The re-examination of the case of Teng Hsiao-ping, who was dismissed last April, entered a new stage. For the first time an official figure mentioned the former "vice premier" without criticizing him and said he was the principal adversary of Mao Tse-tung's widow, Chiang Ching. Kuo Feng-lien, a young peasant leader of the Tachai brigade, a model for agricultural production, brought up Teng's name at the second "national conference on agriculture."
A high-ranking Chinese Communist official said the Peiping-Moscow struggle is destined to become worse. Kyodo news service reported from Peiping that Tan Chen-lin, "vice chairman" of Peiping's "national people's congress standing committee," had said the Soviet Union is a hegemonist country which aims to take over the world.
A Peiping report in the Toronto Globe and Mail said attacks on real and alleged supporters of the "gang of four" have become so disorderly and so indiscriminate that they are threatening Hua Kuo-feng.
DECEMBER 17 - The "gang of four" plotted to usurp the party and seize power the moment Mao Tse-tung died, People's Daily charged.
More details have emerged about plans by Chiang Ching and her followers to use the militia in their alleged bid to seize power. Early in the campaign against the "gang of four," wall posters in Shanghai accused the municipal party secretary, Ma Tien-shui, of scheming to grab the port, radio station and other key installations with the militia. Now a local radio broadcast from Wuhan has reported radical sympathizers wanted to use the militia to "engage in armed struggle" there.
Diehard followers of Chiang Ching and her three disgraced col1eagues are still creating trouble in the southern province of Yunnan, a provincial radio broadcast said.
In the three months since Mao Tse-tung's death, his widow, Chiang Ching, has been denounced, disgraced and purged. She may also be displaced as his acknowledged widow. Analysts in Hongkong reached this impression from articles in the Chinese Communist press glorifying Mao's second wife, Yang Kai-hui.
DECEMBER 18 - Tension continues along the mainland's northeastern border with the Soviet Union with large-scale military exercises taking place continuously on the Soviet side, Japan's Kyodo news agency said in a dispatch from Peiping.
Anti-Communist forces have been active in Kwangsi province since purging of the "gang of four." These forces attacked Communist military convoys, raided ammunition depots and sacked granaries.
Peiping escalated its charges against Mao Tse-tung's widow and three others, alleging they in tended to violently "dispose" of Hua Kuo-feng and other top leaders. People's Daily claimed the four plotted to assassinate leading party, regime and army officials and make Mao's widow, Chiang Ching, "empress of China."
A wal1 poster in Peiping accused former "foreign minister" Chiao Kuan-hua and his wife, Chang Han-chili, of being "conspirators of the gang of four." Taipei reports said Chiao Kuan-hua was dismissed December 2. No reason was given.
DECEMBER 19 - A provincial radio station claimed that Hua Kuo-feng was a guerrilla leader during the 1937-45 war with Japan. According to Taiyuan radio, close to Hua's birthplace in northern Shansi, he commanded guerrillas in the Luliang mountains.
Peiping's "gang of four" is now being accused of having cooked up a "poisonous film" that attacked the plans of Chou En-lai for modernization as a "scheme to get rich." NCNA said the film was "The Riotous Hsiaoliang River."
DECEMBER 20 - Soviet-Chinese Communist rivalry in Africa, which abated slightly in 1976, is likely to escalate over the next 12 months in politically unstable areas, Paris sources said.
NCNA said railway service was severely affected by Chiang Ching and her clique. Service on the Peiping-Wuhan line was almost totally disrupted. The major trouble center was at Chengchow, the provincial capital of Honan.
A group of 780 graduates from more than 100 universities and colleges in Peiping, Shanghai and 19 provinces recently were resettled in Tibet, NCNA reported.
Julie Nixon Eisenhower said Mao Tse-tung told her last New Year's Eve that struggles in the Chinese Communist party and between classes might last two or three hundred years.
DECEMBER 21- Almost 3,000 militia members in the Shanghai district were killed, wounded or arrested in the two months after Communist troops started their purge and clashed with followers of the "gang of four," Taipei sources said.
Casualties in the Tangshan earthquake last summer may have totaled 2 million, Tillman Durdin said in a report from New York. A document made available by the Chinese Information Service put the dead at 755,237 and the injured at 799,000 in Tangshan alone.
