American and European defense and intelligence sources believe a major war between Red China and the Soviet Union may be in the making, said Michael Ledeen, executive editor of the Washington Review of Strategic and International Studies.
JUNE 17 - Vietnam accused Red China of upsetting its reconstruction effort by canceling aid programs. A broadcast complained that between May 12 and 30, Red China suspended 72 assistance projects and many other financial packages to Vietnam.
Red China charged the Soviet Union is the "chief supporter and instigator" of Hanoi's decision to expel Chinese from Vietnam.
Illegal immigration from mainland China to Indonesia is being conducted through brokers in Hongkong and Singapore, a top ranking official of the immigration service, Dr. Z.H. Pulungan, said in Jakarta.
JUNE 18 - Red China underscored its growing commitment to Zaire by sending a group of military advisers to the troubled central African nation.
Red Chinese "ambassador" to Vietnam Chen Chili-fang has left Hanoi for Peiping, Red China said.
JUNE 19 - The Soviet Union told Japan it is opposed to conclusion of a Japan-Red China "treaty of peace and friendship." It warned that if Tokyo signed the proposed accord, the Soviet Union would have to change its policy toward Japan.
Red China ordered Vietnam to close consulates in Canton, Kunming and Nanning.
JUNE 20 - The Christian Science Monitor said Albania is writing off its relations with Red China.
Vietnam described Red China's decision to close three Vietnamese consulates as "a unilateral decision aimed at creating deterioration of relations."
The British army launched the world's biggest arms exhibition with a Red Chinese group prominent among potential buyers from 90 nations.
JUNE 21 - Deterioration of relations between Red China and Hanoi has given rise to speculations about the possibility of an armed clash between the two, the New York Times said.
A Cambodian army defector has called on fellow soldiers to overthrow the Phnom Penh government and blamed Red China for instigating repression of human rights, Vietnam claimed.
Ambassadors of the Soviet Union and its bloc walked out of a reception in Peiping in protest against an anti-Russian speech by Red Chinese "vice premier" Li Hsien-nien. Li criticized Moscow for "destroying unity of the African nations."
JUNE 22 - Anti-Communist incidents are mounting on the Chinese mainland, intelligence reports reaching Taipei said. Incidents were reported from Tibet, Yunnam and Kwangtung.
Representative Robert Michel (R-Illinois) said there exists among influential press media and political opinion-makers a "curious sort of historical amnesia" that explains why they have kept mum on the massacre of at least 64 million people on the Communist-held mainland of China.
Red China has promised to provide North Korea with low-priced crude oil in a major diplomatic offensive designed to keep the Soviet Union out of Northeast Asia, Japanese sources said.
Vietnam and Red China have reached a dead lock in negotiations on how Red Chinese ships would be allowed to evacuate Chinese trying to leave Vietnam, the Voice of Vietnam said.
JUNE 23 - In its bluntest attack on its former Chinese Communist allies, Vietnam charged Red China with "the evil strategy" of trying to bring all of Southeast Asia under its domination.
Vietnam has been trying to cool its dispute with Red China but the Chinese Communists are pressing ahead with an intensive propaganda campaign designed to humiliate the Vietnamese.
JUNE 24 - A "tense situation" persists in Red China, marked by political instability and strife among Peiping's top leadership, the Soviet news agency Tass said. Tass cited reports that Hsieh Hsueh-kung, a ranking member of the CCP central committee, was stripped of all his posts, apparently because the campaign for exposing and criticizing the "gang of four" was not moving fast enough in his region.
Red China will launch the second wave of "visit diplomacy" in Asia and Europe this fall in a bid to form an anti-Soviet international front, Kyodo news service reported. Kyodo said Hua Kuo-feng will visit Yugoslavia, Romania and France in October while Teng Hsiao-ping will be sent to Thailand in the same month.
JUNE 25 - Peiping's recent activities in Africa, including the dispatch of military instructors to help train Zaire's navy, reflects the regime's weakness rather than strength, according to the New York Times.
Despite incentive wages for workers, productivity is low in factories and mines on the Chinese mainland, the South China Morning Post of Hongkong said.
