The Arizona Republic (7/9/79) published this article by Victor Riesel: "It will irk the fashionable semi-skilled intellectuals over on the posh 'East Side' to read reports that the Republic of China on Taiwan, headed by President Chiang Ching-kuo, is prospering, has one of the world's highest per capita incomes and that its people eat more meat than those in a hundred nations, while the ultra Marxist mainland People's Republic of China, in a desperate search for foreign currency, plans to export about a million persons as indentured workers.
"To use an ugly word from out of the old West, this is, in effect, the sale by Peking of 'coolie' labor for big projects like engineering, transportation, construction and farming.
"There aren't any mainland unions to protest the planned leasing of a million humans. Nor will the euphoria of today's American romance with Chairman and Premier Hua and his ever changing high command tolerate much critical discussion of the Communist auction-block society
"Meanwhile, Taiwan is in some human foreign trade of its own.
"Recently, President Chiang dispatched some 700 medical personnel to help Saudi Arabia operate two modern hospitals. And in a more militant move, sent 70 of his own crack air force pilots and technicians to North Yemen.
There they will service and fly American-built F-5 jet fighters to stand off the Soviets' client state, South Yemen.
"And, of course, the Republic of China on Taiwan is in other export trade - fully expecting, according to financial district experts here, to have a Taiwan and U.S. two-way trade volume of some $100 billion by 1985.
"Not too long ago - but many years after ping-pong diplomacy - Peking sent us little Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping to titillate the White House and eager industrial merchants and to romp with the Harlem Globetrotters.
"But today, months later, word is that Peking actually will purchase very little in the U.S.
"The report from the mainland is that there are over 20 million jobless, tens of millions more starving and virtually no hard foreign currency." (Partial text)
New York Times - Law and punishment
The New York Times (7/15/79) published this article by Fox Butterfield from Peking: "Wang Jianmin sits by day outside the subway station near Tienanmen Square, weaving holders for glass tumblers out of small strips of colored plastic. At night he spreads a piece of cardboard on the floor of the Supreme Peoples Court building to sleep.
"Mr. Wang, who wears an old faded shirt and baggy patched trousers rolled up his calves against the heat, looks like a vagrant. In fact, he is one of thousands of (mainland) Chinese who in recent months have come to Peking to seek redress for personal grievances, many of them growing out of political persecution during the Cultural Revolution. In Mr. Wang's case, he was once a math teacher in a country high school in Jiangsu province near Shanghai and a Communist Party member before he was suddenly labeled a capitalist roader and sent to a labor reform camp in 1967. Now Mr. Wang wants his name cleared, his old job back, his confiscated house returned, and to be reunited with his two grown sons who were assigned to work in a distant part of the province.
"Officially, the Government has called for resolving such miscarriages of justice. Peking is trying to re-establish rule by law, and earlier this month it began a campaign to promote under standing of a new criminal code, (Red) China's first since 1949. Indeed many of Peking's leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, the senior Deputy Prime Minister, were themselves victims of the political inquisition of the past decade. They recognize that many of (mainland) China's scientists, doctors and professors, its most badly needed talent, were purged in those years and that all have not been rehabilitated.
"There are no overall figures on the number mistreated, though there are indicators. The president of the Supreme Peoples Court, Jiang Hua, recently reported that local courts had reviewed 164,000 cases of people who had been accused of being counter revolutionaries. They found an average of 40 percent were innocent, and as many as 70 percent in some areas. But in practice, finding suitable work and living quarters for those persecuted in the past has proved very difficult. (Main land) China has a severe shortage of housing and jobs; by Government estimate, 20 million are unemployed.
"Even more difficult, it means renewing old conflicts, since in many cases the people who were responsible for the attacks are now occupying their jobs and homes. Take the example of Li Xinde (not his real name), an American-trained surgeon. In 1966 he was accused of being an American spy and put to work cleaning the toilets in the hospital he had formerly run in Peking. For a year Dr. Li lived with the fear of death, uncertain when his tormentors might suddenly intensify their criticism.
'Some of my colleagues were put to work cleaning windows on the outside of tall buildings. They had accidents and died,' he said. 'The important thing was just to stay alive; you had to remember you had a family to support. If you snapped and committed suicide, they would consider it an ad mission of guilt and hold a ceremony to convict you, not to mourn you.' Dr. Li was eventually exiled to an area in the far north west where he worked as a medic on a commune and then more recently was shifted to a hospital in a small town with 70 other physicians, all victims like him self. Since there are nearly as many doctors as beds, they have little to do, but none have managed to return to their original homes. Recently the head of the hospital where he once worked made the several-day journey to visit Dr. Li and urge him to come back. He promised things had improved and said he would try to get a residence permit for Dr. Li in the capital, a necessary and coveted document. But when Dr. Li ventured back, he found that a group of younger people who had participated in the attacks on him and had been promoted during the Cultural Revolution now were largely in control. Dr. Li knew their training was inferior to his and that conflict would ensue, so he decided to drop his effort to return. 'It was like a bucket of ice water on my head,' he recalled. Now he is contemplating a humbler future, but one with peace and solitude.