The name of Peiping "mayor" Wu Teh was absent from an NCNA list of the Chinese Communist politburo of which he is a member. No explanation was given.
Rumors directed against Hua Kuo-feng and the "party central" of the Peiping regime are spreading in Sinkiang, according to the Sinkiang Daily.
Chinese Communist provincial radio broadcasts monitored in Hongkong make it clear that two major campaigns are in full swing throughout the mainland. They are simultaneously directed at whipping up new enthusiasm and efforts for increased agricultural and industrial production and at exposing the "towering crimes of the gang of four."
Ambassadors of the Soviet Union and seven allies stalked out of a Peiping banquet during an anti-Soviet speech by Chinese Communist "vice premier" Li Hsien-nien.
DECEMBER 22 - Armed conflict and rioting launched by people in the Paoting area of Hopei province have posed a threat to Peiping, according to Taipei intelligence reports from the Chinese mainland.
Peiping's "ambassador" to Japan, Chen Chu, has returned to Peiping for reassignment, according to reports from Tokyo and Peiping. Chen has been rumored as successor to Huang Hua at the United Nations. Huang is the new "foreign minister."
DECEMBER 23 - Three top Shanghai administrators have been detained, Peiping sources said. They reported the three were "under investigation" and had been put before struggle meetings to be criticized for connections with Chiang Ching and other denounced leaders. All were secretaries of the Shanghai Communist party committee: Ma Tien-shui, Hsu Ching-hsien and Wang Hsiu-ehen (female).
Wuhan radio pinpointed April as the month when serious trouble broke out in mainland central provinces. The report said the "gang of four" had a counterrevolutionary plan for a "new upsurge in May."
Factions in several provinces are still resisting the military-backed regime of Hua Kuo-feng, the Washington Post reported.
"Radical" leaders headed by Mao Tse-tung's widow tried to make Mao a figurehead before he die and plotted an "armed rebellion" after his death last September, according to People's Daily
Canton radio reported some 90,000 educated young people of Kwangtung province were resettled in the countryside in 1976.
DECEMBER 24 - The Times of London reported in a dispatch from Hongkong that unrest on the Chinese mainland has put Hua Kuo-feng's future in the balance. The report by David Bonavia said civil unrest in a number of provinces is complicating the task of the regime's new leadership in establishing unity and boosting production.
Counterrevolutionaries in Szechwan province raided memorial halls in an outburst of violence during funeral services for Mao Tse-tung, Chengtu radio reported.
DECEMBER 25 - Agricultural production in six of the mainland's 26 provinces "suffered serious disruption in the past few years" because of political struggle that sometimes turned violent, according to "vice premier" Chen Yung-kuei.
Wall posters have gone up on Peiping campuses demanding the death sentence for two university administrators closely linked with the purged "gang of four." Chih Chun and Hsieh Ching-yi (female) were allegedly involved in the radicals' plot to seize power following Mao Tse-tung's death last September.
DECEMBER 26 - Hua Kuo-feng called on the mainland to carry out four major "fighting tasks" during 1977: (1) criticize the "gang of four," (2) strengthen the Communist party, (3) enhance agricultural and industrial emulation campaigns and (4) study Communist ideology.
Hua Kuo-feng and former followers of the purged "gang of four" who betrayed the Shanghai faction have been cooperating to prevent another political comeback of Teng Hsiao-ping, according to reports reaching Taipei from the mainland.
News dispatches from Peiping claimed the Chiang Ching "gang" had made up a list of ministers to be announced if their coup succeeded. Chiang Ching intended to become chairman of the party to succeed Mao. Chang Chun-chiao was to be "premier."
Red China is tracking down "speculators, profiteers, embezzlers and grafters" as part of the movement to rectify the economy and promote agriculture. The campaign was announced by the "vice premier" Chen Yung-kuei, in his report to the second national agricultural conference.
DECEMBER 27 - The purge of the "gang of four" last October averted "a major civil war" in Red China in which the Soviet Union would have been involved, Hua Kuo-feng said. Hua called the struggle the gravest threat in the 27-year history of the regime.
Chinese Communist agriculture has been hampered by "the capitalist tendency of abandoning farming to engage in commerce" and by farmers ignoring the official plan, NCNA said. Another problem is that members of rural communes have immediately divided up and consumed all their income.