The Japan Communist party, which has been at variance with the Chinese Communist party for more than a decade, warned against premature conclusion of the proposed "peace and friendship treaty" between Japan and Red China.
Vietnam accused Cambodia of using new terror tactics in the current border war and said Red Chinese troops supported the attacks.
Nearly two years after the disastrous earthquake of July 28, 1976, the stricken city of Tangshan still looks like a shanty town. The tremor caused seven or eight hundred thousand deaths.
JUNE 26 - The State Department denied that the U.S. is "playing the (Red) China card" against the Soviet Union.
Taiwan will be a very tough nut to crack for the Chinese Communists if they decide to invade the island, according to the U.S. News and World Report.
Red China said Japan had infringed on its territory by an agreement with South Korea for joint development of the continental shelf in the East China Sea.
Accusing Washington of cynically trying to play Peiping off against Moscow, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev called the policy "shortsighted and dangerous."
JUNE 27 - Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) described Red China as "the worst violator of human rights in recorded history" and asked why President Jimmy Carter has refused to chastise the Chinese Communists.
Jung Kuo-tuan, former table tennis world champion, has died, a victim of persecution, the "New China News Agency" disclosed. NCNA blamed the death of Jung and Fu Chi-fang, a table tennis coach, on persecution by the "gang of four."
JUNE 28 - Sabotage incidents in Anhwei have been increasing this year, according to an intelligence report. No fewer than 184 instances of sabotage were reported in March.
The English-language Yomiuri of Japan carried an article saying that Red China is the "biggest concentration camp on earth run by a military junta" and that the United States should not "play the (Red) Chinese card."
Industrial pollution has hit Red China, with soot and smoke contamination in coal-burning areas becoming a real problem in the winter months, Kyodo news service reported.
JUNE 29 - Japanese Defense Agency Director General Shin Kanemaru said he believes the United States is fully committed to Taiwan's security.
A big character wall poster appearing in Yunnan province denounced Mao Tse-tung, Lin Piao and Hua Kuo-feng as evildoers.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Republic of China warned Japan that conclusion of the so-called "Japan-Red China peace and friendship treaty" will lead to harmful consequences to the peace and security of Asia.
The Soviet Union's chief negotiator at border talks with Red China returned to Moscow after two months of apparently inconclusive meetings. Deputy Foreign Minister Leonid Ilyichev had several meetings with Red Chinese "vice foreign minister" Yu Chan.
JUNE 30 - The New York Times warned the Carter administration against playing the "(Red) China card," saying that the game would inflame Russia and not contribute to world stability.
The Chinese Communists are about a quarter of a century behind in almost every phase of science in comparison with advanced countries, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review of Hongkong.
The move of Red China to send two ships to Haiphong and Saigon in Communist Vietnam to pick up Chinese refugees is only an empty gesture, the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Republic of China said. "As a matter of fact," said Charles King, spokesman of the ministry, "the Communist regime does not care about what is happening to the Chinese in Indochina and their eventual fate."
About 4,000 refugees escaped from the Chinese mainland to Hongkong per month on the average this year, twice the monthly total recorded last year. From January to December last year, some 26,500 refugees fled the mainland to Hongkong.
South Korea will not tolerate interference by Red China in joint oil exploration with Japan in the East China Sea, the Foreign Ministry said.
Red Chinese "deputy premier" Li Hsien-nien told British MPs visiting Peiping that the Chinese Communists intend to start borrowing money from British banks, the Financial Times reported.
JULY 1 - Red China and Vietnam broke off their latest talks on the repatriation of Chinese, bickering on a number of issues including whether these people were "persecuted and expelled" by Hanoi.
Divisions have been deepened among the top echelon officials of the Chinese Communist regime, People's Daily admitted.
JULY 2 - Sankei Shimbun warned that to insert the anti-hegemony clause in the "treaty" with Red China would "bring one hundred hazards to Japan without a single benefit."