"The Chinese (Communist) press reported another obstacle to rehabilitation - bureaucracy. In Shanghai a local court official found that 40 percent of the letters requesting redress were repeats of earlier letters that had not been acted on. In one of these, a policeman named Jiang had been charged as a rightist in 1958 and dispatched to a labor reform camp. He tried to escape and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His term has now been completed, but 'he has been retained at the farm for labor,' a common occurrence in (Red) China. Last November Jiang wrote to the Shanghai city prosecutor's office, newly re-established to see whether enough evidence exists to bring charges. It passed his letter to the local court, which sent it to the office in his home district in charge of 'removing rightist labels.' That office in turn forwarded the letter to Jiang's former police station; it dis claimed any role, since he had later been convicted at the labor camp. So the letter traveled back and forth. It has now been through nine agencies, but no decision has been reached.
"For a number of (mainland) Chinese, rehabilitation can come only posthumously. In the past few weeks the Chinese (Communist) press has mounted an emotional campaign on behalf of the memory of Zhang Zhixin, a woman party official who was executed in 1975. Miss Zhang, who was 45 years old when she died, had been arrested in 1975 for criticizing (Red) China's radicals, the Gang of Four, and had refused to recant despite being tortured. Before she was shot, her throat had been slit to keep her from protesting her innocence. An article in the Peoples Daily pointed candidly to the critical issue in her case, one which (Red) China's leaders are now trying to prevent from happening again. 'Even if Zhang was a counter revolutionary, she did not murder anyone, nor did she incite anyone to organize people to cause trouble. What she did, both in court and under coercion, was to honestly express her political viewpoint.' " (Full text)
Japan Times - No mainland bonanza
The Japan Times (8/8/79) published this article by Stanley Karnow from Hongkong: "Until a few months ago, American and other foreign businessmen resembled modern-day Marco Palos as they dreamed of taking home the fabled riches of Cathay. But their euphoria has since been supplanted by a more sober view of (mainland) China's potentialities.
"For the prospects are that the (mainland) Chinese market is not going to be an extravagant bonanza - and anyone who thinks otherwise is bound to be cruelly disappointed.
"Part of the earlier elation stemmed from the unfamiliarity of many U.S. and other business men with the Chinese (Communist) negotiating style. As a result, they emerged from (Red) China in the mistaken belief that they had contracts, that, in fact, did not exist.
"In the Chinese (Communist) mind, such documents as 'protocols' and 'letters of intent' are not binding commitments, but merely signify a willingness to continue discussions of possible deals. Indeed, the Chinese (Communists) consider it normal to reach ambiguous agreements with several competitive companies bidding for the same contract.
"But numbers of American firms, unaware of this practice, grandly announced after talks in Beijing that they had won multi million-dollar orders only to discover to their dismay later that they had won nothing at all.
"The Chinese (Communist) government itself, however, bears even greater responsibility for this disenchantment, since it proclaimed ambitious economic tar gets early last year and has been compelled within recent weeks to backtrack significantly .
"The 10-year development plan published by Beijing in February 1978 envisioned expenditures of some $600 billion through 1985 to build some 120 large scale projects, including iron and steel complexes, oil and gas fields, power stations and harbors.
"Many of these projects were supposed to be constructed with the help of Western and Japanese companies, and that triggered their rush to (mainland) China to fight for contracts. But Chinese Communist Party Chairman Hua Guofeng conceded in June that (Red) China would have to proceed more prudently, and this has deflated the excitement.
"Under their new plan, the Chinese (Communists) will focus on improving agricultural and light industrial production at the expense of heavy industry ...
"So, for example, coal output will be increased this year by only 2 million tons rather than by 32 million tons as forecast in March. And steel production, originally scheduled to double to 60 million tons by 1985, will be raised by 50 percent to 45 million tons.
"At the core of (Red) China's present dilemma is the problem it has faced with growing gravity over the past century - too many people and not enough arable land. As a consequence, its top priority must be to produce more food, not only to nourish a population of more than 1 billion but to export in order to earn the hard currency that buys the foreign agricultural equipment that produces more food.
"During his lifetime, Mao Zedong, who died in 1976, believed that the way to produce more rice and wheat was to mobilize millions of (mainland) Chinese in periodic campaigns. But his schemes were disastrous, and (Red) China's leaders now admit that 10 percent of the population is not getting enough to eat today.
