Even a little bit of freedom proves too much for the Chinese reds. Posters are banished and writers registered
It had been up only a year. The Chinese Communist "constitution" says the people of the mainland have the right to write posters. Teng Hsiao-ping suggested they express their grievances on a wall in the heart of Peiping. Thousands did so and millions read what they had to say. So did correspondents who relayed the criticism to the world.
Finally the Communists gave up. Tanker trucks moved along the city's main street. High pressure streams of water scrubbed Democracy Wall clean except for the carefully protected notice not to put up any more posters.
Another smaller wall was designated for posting but the location is off the beaten track and in a small park where observation and control by security personnel are easy. Furthermore, the rules were changed. Now it is necessary to register the pasting up of a poster. Writers are to be held responsible for "political and legal implications." It is forbidden to reveal "state secrets." The dissident editor Wei Ching-sheng received a 15-year prison sentence by telling such a "secret" as the name of the Chinese Communist commander in the Vietnam invasion.
As one young man observed, "Who would dare put up posters at the new wall?" The authorities complained that Democracy Wall had been used by those who wished to libel Communism and denigrate its leaders. They were quite right. Some of the posters called for the termination of the Communist tyranny and the return of the Kuomintang and the Constitution of the Republic of China.
To borrow Harry Truman's phase, the Chinese Communists had found it was "too hot in the kitchen" and had adjourned the poster writing to a location with few pedestrians. Even so, some poster writers did follow, intent upon preserving dissent even if that meant following Editor Wei to jail. Communist journals fulminated. Democracy Wall was not needed, they claimed, because "the people enjoy extensive democracy," although not one such right was named.
Commenting, Taipei newspapers said the Communists didn't dare allow even one outlet for the people to say what they thought.
One paper said, "Democracy Wall was a tiny and tentative gesture. The only widely publicized poster wall was in Peiping. There were others, but they didn't amount to much. People of the countryside were never allowed to question or protest. Posters went up in a few other cities. But even in Shanghai, they were rarely outspoken. In most places, anyone who dared to tell the truth about the regime was quickly hauled away. His posters came down before they could be read."
Democracy Wall also served the Communist purpose of identifying potential leaders among the dissidents, however. That is the meaning of the new wall and its registrations. This is Mao's "hundred flowers" all over again.
For a time, the Communists wanted correspondents of the Western press to read the posters. They hoped to help the U.S. government and other apologists for Chinese Communism to present the regime as one that was liberalizing, accepting criticism and allowing freedom of expression. They wanted to be pregnant with a little liberty.
But even the smallest amount of freedom is a dangerous thing. As the China News put it, "Democracy Wall is tumbling down. But unlike Humpty Dumpty's wall, freedom will be put up again. Expressions in many of the posters came from the hearts of the people. Posters can be torn down but the sentiments cannot be eradicated. In time they will destroy Communism in China."
The Chinese Communists blamed the Republic of China and its "spy organizations" for the destruction of Democracy Wall. Counterrevolutionary forces have been inspired by Taiwan, the Peiping press said, and have prevailed upon poster writers to invite anarchism, enshrine individualism and propose bourgeois freedom. This is "incorrect thinking and is fueling the flames" of rebellion against Communism, People's Daily said.
In Taipei, the demise of Democracy Wall was not mourned because of the conviction that the people of the mainland will find other ways to express their feelings and their wishes. If registration is required at the new wall, some dissidents will put up their posters in the night. Other walls will be used, if there is no other way. That has already been done in Canton, Shanghai and other cities. Even the National Flag has flown from staffs on mainland Chinese buildings.
The reaction of the Chinese Communist organs showed why Democracy Wall is needed in Red China. There is no other outlet for the people's views and manifestations of public opinion. The Republic of China has no democracy wall and none is needed, because the people's needs and feelings are made public daily through a free press and free parliamentary organizations.
