, said relatives of Bishop Gong had recently sent clothing parcels to him and that they had received word that he had accepted the parcels.
Bishop Gong, who was consecrated before the Communists came to power, was imprisoned in 1955 as a "counter revolutionary" and "imperialist agent" after he had publicly refused to support Red China's position in the Korean War.
He had also resisted the regime's moves to bring all religious orders in Red China under the state-controlled "religious patriotic associations."
Bishop Gong's state of health and his whereabouts have remained shrouded in mystery for 25 years, and his imprisonment, with that of many other former religious leaders, has remained a point of contention between the Vatican and Red China.
The "Chinese Catholic Church" broke relations with the Vatican in 1957 to survive under Red Chinese rule, which demanded severing allegiance with foreign organizations.
The Vatican refused to recognize the "independent" Chinese church.
After the release and reconfirmation as Archbishop of Canton last year of Msgr. Tang, who was personally acquainted with Bishop Gong, speculation rose that the bishop might also be set free.
But no such step was taken, and no mention of him was made by the Red Chinese press.
The Papal appointment of Msgr. Tang as Archbishop of Canton and the subsequent criticism this provoked among Red Chinese "church" and regime leaders makes Bishop Gong's release now seem more improbable.
In the subsequent diatribes against Msgr. Tang in June, Shanghai's "Catholic" organization once again accused him of colluding with Bishop Gong in counter-revolutionary crimes.
Communist party assails mainlanders
People revealing secrets
The Communist party complained that a small minority of mainland Chinese were damaging "national" dignity by "crying in front of foreigners" and said some were even selling or leaking "state secrets." It did not describe the "state secrets" further.
A commentary in the influential "official" magazine Panyue Tan (Fortnightly Talks) said a tiny minority were accepting bribes, asking for money and gifts, helping foreigners avoid tax payments and smuggle goods and illegally obtaining foreign exchange.
Those who "caused trouble, stole from foreigners, sold them state secrets or colluded with them for private gain will be punished according to the law," it said.
It also criticized street hawkers who tried to press goods onto unwilling foreigners, and condemned the custom whereby masses surround people from other countries and stare at them. This is a common practice outside Peiping, which has a relatively large population of foreign residents, and the habit often makes visitors feel momentarily as if they have come from another planet, tourists complain.
Four priests arrested
In Shanghai
Shanghai police arrested four Chinese priests, including three Jesuits, Catholic sources said.
They identified the four as Vincent Zhu Hongsheng (65), Joseph Chen Wuntang (73), Stanislas Shen Baishun (79) - all Jesuits - and Fu Hezhou (70).
Father Vincent Zhu, said to have been visited by many foreigners in Shanghai over the past two years, was believed to have been arrested for, among other things, keeping in touch with the Holy See and sending religious information abroad.
The exact charges were not known, but sources said the four priests had refused to join the official Chinese "Patriotic Catholic Association" and had consequently served time in labour camps.
First arrested in 1954, Fr. Vincent Zhu had reportedly been kept in prison until 1960, when he was formally sentenced to a 15-year jail term.
The sources said he then spent five years in a labour camp.
In 1979 he was rehabilitated and moved to his brother's home in Shanghai.
Fr. Stanislas Shen reportedly spent 24 years in jail until his release in 1979.
Last year he was sent back to a labour camp, but subsequently fell ill.
Color-blind included
Ban on babies
The Guangming Daily called for legislation on eugenics as part of a series of medical measures to prevent the birth of "disabled" children.
The official People's Daily urged that idiots, lunatics, haemophiliac and color-blind people be banned from having children.
The intellectual Guangming Daily for its part advises mainland Chinese people not to fall in love with "sick people who should not marry."
Authorities upset
Religion infiltrates
"Religious forces from abroad" are infiltrating Red China's southern coastal Fukien Province, even convincing some Communist party officials to become worshippers, the Fukien Daily reported.
The Fukien paper admonished party officials against believing in any religion or joining churches, saying this means they have "renounced their Marxist world outlook."
"Particularly in our province, which is open to the outside world and in which a special policy is being implemented, religious forces from abroad are stepping up their infiltration into the interior of the province," the news paper said. "They are establishing a relationship with people, gathering information and carrying out illegal activities.
"We must not lower our guard and give up the struggle against them," it said.
Visitors to the province have reported increasingly frequent worship ceremonies of not only Christians but also the traditional folk religion of the area, based loosely on Buddhism and Taoism.