Radioactive fallout from the first of two nuclear test explosions in Red China during the autumn may eventually cause three or four cases of thyroid cancer in the United States, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.
DECEMBER 28 - Leaders of the Chinese Communist radical faction tried to distribute weapons to the Shanghai militia when Mao Tse-tung was dying and "were ready to strike a vicious blow," said Wang Yi-ping, vice chairman of Shang-hai's municipal revolutionary committee.
Teng Hsiao-ping, the Chinese Communist "vice premier" fired in April and made the object of a mass criticism campaign, is living in Peiping, Japan's Kyodo news service was told.
The devastating earthquake which struck the Tangshan area last July "inflicted a loss of lives and property that has rarely been seen in history," Hua Kuo-feng admitted.
Commenting on the cooling of Peiping-Tirana relations, the New Leader of New York said "it would not be surprising if announcement were made soon that an indeterminate number of (Red) Chinese advisers and technicians in Albania will leave."
DECEMBER 29 - Hua Kuo-feng is no longer able to move troops without the concurrence of military bosses and warlordism is rapidly emerging on the Chinese mainland, according to intelligence reports reaching Taipei.
Hua Kuo-feng said a sweeping "rectification" campaign will be launched in 1977 to "purify the ranks" of the 30-million-member Chinese Communist party.
Authorities are reported to have put down fighting and sabotage in the city of Paoting, about 100 miles south of Peiping, the British Broadcasting Corporation said.
Black African students in Red China have been under severe psychological pressure because of the Chinese Communist policy prohibiting the development of friendships between mainland and foreign students, the South China Morning Post of Hongkong reported.
DECEMBER 30 - Four commanders of city militia created by the "gang of four" have been executed for leading their men against regular Red troops, said Gen. Wang Sheng, director of the General Political Warfare Department of the Republic of China.
Tass news agency reported without comment the Chinese Communist campaign against the "gang of four." Although the campaign has been reported for months in the Western press, this was the first mention in the Soviet.
Renewal of Soviet border talks is not viewed in Red China as a sign of a Peiping-Moscow detente, a special correspondent of the Hongkong leftwing Ta Kung Pao reported from the mainland.
The widow of Mao Tse-tung and her political allies were accused of trying to gain a base of military power by wresting control of local militia units from the regular army, Kyodo reported from Peiping.
Hua Kuo-feng's speech before the agricultural conference in Peiping reveals striking weaknesses in a dictatorship under new and weak management, said the Sueddeutshe (South German) Zeitung.
DECEMBER 31 - New reports of violence in Red China suggest that although Mao Tse-tung's widow, Chiang Ching, and her three colleagues have been arrested, their supporters still present a vast potential for trouble. Hua Kuo-feng called on the masses to "wage a people's war" against "the gang of four" and their adherents in 1977.
The whole of Southeast China may be engulfed in violent clashes of civil war proportions if Hua Kuo-feng fails to bring the chaotic Szechwan situation under control, an expert on mainland affairs said in Taipei.
JANUARY 1 - The Chinese Communists are seriously considering major arms purchases from the West to repair the deficiencies of their armed forces for the war with the Soviet Union that they still see as a possibility. Western military analysts can see no other explanation for three important visits to the mainland in recent months: those of the French chief of staff, Guy Mery; former U.S. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger; and, most recently, the American military commentator, Drew Middleton.
Twelve thousand troops have played a key role in smashing a plot by the radical followers of the "gang of four" in Fukien, where their bid to "throw the army into confusion" gained geopolitical significance from the fact that the free Chinese fortress-island of Quemoy is only 1,200 yards off the coast at the nearest point.
JANUARY 2 - People are still dying in disturbances in Red China, although the Chinese Communist leadership has put down most of the serious unrest, Peiping sources said. Disturbances have spread to at least 10 provinces, chiefly in the south, the sources said.
Hua Kuo-feng "may be having difficulty consolidating his position," the Sunday New York Times said. This is because of Hua's reliance on the army to put down disorders in the provinces and because of apparent debate within the leader ship on several key issues, Fox Butterfield wrote from Hongkong.
Weng Sen-ho, a Chinese Communist party official described as the "hatchetman" of the "gang of four" in Chekiang province, has been arrested and purged, the provincial radio reported.