This was the record of Chinese mainland and related events in the month from October 16 to November 15:
OCTOBER 16 - Red China's most prominent young dissenter was convicted of offering Sino-Vietnam war secrets to a foreigner and agitating for the overthrow of the system. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The trial of 29-year old magazine editor Wei Ching-sheng was conducted before a judge and two assistants. About 700 spectators jammed the courtroom in Peiping. Foreign reporters were barred.
Ann Leslie of the London Daily Mail, who recently visited the Chinese mainland, said one of the three Communist judges she met in Canton told her that "we have espionage problems here because of the activities of the Kuomintang."
Hua Kuo-feng accused the Kremlin of trying to grab strategic bases, control sea lanes and foment unrest to further expansionist aims in Africa and Asia. He launched the attack on Soviet foreign policies at Paris in the first major speech of his Western European trip.
OCTOBER 17 - Department of State spokesman Hodding Carter III expressed U.S. disappointment at the "severity" of the sentence to political dissident Wei Ching-sheng in Peiping.
Red Chinese and Soviet negotiators began their first full session of Moscow talks aimed at easing 15 years of strained relations.
Hua Kuo-feng met former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Paris.
OCTOBER 18 - Ann Leslie of the London Daily Mail said Chinese mainland culture "is now a bleak wasteland peopled by ghosts and marked out by bloodstained graves." She said "it is hard to convey the full horror of what happens when anyone who does not vigorously promote socialism is broken like a butterfly on the wheel"
OCTOBER 20 - Beggars in Lanchou, Kansu Province, snatched food from a table in a restaurant where American tourists were eating, the Los Angeles Times said.
A poster on Peiping's Democracy Wall called for a mass write-in campaign urging Teng Hsiao-ping to reassess publicly the role of Mao Tse-tung.
OCTOBER 21 - Before he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, editor Wei Ching-sheng defied his accusers, called them counterrevolutionaries and proclaimed the need for free speech and democracy, a poster on Democracy Wall said.
Hundreds of mainland Chinese gathered in a Peiping park to listen to young poets render indirect homage to Wei Ching-sheng.
Red China issued a set of six stamps depicting Taiwan landscapes. Since early this year publications in Red China have carried pictures of Taiwan. Some photographs have shown the National flag flying on official buildings.
OCTOBER 22 - Secretary of State Cyrus Vance is still against Zbigniew Brzezinski's tilt toward Peiping, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Peiping newspapers warned provincial Chinese who have thronged into Peiping to seek redress of injustices done them by local officials to stick to non-violent methods.
One hundred and sixty West German citizens, including China specialists, professors and journalists, published an open letter to visiting Hoa Kuo-feng asking the Peiping regime to release all prisoners on the Chinese mainland who did nothing more than exercise their democratic rights.
OCTOBER 23 - Red China's crackdown on dissidents shows that the regime's promises of freedom and the rule of law are only empty words, said Linda Mathews of the Los Angeles Times, writing from Peiping.
President Carter urged most-favored-nation tariff treatment for Red China.
A mainland woman was sentenced to death for economic crimes by a "people's court" in Heilungkiang Province, Radio Peiping reported.
A Toronto priest, Fr. William Ryan, said a quarter of university teachers on the Chinese mainland are not qualified. He visited the main land recently.
OCTOBER 24 - Teng Hsiao-ping has complained that local cadres no longer obey orders from the party central, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei.
A wall poster critical of Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping was put up on Democracy Wall in Peiping and attracted a large number of readers, Japanese correspondents reported. The poster said Hua Kuo-feng "paid attention only to factional power struggle and to seeing foreigners."
The Soviet Union has deployed about one-third of its estimated 100 mobile SS20 intermediate range ballistic missiles in the Far East, the Jiji press agency reported from Washington.
OCTOBER 25 - Red China charged the Soviet Union has deployed more soldiers against Red China than any other nation in the world and put the United States on the defensive.
Vietnam is strengthening its fortifications along the Chinese mainland border while Red China is stepping up practice bombing runs on its side of the border, according to a Japanese dispatch from the Vietnamese border town of Lang Son.