"What merits attention is that in some parts of our province religious activities have gone beyond the bounds permitted by law and some religions have even infiltrated into our party and Communist Youth League organizations and have recruited believers among party and Youth League members," the Fukien Daily said .
Tibet heritage
Rubble remains
A group of Indian pilgrims has presented an eye-witness report of the drastic destruction of monasteries in Tibet by the Chinese Communists.
The New York Times says 13 Indian worshippers were allowed to visit a lake sacred to Hindus in southwestern Tibet for the first time in 22 years. They reported that all eight monasteries formerly housing thousands of monks and ringing the slopes around the lake (which is known as Manasaro war in India and as Mapam in Tibet), were all empty shells, having been systematically blown up.
The travelers had cameras with them but were frequently discouraged by their Communist guides from photographing the vandalized sites. They were also banned from making close inspections of the ruins. One monastery, measuring nearly half a mile in length, had been reduced to rubble, they reported.
The Times' correspondent in New Delhi quoted one traveler as saying: "My impression was that the authorities had given up doing anything for the local people and that the Tibetans were living as hard a life as they had for centuries. "
In their trek the Indian pilgrims came upon the remains of Shershung, where fairs used to be held on days of the full moon. The site is now rubble, the travelers said, marked only by burial mounds of inscribed prayer stones.
New religious oath
For Catholic Bishops
Graham Earnshaw of the London Daily Telegraph said in a dispatch from Peiping that mainland Chinese Catholic bishops must now swear allegiance to the Communist party before being allowed to take up their duties on the China mainland.
Quoting a newspaper from Central China, he reported that a new bishop, Chang Hsin, from Taiyun City, Shansi, knelt before the altar, placed his hand on a bible and swore: "Firmly to uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist party and the people's government, to follow the socialist road, to respect the constitution of the 'people's republic of China' and all laws and decrees issued by the government".
Volunteers beaten
Smuggling 800,000 bibles
Protestant and Catholic volunteers have risked beatings and Communist jails to join Operation Pearl and smuggle an estimated 800,000 bibles into mainland China.
One million Chinese-language bibles were printed by a Nashville publisher and an estimated 80 percent eluded border guards, who are instructed to ban the entry of the holy books, said Ed Neteland, executive vice president of the missionary society, Open Doors.
"If a person believes in the bible and embraces the truth, he becomes a dangerous person in the eyes of the Communists," Neteland said.
The smuggling operation to main land China's eight to ten million Christians was conceived earlier this year by Brother Andrew, a Dutch national whose life's work is sending bibles to Communist nations.
Neteland and other Open Doors executives met with Brother Andrew in California and pronounced the operation a success.
He said Chinese Christians worked with volunteer bible smugglers from Australia, New Zealand, "absolutely all of Europe" and around the world in getting the bibles to mainland China.
Time magazine reported that the one million bibles involved in Operation Pearl were smuggled by barge onto a beach in Southeastern China near Swatow in waterproof containers and unloaded at night until local authorities discovered the plan and arrested hundreds of volunteers.
Neteland said that the volunteers are in some anger. He said volunteers caught with bibles in Fukien province were beaten and jailed; some of the bibles were dumped in the ocean and the police demanded to know who supplied them.
Red plan
Mongol protest
Mongolians residing in Inner Mongolia staged large-scale demonstrations to protest Red China's plans to settle 400,000 Han people in Inner Mongolia.
This was reported by the Tokyo Shimbun in a dispatch from Peiping, quoting Red Chinese sources.
Red Chinese policy concerning the settlement plans was relayed to the Mongolians through the leakage of a Red China "state council" document, the paper said.
Some ten thousand Mongolians took part in the three-day demonstrations.
Red Chinese sources did not rule out the possibility that Red China mobilized army units to suppress the demonstrators.
Dalai Lama
Reverses Seen
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan god-king, and his followers accused the Communist Chinese "government" of restricting religious activity and reversing its liberalization program in Tibet.
Tibetans arriving in India from their Himalayan homeland report that the Communist Chinese authorities in Tibet are withdrawing the policy of liberalization, said a statement issued by the Dalai Lama's office at Dharamsala, the Tibetan exile mountain headquarters in India's Himachal Pradesh.
Authorities have reimposed state taxes on Tibetan peasants and nomads despite the May, 1980, promises by "chairman" Hu Yao-pang and "vice premier" Wan Li that they will not be levied for two years, the statement said.