Peiping's purge of supporters of the "gang of four" has met with resistance from soldiers and junior officers in the Red army, although the purge has won the support of the military bosses, according to a Central News Agency report from Hongkong.
People's Daily said the "gang of four" badly damaged Red China's economy and foreign policy by opposing sale of oil to foreign nations.
JANUARY 3 - "Many hundreds, if not thousands," have died in an uprising by supporters of Mao Tse-tung's widow in Red China's province of Szechwan, the West German news agency DP A reported from Peiping.
Chiang Ching and the three other members of her gang could face the death penalty, according to the correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald in Peiping.
Hua Kuo-feng ordered the Chinese Communist army railway corps to take operational control of the key Chengchow railway bureau in Honan province.
JANUARY 4 - At least 655,237 persons died (the figure was first disclosed by the Central Radio Station in Taipei) and another 779,000 were injured by the quake which hit North China last July 28, according to a report by Hopei officials.
The New York Times said it is too early to assume that Hua Kuo-feng will certainly be Mao's successor.
JANUARY 5 - A major schism has developed within Peiping's ruling group over the re habilitation of former "vice premier" Teng Hsiao-ping and former Peiping "mayor" Peng Chen and over the disposal of the purged "gang of four," intelligence sources disclosed in Taipei. On one side is a group headed by "defense minister" Yeh Chien-ying. Other members include "vice premier" Li Hsien-nien, "vice premier" Tan Chen-lin and the majority of top military commanders. Opposing them are Hua Kuo-feng, Peiping "mayor" Wu Teh and Li Teh-sheng, commander of the Shenyang military region, and Wang Tung-hsing, commander of the Central Security Corps, also known as Unit 8341. The Yeh group holds the view that the Shanghai gang should be expelled from the party. The Hua faction advocates reformatory education.
For the first time, the Chinese Communist press mentioned disturbances that occurred in the Paoting region and held former party vice chairman Wang Hung-wen directly responsible for them. Wang was one of the accomplices of Chiang Ching in the "gang of four."
Mao Tse-tung's widow, Chiang Ching, trying to "create big disorders," instigated attacks on soldiers and militiamen in Shantung, her native province, according to Chinese Communist radio reports.
JANUARY 6 - Anti-Hua Kuo-feng wall posters have appeared at Sian and Tsinan, and the two provincial capitals are in a state of anarchy, intelligence sources disclosed in Taipei.
Red China has signaled an end to its campaign to discredit former "vice premier" Teng Hsiao-ping, who was purged. For more than a week there has been an absence of criticism of the 72-year-old Teng in the Chinese Communist press.
The intensified power struggle within the Peiping regime has caused further deterioration of the shaky economy on the Chinese mainland, a report reaching Taipei said.
People's Daily began the New Year by printing its name in Roman letters as well as Chinese characters at the top of page one. The paper made no comment. The Chinese Communists have announced the goal of changing from characters to an alphabet.
JANUARY 7 - Reporting from Hongkong for the Times of London, David Bonavia said Red China is heading toward a form of military dictatorship and that to a considerable extent it already is under one.
Large wall posters appealing for the reinstatement of disgraced former "vice premier" Teng Hsiao-ping appeared in Peiping on the eve of the first anniversary of Chou En-lai's death.
Charging the late Chou En-lai was "persecuted to death" by the "gang of four," a Chinese Communist radio broadcast said the four should be placed on public trial.
JANUARY 8 - Tens of thousands of people gathered in Peiping to pay respects to the late Chou En-lai on the first anniversary of his death and to call for the rehabilitation of former "vice premier" Teng Hsiao-ping.
Peiping "mayor" Wu Teh was the target of several posters in Peiping. The people cannot trust Wu Teh, the posters said.
JANUARY 9 - A group of people demonstrated in Peiping's Chung Nan Hai area but was contained by soldiers, Kyodo reported.
A poster put up in the center of Peiping criticized Chen Hsi-lien, commander of the Peiping military region and a member of the politburo, for the role he played last April in crushing the riots in Tienanmen square.
The "gang of four," bent on persecuting Chou En-lai, once instigated a mob to harass him for a day and night without letting him go to sleep. This was disclosed in an NCNA article.