OCTOBER 26 - A cluster of posters appearing on Peiping's Democracy Wall charged that 400,000 officers and upper level non-commissioned personnel were purged from the Red Chinese army during the "cultural revolution." Some want to be returned to army duty or assigned to comparable posts in civilian life.
Red China's news agency said human rights are not a basic aim of Communism and that Western countries use them as a weapon to attack the Chinese Communist socialist system.
On the day of the arrival of Hua Kuo-feng in Munich, a group of overseas Chinese called on West Germans to support the human rights movement in Red China and line up with Free China on Taiwan.
OCTOBER 27 - Red China's debate over democracy and human rights intensified with legal scholars and other intellectuals arguing for full freedom of expression, the Baltimore Sun reported from Peiping.
A group of youths who fled the mainland and settled in Hongkong angrily denounced the despotism of the Peiping regime and called for human rights.
OCTOBER 28 - Hua Kuo-feng's "diplomacy of smiles" and tough talk against the Soviet Union have not won support in Western Europe, Pravda said.
Three petitioners have been killed in Peiping and four others have committed suicide since early this year, a poster on Democracy Wall disclosed.
OCTOBER 29 - About 15,000 persons on the Chinese mainland have applied to migrate to the United States, forming long lines at the American embassy, Linda Mathews of the Los Angeles Times reported from Peiping.
Illegal immigration into Hongkong from Red China reached its highest level since May with more than 9,500 arrested this month.
OCTOBER 30 - Two young editors were arrested early this month in Tientsin for publishing a magazine of commentary and mild criticism, a poster on Democracy Wall reported.
Maoists will try to wreck Peiping's modernization program as soon as Teng Hsiao-ping dies, Joseph Kraft said in his syndicated column.
Red China, the eighth largest petroleum exporter in the world, is on an energy-saving campaign. Power, steel and railway industries have made big cuts in fuel consumption this year, the "New China News Agency" reported.
OCTOBER 31 - Red China's urban consumers got their biggest jolt of inflation since the 1949 Communist takeover when the regime announced retail price increases of up to 33 per cent for most perishable foods. Low income workers got wage increases of about 12.5 per cent.
Teng Hsiao-ping adopted a rigid position concerning literature in a speech to 3,200 writers and artists at Peiping. H reaffirmed support for the Maoist concept of artistic creativity aimed at "serving the people and the worker-peasant-soldier masses."
NOVEMBER 1 - To live on the Chinese mainland is like living in a womb — you cannot escape, said an American student who is studying in Red China. Less than an hour after she posted a critical letter, a Communist party official called on her and quoted portions of her complaints.
A poster on Democracy Wall charged that although the Chinese Communist party blames the "gang of four" for blunders, the fault really lies with Mao Tse-tung.
Britain should abandon plans to sell Harrier jump jets to Red China before it is too late, Pravda said.
Peiping has decided to accept international assistance, the Washington Post reported. Jay Mathews wrote from Peiping that the Chinese Communists have agreed to accept $15 million from the U.N. and are "looking for higher donations. "
NOVEMBER 2 - Jay Mathews of the Washington Post wrote from Peiping that the decision to remove price control from 10,000 commodities is a "landmark" change in Chinese Communist economic policy.
U.S. Defense Secretary Harold Brown said he will visit Red China January 6-13 for talks on world issues but excluding the possibility of arms sales.
Red China accused official agencies and some industries of paying excessive bonuses.
The Carter administration's trade treaty with Red China faces a tough fight over constitutionality of President Carter's abrogation of the U.S. security treaty with free China, Representative Charles Vanik (Democrat-Ohio) said.
Mao Tse-tung was the target of fresh attacks on Democracy Wall. A poster accused him of "grave errors" while strongly defending former "president" Liu Shao-chi.
Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, claiming diplomatic secrecy, refused to show Congress Red China's assurances that it will permit free emigration. Such assurances are a requirement for obtaining most-favored-nation trade status with the United States.
The first issue of the Hongkong edition of People's Daily, printed by Wen Wei Pao. hit the newsstands a day behind editions circulated on the mainland.