The statement reported that the latest crackdown on religious freedom occurred during the recent Golden Thangka Festival when Communist security personnel stopped buses and trucks and prevented Tibetans from reaching Ga Dan, the oldest of Lhasa's three great monasteries which once housed more than 3,000 lamas and priceless art.
Communist Chinese authorities also were reported interfering in the renovation of Ga Dan, destroyed in the 1968 ideological rampage of the "Cultural Revolution." The monastery contained many large bronze statues, relics of the Ming and Ching Dynasties, armor of the Chien Lung emperor, gold funerary pagodas set with jewels and 24 scrolls of embroidery dating from the Tang Dynasty.
The authorities believe there are political motives behind the renovation and it is under unceasing Communist Chinese intelligence surveillance, the statement added.
A team headed by a Tibetan, Lobsang Dorje, was sent recently to Ga Dan by Communist Chinese authorities and it warned monastery officials that lamas (monks) must enter productive work to get cereal ration cards, the Dalai Lama's office reported.
Authorities have forbidden Tibetans from consulting soothsayers, performing incense-burning religious ceremonies and giving gifts or contributions to lamas, the statement said, adding that those caught in these acts face punishment.
The Communist authorities state that Tibet's future is toward socialism and those reviving "reactionary" religious practices will be severely dealt with the statement said.
Peiping regime
Troubles of Flesh and Soul
In his recent tour of Communist China, Robert Keatley, editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal, found that the Peiping regime is having "troubles of the flesh and the soul."
The troubles of the flesh are that its medium-term economic prospects "are clouded at best," its tendency of overdoing things, its cadres shrugging off responsibility believing that evading it is safer, difficulties in raising food production as fast as they should, poor performance in coal and oil production and a waste in energy usage, according to Keatley.
The troubles of the soul, he adds, lie in the fact that the old ideology has been destroyed by present day leaders but no substitute has been found. This has raised the question, "Why should the Communist party rule so totally?" There are signs of trouble in the intellectual field and the malaise is far-reaching.
Into the breach, as the mainland people lose confidence in the "bright future" of socialism, superstition of all sorts is on the upsurge throughout the mainland, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The Chinese Communist party is "seriously concerned" not only by the tragedies to which superstition has led recently, but by the way it undermines belief in the Communist party and socialism, the paper said in a report from Peiping.
Witches, sorcerers, fortunetellers and medicine men are active everywhere, and their numbers are multiplying despite police crackdowns.
"As victims of such huge wounds (from the "Cultural Revolution"), some people have lost confidence in the bright future of socialism and begun to place their hopes on what fate has destined for them, and on protection from their deities," the Canton newspaper Southern Daily was quoted as saying. Southern Daily was further quoted as saying that "ugly incidents involving bloodshed and loss of life" have occurred with increasing frequency as a result of superstitious activities and "clan wars," which have resulted from sorcerers setting villages against each other.
Most of the reports about witches, sorcerers and medicine men in the official press were written as part of the regime's propaganda campaign against superstition, and many of the cases are tragic in their outcome, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Tibetan youth
Appeal to U.N.
"Though the Chinese have declared a policy of leniency, it has turned out to be a mere shadow while in reality things have been becoming much worse," the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) said in a letter addressed to the secretary general of the United Nations. The text of the letter was released in New Delhi.
"We wish to call upon the international community to mount campaigns for the immediate (withdrawal) of the Chinese from Tibet and restore Tibet to its rightful owner - the Tibetans," the letter said.
Conflicts in Red China
by C.K. Chiang
The Tengist maneuvers: the final days of Marxist experimentation on the Chinese mainland.
The definition of "dilemma" is: a situation involving choice between equally unsatisfactory alternatives, or simply, a difficult problem with no easy solution. Well, this is what the Chinese Communist party's vice chairman Teng Hsiao-ping faces today in his efforts to modernize mainland China.
In order to explain Teng's dilemma and the problems that require solution in mainland China, Professor Lau Sze kwang of Hongkong's Chinese University has offered a philosophical analysis based on three sets of observations the Communist concept, system and reality. Together, he asserted, they create the dilemma from which the Chinese Communist party under Teng’s leadership now can hardly extract itself. There are serious contradictions involved, too. By examining these contradictions in terms of concept, system and reality, one will be able to understand where mainland China's real problems are.