JULY 3 - The people on the Chinese main land should have the right to decide for themselves their way of life, said George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Farmers on the Chinese mainland have income from private activities, but this is meaningless in terms of purchasing power because almost everything is rationed, wrote Phillip Steffen, a technical assistance specialist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in the department's publication Foreign Agriculture.
The recent Peiping conference on political work in the army was much less concerned with possible foreign aggression than domestic enemies of the Peiping regime and dissidents inside the army, said Rene Wagner in the Frankfurter Allegmeine.
Red China announced it has halted all aid to Vietnam and recalled Red Chinese technicians working there because Vietnam has "stepped up its anti-Red China activities and ostracism of Chinese residents in Vietnam."
A new socialization policy enforced in Saigon in late March apparently forced many Chinese residents to decide to leave the country, Kyodo news service reported.
JULY 4 - Red China's new economic policies seem to have met with strong resistance in the industrial sector. A People's Daily editorial marking the publication of a central committee decision to speed up industrial development brought up the "ideological obstacles."
A Vietnamese military officer who fled to mainland China said the Soviet Union has helped Vietnam build up its tank units to prepare for possible war with Red China, a Japanese correspondent reported.
JULY 5 - The Washington Star said editorially today that the United States should not exchange ambassadors with Red China if the price of full relations is the Republic of China.
JULY 6 - Red China has stepped up its land, sea and air patrols along the Vietnam border and canceled leaves for military personnel in the area because of its worsening relations with Hanoi over the repatriation of Chinese refugees from Vietnam, the Far Eastern Economic Review reported.
JULY 7 - Red China supplies secret arms to terrorists who operate in numerous toublespots, said columnist Jack Anderson. He said terrorists in South Africa have close ties with the Chinese Communists.
Two ships sent by the Peiping regime to bring home Chinese repatriates from Vietnam remained at sea off Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, and Haiphong, where they arrived 18 days ago.
JULY 8 - A Peiping dispatch of the Toronto Globe and Mail said "(Red) China barely has a legal system worthy of the name, and the laws that do exist are minimal and often crude, while there are vast areas that are governed not by law but by the arbitrary whims of whatever the prevailing political orthodoxy is."
JULY 9 - The Panchen Lama, who became Tibet's nominal spiritual leader after the Dalai Lama escaped to India, was the target of an assassination attempt while visiting Chengtu, Szechwan, last month, the Central News Agency reported from Hongkong.
JULY 10 - Most parts of north, east and south Red China are sweltering through one of the longest heat waves in up to 44 years with the favorite tourist resort city of Hangchow recording a temperature of 40 degrees Centigrade (104 Fahrenheit).
A Japanese anti-Communist group burned the "flag" of Communist China in front of the Red Chinese "embassy" in Tokyo last week and called on the staff to defect to freedom.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance ruled out the sale of U.S. arms to Red China. At a State Department news conference, Vance said "our policy remains unchanged about arms to the Soviet Union or to the People's Republic of China. We do not and will not supply arms to either."
JULY 11 - Stewart Dill McBride, correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, has reported from Shanghai that crime is still a nagging problem in Red China. McBride disagrees with foreign tourists who say streets are safe at night.
Of the 3.2 million Roman Catholics on the Chinese mainland before 1949, perhaps only 750,000 are left, U.S. News and World Report said. Persecution, reaching a climax in the 1966 "cultural revolution," erased Christianity's last visible traces, the magazine said.
Chinese Communist warplanes overflew Vietnam in the first reported military confrontation between the two sides since their dispute became public last April, Radio Hanoi said.
Red China and Albania broke off their "eternal indestructible friendship" sealed 18 years ago when they became allies against the Soviet Union.
Hua Kuo-feng, confessing Red China lags in technology and managerial skills, said it must catch up and surpass the economic level set by the rest of the world.
Red Chinese "foreign minister" Huang Hua voiced support for North Korea and called for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from South Korea.
Portugal's pro-Soviet Communist leader Alvaro Cunhal attacked moves to establish diplomatic relations with Red China. Cunhal said a Chinese Communist "embassy" in Lisbon would be "a center of conspiracy and an encouragement to forces which are against democracy and our friends in Africa."