"It will not be easy, though, for Hua and his comrades to do appreciably better. If this year's targets are fulfilled, grain output will go up by 4 percent - hardly a comfortable margin.
"Chinese (Communist) officials also have been disclosing with unusual candor that their economy has been flawed as well by all kinds of mismanagement. Hua has said, in fact, that one quarter of the country's government-run enterprises have been operating at a loss.
"Much of this stemmed from the decentralization that took place after the Maoist era. Provincial and municipal administrations were rivaling each other for funds, duplicating projects and wasting scarce resources in the process. Beijing agencies, functioning autonomously, were piling up foreign debts beyond (Red) China's capacity to repay.
''The Chinese (Communist) rulers have come around to the realization, therefore, that their goals have to be scaled down to more realistic levels at the same time that management of the nation must be made tighter and efficient." (Partial text)
Business Week - Fragile compromise
Business Week (7/9/79) published this article by Harold Ellithorpe and Lewis H. Young: ''The fragile compromise adopted at the National People's Congress in mid-June is a reflection of the serious unrest that is .spreading in (mainland) China, particularly among young people. (Red) China will continue its pragmatic drive for modernization, as espoused by the forces of Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping, but the congress decided that the drive would move at a far less ambitious pace and under stringent guidelines that adhere to 'traditional socialist values,' a compromise supported by Party Chairman Hua Guofeng, Deng chief rival for power.
"Reports leaking from the month-long Communist Party Work Conference that preceded the congress told of inefficient backwardness, and lack managerial control in every aspect of economic life. (Red) China has turned to foreign technology and financing to overcome the problems. Peking institution political reforms aimed at liberalizing Some of the restriction imposed by former Chairman Mao Zedong.
"But in the wake of the liberalization have come unexpected and wide spread dis sent, demonstrations, and Sharp criticism of the government i wall posters and underground publications. There has also bee a surge into the cities of tens a thousands of rebellious young people as the ban on travel ha been lifted. It has uncloaked (Red China's serious unemployment problem. Peking alone is said to have had 50,000 jobless youth last winter. In Shanghai, four fifths of this spring's high school graduates have yet to get jobs, even though Shanghai is (mainland) China's largest and fastest growing industrial center. Vice Premier Li Xiannian recently estimated that (Red) China has 20 million unemployed, and if the underemployed figure were added, some observers believe the total may reach 50 million people.
"When Mao was in control, potential dissidents such as jobless youth were sent off to rural areas. Between 1966 and 1976, at least 12 million urban youths, many of them high school graduates, went to rural areas 'to learn from the peasants.' Now they are flocking back to the cities to look for a decent livelihood - and social justice.
"All this ferment has prompted the Chinese (Communist) leadership to swing to Hua's advocacy of moving more slowly on liberalization. Because backsliding started after Den visit to Washington in February some China watchers speculate that the program was launch partly to please the U.S. and gained most-favored-nation status for (Red) China's exports to the U.S. But by June the secretary Tibet's Communist Party revealed that 'tens of thousands' of Han Chinese had recently been assigned to work on the cold and inhospitable Tibetan plateau.
"Yet the Reverend L. Ladany, a Jesuit scholar of China for more than 60 years and considered dean of Hongkong China watchers, believes that the future of (mainland) China lie inevitably in the hands of the new dissidents. They are mostly young - 25 to 35 years old - rebellious but with great courage some of them murdered their teachers during the Cultural Revolution. Ladany claims the dissent is very widespread. It shows up in underground journals published allover (mainland) China, at least 20 in Peking alone. And Ladany claims that some of these journals represent secret organizations with large memberships. The journals tend to repeat a few themes; one is that When the Communists turned to Western technology, it proved capitalism was a better system than socialism.
"To rebut these ideas, (Red) China's official periodicals carry stories almost every day urging renewed faith in socialism. The Politburo's new guidelines lay down four principles: 'To remain on a socialist path, continue the dictatorship of the proletariat, follow the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and adhere to the precepts of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.'
“But many young people do not oppose Marxism so much as they simply ignore it. They wan to see foreign mms, wear jeans and wear their hair long. Ladany thinks many of them live in a dream world and that their definition of democracy is some thing akin to anarchy. "And their dreams are causing more trouble than just adverse propaganda for the regime. More than 2,000 peasants staged a demonstration in Peking in February for higher living standards. The movement back to urban areas by young people who worked in rural factories has helped paralyze parts of the economy. And some underground gangs have turned to banditry, attacking and robbing freight trains." (Partial text)
Rising Tide - Prisoner of Mao
The Rising Tide (7/9/79) published this. article by Hal Mc Kenzie: "Former Life correspondent Rudolf Chelminski met Bao Ruo-wang, or Jean Pasqualini as he is called in the language of his Corsican father, in Paris in 1969. After hearing Bao’s incredible tales of seven years in Chinese (Communist) labor camps, Chelminski said, 'Why in hell don't you write a book about it? You could become the Chinese Solzhenitsyn!'