In discussing the Communist ideological concept, Professor Lau avoided any abstract ideas or theories. Instead, he called attention to the current thinking and principles of the Chinese Communists. Since their thinking and principles are the roots of mainland China's current problems, Lau said, the "thinking" and the "principles" them selves constitute a kind of "problem."
Among the many concepts that the Chinese Communists believe in, the most fundamental and important is the idea of "revolutionary privilege." Ever since the 18th century, the word "revolution" has carried with it the meaning of "progress," "righteousness," etc. Few people question the nature of a political movement when that movement is labeled as a "revolution." Once the term "revolution" is used, many people will automatically conjure up things that are "beautiful, uplifting and progressive." It seems that one may object to anything else except "revolution." It will be against a historical trend to do so, they say.
In fact, it is one thing to pass a historical stage, and quite another to see through the historical reality. There are many kinds of revolution and each may have its own special meaning. In so far as political revolution is concerned, there are at least as many contradictory interpretations as the various real situations for which the term is applied.
Let us first take a look at the "revolutionary ideals." All those who possess "revolutionary ideals" must affirm to themselves that they re present "truth," because "to revolutionalize" is "to smash" established rules and standards and to replace them with something new. Thus, the first realization for those who possess "revolutionary ideals" must be the affirmation that "truth is on our side."
With the recognition that "truth is on our side" comes naturally a division in history: "pre-revolutionary history," marking the former as object for criticism. As a result, the "revolutionary ideals" will no longer be subject to limitations of objective right-and-wrong, because the criteria for judgment on the objective right-and-wrong will be, as a matter of course, classified as part of the "pre-revolutionary history," thus itself an object for criticism.
People having the "revolutionary ideals" do not just confine themselves to advocating one theory. They usually want to "reform" society, and even mankind. With their premise that "truth is on our side," they develop the concept of "revolutionary duty." This "duty" is: to mould the world according to an ideal. In order to mould the world, it is necessary to have power. Therefore, the natural consequence will be to rule part or the entire man kind through the establishment of a "revolutionary power." The "truth is on our side" premise is now further stretched to mean "the world is ours."
Once the "truth" and the "world (or ruling power)" are viewed as "logically" belonging to them, the participants in the "revolution" subconsciously will become the "privileged class." This way, no matter what "ism" the revolutionaries follow, through the actual process these same revolutionaries inevitably evolve into the "revolutionary privileged class." The more power the revolutionaries have, the more important and essential are their "revolutionary privileges." In a certain stage of the development, the "revolutionary ideals" will be overshadowed by the "revolutionary privileges," and these "privileges" will be regarded as the conceptual basis for the revolutionary body itself.
Take the "revolutionary leader," for instance. Since revolutionaries think "truth is on their side," they cannot but give the thoughts and opinions of their "leader" the highest place as the criteria - because he (the leader) not only represents "revolution" but also "truth." Thus, the "leader" must be above criticism, and the leader's thoughts become "guiding principles" for all revolutionaries. Furthermore, the next logical step is to make the leader a god. Once the "leader" be comes a "deity" he can never do wrong, and all his followers have to speak, to think and to do as the "leader" does. Otherwise, the person who does not follow the leader will be singled out as a "counterrevolutionary," and be duly punished.
A more concrete example is what the Chinese Communists call "Mao Tse tung thoughts." Mao was regarded by his Communist followers as an idol before he died in 1976. Now after Mao's death, though the pragmatic leadership represented by Teng Hsiao ping has tried to remedy the damages caused by Mao's "cultural revolution," Teng and Co. still cannot reject the premise that the "leader" represents "truth" and that Communist revolutionaries also have "truth" on their side. Teng told a meeting of Chinese Communist cadres in December of 1980: "Mao Tse-tung thoughts that have been proven correct after practical experiments are still our guiding thoughts" and "even the serious mistakes of the cultural revolution are definitely not counterrevolutionary."
Evidently, despite the fact that Teng Hsiao-ping has condemned the "cultural revolution" as "bad," he is still influenced by the concepts of "truth on our side" and of "revolutionary privilege." He cannot completely refute "Mao Tse-tung thoughts," nor can he depart from the norm of "revolution" and "counterrevolution" in judging the rights and wrongs objectively. He knows that Mao Tse-tung had committed many mistakes in the "cultural revolution," but he still insists that "Mao Tse-tung's later thoughts must be separated from the Mao Tse tung thoughts" in general!