The Chinese Communist navy is apparently reinforcing its southern fleet as tension increases with Vietnam. Western military sources said in Japan that Red China is deploying a new class of warship, a high-speed patrol boat armed with radar-guided automatic guns and what is believed to be a new kind of anti-shipping missile.
JULY 12 - Anti-Communist activities have escalated on the mainland in the last few months and many revolts have been participated in by local people, an intelligence agent from the mainland reported in Taipei.
Three key authors of the famous Li Yi-cheh wall poster have been secretly executed, according to an intelligence report. The Hua Kuo-feng regime ordered the executions in order to frighten those who might demand protection of human rights, the report said. Li Yi-cheh is the collective pen name of a group of workers, students and intellectuals.
Red China has revived a 16-year-old speech by Mao Tse-tung in which he said the Chinese Communists could not catch up with the West in less than 100 years.
Rice, cotton and other crops are being threatened by "serious drought" and an increase in insect pests in mainland China's Kiangsi province.
Red China denied its warplanes intruded on Vietnamese airspace, charging Hanoi's claim of such a violation "is mere fabrication."
After having viewed the performances of the Chinese Communist Performing Arts Company in New York, Lin Huai-min, a noted dancer from the Republic of China, commented that he has always believed that there is no art where there is no liberty. The Chinese Communist performances at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York confirmed his belief.
JULY 13 - Historian-author Barbara Tuchman said the United States should not unconditionally accept the three conditions of "normalization" demanded by the Peiping regime.
The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO) announced jointly with the Chinese Federation of Labor its opposition to "normalization of relations" between the U.S. and Red China.
Red China has tightened its control over the flow of refugees from Vietnam into two of its southern provinces, saying those returning must have repatriation certificates from the Red Chinese "embassy" in Hanoi and exit visas from Vietnamese authorities.
Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping clashed openly last March over several points in connection with Peiping's worsening relations with Vietnam, according to an intelligence report.
Red China announced it was halting all economic and military aid to Albania, which it said has totaled about US$5 billion over 24 years, because of Albania's anti-Red China course.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi said in Bangkok he firmly opposes the conclusion of a Japan-Red China "peace and amity treaty," the Jiji news agency reported.
JULY 14 - Feuding between Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping has worsened, intelligence reports from the Chinese mainland said.
A schoolteacher in Canton has been executed for anti-Communist writings, according to an intelligence report. The report identified the man as Ho Chun-shu, 45, formerly a teacher at the Refresher Training Institute of the Light Industry Bureau at Canton.
Columnist Irene Corbally Kuhn predicts Red China's demaoification will come soon. In a column distributed by Columbia Features, she noted that the demythification of Mao is already under way.
Some 7,000 mainland refugees are believed to have slipped into Hongkong unnoticed this year, the Central News Agency reported from the British crown colony. The figure represents the estimate of the Hongkong police, who rounded up and sent back 1,665 Chinese mainland refugees for illegal entry between January and July 9.
Red China has elevated scientific research and industrial development to one of its highest priorities and is eager to get help from the United States, President Carter's science adviser, Dr. Frank Press, said.
The French section of Amnesty International said the Red Chinese authorities have ignored all requests for information about the fate of writer Li Cheng-tian, detained since his arrest in 1974 for attacking Lin Piao in a wall newspaper.
JULY 15 - Vietnam said Red China, using Cambodia as its tool, plans to conquer all of Southeast Asia in pursuit of world hegemony.
In one of the strongest verbal attacks against its former Communist ally, Vietnam accused Red China of being "the main culprit" behind genocide in Cambodia and that country's border war with Vietnam.
Tseng Kwang-shun, director of the Overseas Affairs Department of the Kuomintang Central Committee, told overseas Chinese leaders in Japan that Peiping is using overseas Chinese as a tool for "political struggle" and for pursuing its "international united front" strategy.
The Chinese Communists confirmed that 2,000 were killed and 8,000 wounded in a virtual civil war in Szechwan during the "cultural revolution." People's Daily said about 100 people died of torture.