NOVEMBER 3 - Implementation of the Washington-Peiping agreement on settlement of claims and assets has been delayed.
When Red China raised food prices for mainland Chinese by about 30 per cent, it raised those for foreigners by as much as 100 per cent.
Red Chinese and Soviet negotiators failed to break any new ground at their latest session of talks on improving relations, Chinese Communist sources said in Moscow.
NOVEMBER 4 - The monthly income of an industrial worker in Red China can barely buy three pairs of leather shoes or about two umbrellas, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A wave of juvenile gang crime is sweeping Tientsin.
An anti-Communist group recently distributed handbills in Peiping calling for the end of Communism to make way for the Three Principles of the People, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei.
NOVEMBER 5 - Fu Yueh-hua, a woman activist whose trial by a Peiping court was suspended last month after a day's hearing, had previously been sentenced to a year's imprisonment by the same court but the sentence was quashed, according to a poster on Democracy Wall.
Gangs of muggers armed with knives and clubs have been roaming the streets of Peiping, terrorizing pedestrians and bus passengers and beating up policemen, Worker's Daily reported.
Hua Kuo-feng agreed to a precautionary search of his baggage after a bomb scare at Venice airport.
Longing for the good life in Hongkong and Taiwan among Chinese girls on the mainland is revealed in a ballad making the rounds in Canton, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei. The ballad which shows the preference of girls in selecting a mate follows (figures stand for money): Thirty, forty. Forget about it. Fifty, sixty. It can be considered. Seventy, eighty. Age doesn't matter. Eastern window, western window. The southern window - Hongkong - is brighter. Cabinet minister, bureau director. Are nothing compared with a Taiwan bricklayer.
NOVEMBER 6 - Hua Kuo-feng has collected three luxury cars during his European visit, Linda Mathews reported from Peiping in the Los Angeles Times. The fleet consists of red Mercedes 230 from Germany, a French Citroen limousine and an Italian Fiat sports car.
Hua Kuo-feng suffers from a mild heart ailment and had to be taken care of by a personal physician and a nurse during his trip to Europe, Il Corriere Della Sera of Milan reported.
More than 40 demonstrators invaded and occupied offices of the Shanghai municipal head-quarters for two weeks before being ejected Saturday, the Shanghai newspaper Wen Hui Bao said.
NOVEMBER 7 - Hua Kuo-feng returned to Red China from his four-nation European tour.
Teng Hsiao-ping is a "filthy fascist," Albanian Communist Chief Enver Hoxha says in his 1,600-page diary. Until only a few years ago, Albania was the only friend the Chinese Communists had in Europe and recipient of some $5 billion in aid.
NOVEMBER 8 - The rejection of an appeal by dissident Wei Ching-sheng appeared to confirm that the Peiping leadership is moving into "a more repressive" phase, the New York Times said.
John L. Moore Jr., president and chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, said it will take at least 15 years for Washington-Peiping trade to reach -the level of current U.S. trade with the Republic of China.
Dissidents on the Chinese mainland appealed to British Prime Minister Mrs. Margaret Thatcher to "implore" Hua Kuo-feng to free the jailed editor of the underground magazine Exploration, the London Daily Telegraph reported.
NOVEMBER 9 - The Carter administration has deliberately refrained from insisting the Chinese Communists improve their human rights situation, according to a congressional study. The study said this was because the Carter administration accorded high priority to improvement of relations with Red China.
U.S. Senator George McGovern (D.-S.D.) blamed the Carter administration's policy of tilting toward the Chinese Communists for the situation in Indochina. McGovern suggested Congress withhold most-favored-nation status and other economic benefits from Red China unless Peiping pledges a nonintervention and nonaggression policy in Southeast Asia.
The Financial Times of London said Western governments are right to resist anything smacking of a military alliance between Europe and Peiping.
Travelers say there is growing resentment among many Chinese Communists toward the regime's preferential treatment of foreign nationals, particularly Americans. Many public places, including hotels and stores, are barred to Chinese. Segregation is practiced in restaurants, airports and railway terminals.