The real problem in Red China today is that the concept of "revolutionary privilege" conflicts and contradicts with the objective reality. While Teng could initiate a slogan of "searching truth from facts," yet he could never abandon the basic Communist doctrines. Then, how could he sincerely accept the object reality which Red China is facing? The so called "persisting in the four principles" (the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the Communist party and Marxism-Lenin ism-Mao Tse-tung thought) is nothing but a manifestation of the concept of "truth is on our side." This clearly shows that the Chinese Communists are still holding fast to their "revolutionary privileges."
Teng Hsiao-ping has given the impression that he would try to change this. He has taken down Mao's portraits and quotations from all public places. He has spoken of "letting one hundred flowers bloom" again or "liberating the thoughts." But he also insists that Mao's "rights and wrongs" ratio was only 70 percent to 30 percent, and that the "four basic principles" must be maintained. Though it is partially correct to explain Teng's policies as a means to pacify the old revolutionaries who refuse to go along in reversing Mao's established rules, yet it is seriously wrong to assume that Teng would eventually emerge from the shadows of Mao. One must remember that Teng and team (Hu Yao-pang and Chao Tze yang) are limited by their Communist ideology and thus cannot be completely free from the influence of the concept of "revolutionary privileges." In short, they have to concede the damages from the "cultural revolution" as a part of Mao's mistakes in order to initiate some reforms to improve the country's desperate situation. But they cannot be expected to abandon their deep-rooted ideology characterized by "revolutionary privileges" for a real modernization in mainland China.
These "revolutionary privileges" are also clearly manifested among the corrupt Communist cadres. All those who are over 50 or 60 years of age were "revolutionary heroes" during the civil war. They number more than 100,000. They are occupying all important posts. Considering themselves "heroic officers of the revolution," these cadres cannot but view their high positions and privileges as some kind of deserved rewards for their contributions to the successful revolution. Therefore, nobody could or should try to take away what they already have been given. At the same time, these same cadres do not think they need work any harder to keep their posts. Why should they? They have already paid their dues, so to speak. As a consequence, because of their low-level education in general and their lack of skill as administrators in particular, most of these cadres are incompetent, corrupt and useless. The central leader ship as well as the local governments are filled with such cadres still. This is a major reason why Teng's ambitious modernizations programs have failed to get off the ground two years after Teng announced them.
Teng is of course well aware of such problems. He has tried to initiate a "retirement system" and even resigned his vice premiership last year to set an example. He also told the cadres that "youth, knowledge and specialization" must be emphasized in filling vacancies left open by retirement. However, Teng did not forget to attach a strict condition: "The so-called youth, knowledge and specialization must be accompanied by revolutionary ideals, which are based on socialist principles." Translation: non-Communist youth or experts need not apply. In other words, the powers must be retained by Communist revolutionaries who have "truth" on their side. Only they could enjoy the privilege to "serve the people."
In regard to the Communist system, the basic characteristic is "dictator ship." The original term was a qualified "class dictatorship," which was theoretically difficult to define. In reality, what the Chinese Communists have is "party dictatorship" or "leader dictatorship." Once "dictatorship" becomes the principle of a system, all the related matters have to be considered and designed according to this principle. Under Mao Tse-tung's rule, his policies and directives were generally in agreement with his principle. But when policies are changed to reverse Mao's practices under the same dictatorship system, real problems arise.
The most glaring illustrations of this problem are "democracy" and the "legal system" supposedly promoted by Teng Hsiao-ping and Co. It should be noted here that Teng uses the term "legal system" instead of the "rule of law" as commonly used by Western scholars. He often speaks of "following the principle of a socialist legal system in order to deal with troublemakers." Obviously he is aware that "the rule of law" is in direct conflict with "party rule." By deliberately using the term "legal system," Teng and Co. are able to justify that the "dictatorship sys tem" is still valid and need not be changed, because there can be rules and laws even under the dictatorship. Teng has made it clear that the emphasis on the importance of "legal system" is not to set up new standards but to pursue "political struggle" within the law. He said:
"All comrades and all cadres must learn to use our constitution, laws and directives as legal weapons to continue the struggle with anti-party, anti socialist and all kinds of criminal elements."
Thus, the "laws" are merely weapons and the "legal system" is but a weapons system with which political struggle can be waged. Then, what is the purpose of the struggle with such legal weapons? Clearly it is for "dictatorship."