JANUARY 10 - The rehabilitation of Teng Hsiao-ping appeared to be well under way, Hongkong sources said. It is no longer a question of whether Teng will be returned to power but when, diplomatic analysts in Peiping said.
Up to 1 million people surged through Peiping's Tienanmen Square for the third day in demonstrations that combined tributes to Chou En-lai with attacks on living officials. Chinese Communist authorities made no effort to restrain them.
About 300 persons gathered before the main gate leading to the headquarters of the central party committee in Peiping but dispersed reluctantly after an apparent attempt to present a plea to party officials, Kyodo reported.
As many as 100 Chinese are fleeing the Chinese mainland daily for sanctuary in Hongkong, U.S. News and World Report said.
JANUAR Y 11 - A large number of people have demanded trial of the "gang of four," reinstatement of Teng Hsiao-ping and dismissal of Peiping "mayor" Wu Teh, Kyodo reported.
Chaos seems to have increased in central and southwestern China since the "gang of four" was arrested in Peiping, Taipei reports said. Judging from the broadcasts on Communist radio stations, activities of the elements associated with the "gang of four" have increased in such inner provinces as Szechwan, Kwangsi, Kweichow and Yunnan.
An anti-Communist organization in Nanking has been uncovered by the city's security bureau and two of the organization's important members arrested, an intelligence source reported in Taipei.
The continued demonstrations in Peiping and the appearance of fresh posters have begun to create a sense of uneasiness among the people on the Chinese mainland, the New York Times said.
The niece of Mao Tse-tung came under attack in a Peiping wall poster campaign centering around demands for the reinstatement of Teng Hsiao-ping.
JANUARY 12 - Teng Hsiao-ping has already started work at his office in the "state council" of the Peiping regime and his problems will be further discussed at the "third plenary session of the 10th central committee" of the Chinese Communist party, according to the contents of a secret document obtained by an intelligence agent on the mainland and made public in Taipei.
Red China's leaders have delayed making a final decision on whether to rehabilitate Teng Hsiao-ping in order to study a controversial report on the "cultural revolution" written by Teng in 1975, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said. Tanjug said the report was critical of educational and social programs favored by radical Communist party elements behind the "cultural revolution."
Anti-Mao Tse-tung posters have started appearing on the mainland while denunciation of his successor is spreading despite military suppression, intelligence sources disclosed in Taipei.
As the wave of opposition to Hua Kuo-feng surged across the mainland, Communist "central authorities" gave orders to troops to shoot anti-revolutionaries at sight and military district commands were authorized to execute dissidents, an intelligence agent reported to Taipei.
JANUARY 13 - People in Peiping prefer to read posters at the Tienanmen Square in the evenings because there are too many special agents around at daytime, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported.
JANUARY 14 - Whether Teng Hsiao-ping is rehabilitated or not, Hua Kuo-feng's position is shaky and the power struggle of the Peiping regime will be aggravated, Warren Kuo, deputy director of the Institute of International Relations of National Chengchi University, said in Taipei.
Chen Mu-hua has been named Chinese Communist "minister of economic relations with foreign countries." She had been the "vice minister" since April, 1971. She replaces Fang Yi, who has not appeared in public since his return on January 4 from an official visit to Cambodia.
JANUARY 15 - For the first time, a quotation of Hua Kuo-feng replaced the traditional Mao Tse-tung quotation of the day on the front page of People s Daily. The quotation referred to economic growth. It was framed in the top right corner of the page, a space previously reserved for the words of Mao, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
Chinese Communist officials denied that Mao Tse-tung's niece, Wang Hai-jung, was involved in the plot of Chiang Ching's "gang of four." The officials from the "bank of China" met with the president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, David Rockefeller, who was visiting the mainland.
Canadian newspaperman John Walker, until recently Peiping correspondent of the Southam News Services, said the re-emergence of Teng Hsiao-ping would disturb Hua Kuo-feng.
A Chinese Communist "foreign ministry" spokesman said Teng Hsiao-ping can resume his official activities if he corrects his errors.
Peiping has not shown a change of attitude toward Indonesia sufficient to warrant reopening of diplomatic ties, the pro-government party newspaper Suara Karya (Voice of Work) said in Jakarta.