Some 5,000 peasants staged a demonstration in Paoting, Hopei Province, in August, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei.
The 15-year sentence imposed on dissident magazine editor Wei Ching-sheng was attacked in a poster appearing on Peiping's Democracy Wall and defended in another.
Ann Leslie of the London Daily Mail said the ordinary mainland Chinese cannot travel even between cities without official permission.
Teng Hsiao-ping has openly admired the efficiency of the Republic of China's intelligence network and criticized the lackluster performance of the Peiping regime's agents, according to a report from the mainland.
Teng Hsiao-ping said formal rehabilitation of disgraced Liu Shao-chi requires further study, Asahi Shimbun said in a dispatch from Peiping.
Four days of talks between French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Hua Kuo-feng ended in a standoff on Europe's military posture and Indochina, informed sources said in Paris. France rejected the contention that Western Europe should join with Red China as a "counterweight" to the Soviet Union.
Red China said it has sent 2,230 students to study in other countries ill the last two years. Five hundred went to the United States, 300 to Britain, 200 to France, 200 to Germany and 100 to Japan.
NOVEMBER 10 - The consensus of most scholars attending a conference on Red China in Los Angeles is that the mainland cannot achieve modernization without democracy.
Police arrested up to six activists at Democracy Wall where they were selling unofficial transcripts of the trial of editor Wei Ching-sheng. Foreign correspondents at the scene were shoved and pushed and one suffered a cut nose.
Red China may be preparing to drop the ideological part of its quarrel with the Soviet Union, knowledgeable Chinese Communist sources believe, and this could result in a significant breakthrough in the current talks in Moscow, the New York Times reported.
NOVEMBER 11 - Construction of hotels in Red China geared to the tourism boom is way behind the schedule, People's Daily said.
NOVEMBER 12 - The Shanghai Liberation Daily has accused counterrevolutionaries of gathering intelligence and "forming connections with enemy spy organizations." The newspaper did not elaborate.
NOVEMBER 13 - Ten Peiping schools for juvenile delinquents have been reopened, John Gittings reported in the Guardian of London.
An underground Peiping magazine criticized recent arrests at Peiping's Democracy Wall.
A group of about 15 persons in ragged country clothes staged a sit-in outside the seat of the Red Chinese regime in the bitter cold, refusing to move despite being shoved by police.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believes the Chinese Communists are not going to link up again with the Soviets, he said in an interview with U.S. News & World Report.
Chinese Communist soldiers fired at people trying to cross into Hongkong from the mainland.
Chuang Hong-chi, a 24-year-old Chinese mainland student at the University of Liege, has been granted the status of political refugee by the Brussels office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. She arrived in Belgium on October 14, 1978, along with three other students from Red China.
A river that flows through Shanghai is seriously polluted by toxic chemicals and raw sewage and caused an overwhelming stench through the hot summer months, People's Daily said. The newspaper said the Huangpu River is a hazard to the city's 10 million people and has brought "great damage" to agriculture and industrial production.
Drought has hit rice-growing Kiangsi Province and authorities have warned of the possibility of a long, dry winter. Most areas in the province south of the Yangtze River have not received any rainfall since September.
Western tourists in Peiping are being steered away from Democracy Wall, according to a Canadian tour director.
The Peiping regime is apparently trying to find and plug the leak through which the transcript of Wei Ching-sheng's trial has been flowing, according to a Peiping dispatch of the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Negotiations between Red China and Russia in Moscow will be adjourned without progress, according to the Los Angeles Times
NOVEMBER 15 - Red China's newspaper for intellectuals complained of lingering suspicions of learned people and evoked the image of a scientist doing research in locked glass room under the gaze of a party official as the symbol of their plight. Kuangming Daily said some members of the Communist party are more suspicious than China's ancient emperors.
Former Japanese ambassador to Peiping Heishiro Ogawa said after a visit to the mainland that Red China's modernization is still "far far away."