This is of course an aberration. In a democracy, "the rule of law" is in tended to protect and guarantee the fundamental rights of the people against the whims of the ruler or a dictator. Therefore, there is the system of judicial independence to carry out the rule by law. Teng Hsiao-ping has given the appearance that he is changing the "lawless" conditions created by the "cultural revolution." But in essence, Teng's reform is still only a facade, without any effect on the dictatorship system or the fundamental rights of the people.
It has often been said by Teng Hsiao-ping and his supporters that Communist China must become a "socialist democracy." Such a term, except to distinguish itself from "capitalist democracy," does not have any clear meaning. Nobody knows what "socialist democracy" really is. To quote Teng Hsiao-ping again, he once said: "In the lives of our party and national politics, democratic centralization and collective leadership must be enforced." It seems that by "socialist democracy" he meant "democratic centralization."
In fact, "democracy" and "dictatorship" are antonyms, mutually exclusive. No intelligent person can accept that socialist democracy is possible under a "dictatorship system." What Teng and Co. actually had in mind when they used the term "socialist democracy" was only intended to permit exchange of views among top Communist leadership. It had nothing to do with the people or men on the streets. This is why the so-called "dissidents" such as Wei Ching-sheng - who misunderstood Teng's signal and started a "democracy wall" movement - were quickly suppressed by Teng.
The slogan "socialist democracy" is used mainly to negate the so-called "tendency of advocating capitalistic freedom." In other words, its chief function is to replace democracy in its original sense. This is not merely a play on words; this has its practical function. That is: to make those masses who long for democracy believe that by supporting "democracy in the party" under the "dictatorship" system they would automatically get "democracy" among themselves. Here is a serious contradiction: dictatorship of the leadership has often been called "the dictatorship of the people." Once the people or masses have seen through the falsehood, they are likely to discredit everything they have been told. This is why there is a serious "crisis of confidence" in the Chinese Communist party today. Even if Teng Hsiao-ping tries to initiate reforms among his more pragmatic policies, he will still face the dilemma of reconciling reality with the Communist ideology, namely, democracy for the people or for the leadership only.
The third and last handicap for Teng's new policy direction is the internal and external reality. Though the situation may be temporary and much easier to change than 'the ideological bind, it still is troublesome.
Abroad, Communist China has to fend for itself against the hostile Soviet Union. The conquest of Cambodia by Soviet-supported Vietnam created a pincer threat to Red China from both the north and the south. The pressure forces Peiping leaders into a hapless "friendship" with capitalist Japan and the U. S. which, in turn, also affected Red China's internal development. The inevitable results are the opening of the country to foreign influence and the awakening of the people to the realization of their extreme poverty and backwardness. The conflicting ways of life between a regimented society and a free-wheeling one cannot but create widespread dissatisfaction among the populace. Teng's "four modernizations" program was intended to give people a hope for change, but due to both the conceptual and the structural restrictions already discussed, all the major projects designed to bring main land China into the modern century have to be suspended or scratched. In a sense, the external elements have contributed to the increasing difficult ties for the top Communist planners in coping with internal problems. The ideological dilemma is further dramatized through the capitalistic economic approaches in worker's pay incentives in a Communist society. The contradictions here are even more obvious than those abstract concepts manifested in "revolutionary privileges" and a semantical ambiguity such as "socialist democracy." It is a personal way of life that has been affected by the new policies or pragmatism.
As the measures of wage incentives for workers and of restoring prestige to intellectuals are being implemented, the old class distinctions emerge and the fear of "class struggle" persists. Together with the loss of confidence in the leadership and in the Communist party, the uncertain feeling about the future cannot but cause delays or even sabotage in carrying out Teng's new policies, which are supposed to cure Communist China's ills after 31 years of "revolutionary rule" under Mao Tse-tung's leadership.
Does all this sound too pessimistic? The answer is both "yes" and "no." To the Communist party and the current leadership the dilemma they are facing is indeed difficult to over come. But to the Chinese people as a whole, the present situation provides a great opportunity for radical change for the better. The Communist system and socialist ideas have had their days of experiment in mainland China, but all failed. Now somethmg else should evolve to modernize China. The successful implementation of Dr. Sun Vat-sen's Three Principles of the People in Taiwan will and should serve as a guiding principle for China's future development. Teng Hsiao-ping's dilemma will soon be forgotten when the Chinese people of the mainland are given the chance to control their own lives.