"So began a fruitful collaboration that brought Prisoner of Mao to the attention of the world.
"Actually, the 'Chinese Solzhenitsyn' is no Solzhenitsyn in terms of literary depth or scope. The story reads more as an entertaining and exciting adventure endurance tale than the enormous historical and philosophical sort of work that Solzhenitsyn created in Gulag Archipelago.
"Solzhenitsyn was trying to capture the total experience of a nation broken and enslaved Gulag is like an encyclopedia of human depravity and evil. Reading it, one feels crushed under its weight, feeling something of what the Russian prisoners must feel under the heel of the state.
"Bao's motivation and scope are more limited and his view point less historical than Solzhenitsyn's. Bao himself emerges as an engaging and witty character, playing the game of survival with a liveliness that you don't see very often in the grim Gulag.
"This may reflect the differences between the Chinese (Communist) and Russian 'corrective labor' systems. According to Bao's account, the Chinese (Communist) system seems a bit more humane and effective than the Russian system, in the same way that a humane slave driver is more effective than a brutal slave driver. "Apparently the Chinese (Communists) take very seriously the idea that 'corrective labor' camps are places where people are actually corrected in their attitudes and thoughts, while for the Russians 'corrective labor' is only a euphemism for slave labor.
"This is not to say that the Chinese (Communist) camps work their prisoners any less than in the Gulag, or that the living standards are any better. But in the Chinese (Communist) system, the prisoners are given the hope of eventual 'forgiveness' if they demonstrate true repentance and sincerity in cleansing their minds of bad ideas. After all, it was the Chinese (Communists) who in vented the term 'brainwashing,' and Bao describes the process very well.
''The Chinese (Communists) require the prisoners to write out elaborate confessions, detailing their every mistaken deed and thought from childhood on. They also conduct study sessions in the prison cells every night in which the prisoners comment on passages from the Communist Party newspaper.
"The prisoners' performance in the study sessions and the sincerity of their confessions are carefully recorded by the jailers, and constantly held over them in the old 'carrot and stick' method. A prisoner's hopes are raised by praise of his performance, while his compliance is coerced by threatening him with decreased chances for parole for even the slightest deviation. Of course, deviations are never hard to find.
"Then there is the famous 'struggle' session, in which a particularly unrepentant prisoner is placed within a circle of a score or so of his fellow prisoners, who hurl insults, taunts, and accusations without mercy or let-up until he breaks down and con fesses his error.
"Despite the seemingly vicious nature of the struggle session, Bao reveals that most often there are no hard feelings afterwards between the strugglers and the struggle. In fact the prisoners seem to welcome such occasions as a break in the routine. It is simply another thing that is expected of them.
"Ironically, the end result of the Chinese (Communist) brain washing is that it gives the cynical and unrepentant prisoners, who are smart enough to play the game and say the right things, a mental challenge which actually strengthens them against it, which is how Bao retained his sanity and spiritual integrity. Those who actually believe the promise of being welcomed back into Mao's bosom, however, turn out to be the real losers.
"One of the most touching scenes in the book is Bao's description of a fallen party cadre who is cell leader in the first prison to which Bao is sent. Believing sincerely in the promise of forgiveness, and in the ultimate wisdom and goodness of Mao, the cadre makes himself into a model prisoner and Maoist sycophant, with a spotless record. Then his sentence is extended to life imprisonment.
"Bao himself comes to play the role of a perfect party cadre, more out of force of habit and the challenge of adjusting than out of a sincere belief in Mao. It is simply a matter of survival no more, no less.
"Survival is the real theme of the book. The most inspirational scenes are those showing the prisoners scrounging food by picking undigested corn kernel out of horse manure, eating little frogs found hopping in the otherwise barren fields, thinking of a cockroach as a delicacy, and organizing elaborate heists of the prison leaders' kitchen.
"Bao is finally freed from the Chinese (Communist) prison through the lucky accident of his French citizenship. The son of a French businessman and Chinese mother, Bao (under his French name Jean Pasqualini) was educated in mission schools. Bright and with an extraordinary memory, Bao learned several languages and landed a job as interpreter for a U.S. marine unit in Shanghai.
"This was his undoing, as his connection with the 'imperialists' was enough to get him arrested for a 12-year term after the Communists took over in 1948, even though he was technically a French citizen.
"He spent seven years in prison, ignored by the French government, until (Red) China's desire for diplomatic relations with the French opened his case up again.
"After months of negotiations and an unsuccessful attempt by the Chinese (Communist) authorities to convince him to renounce his French citizenship and remain in Red China (apparently Bao's brainwashing didn't take), Bao was freed in November 1964." (Full text)