Taiwan Today

Of late there has been a spate of press reports and interpellations, felicitous or vexing, as seen from different approaches.

First I speak of the felicitous reports that emanate from on-the-scene reporters with regard to the growth of the gross national product of our economy, despite the problems of worldwide inflation and recession, that have enriched the English vocabulary with the dubious honor of coining the word stagflation. This reality is indeed high praise for our hard-working and ingenious citizens - men and women - of the Republic of China on this island province of Taiwan. It is also high praise for the free enterprise system as against slave labor enterprise anywhere else in the world.

Although England was among the first exponents of free enterprise with its tradition of ingenuity, spirit of adventure and derring-do as well as inventiveness and technical know-how, she is now in the throes of a financial, political, intellectual and moral paroxysm which leads Time magazine of September 30 issue to question in large caption letters whether democracy will survive in Britain. Here is its report: "A Bank of England report last week cites some of the weaknesses that plague British corporations and could trigger a rash of bankruptcies ... London's financial community learned that Ferranti, a leading electronics and defense contractor, could not meet its obligations and had exhausted its lines of credit. Financiers in the city immediately began to worry about which company would be next."

Again, in the same issue, a Time symposium quotes Lord Chalfont, who encapsulated Britain's ills in a nutshell: "I think real political power is moving away from the elected legislature. The large industrial trade unions are a classic example of bodies which are non-elective and in many cases non-democratic but which wield enormous power. They can bring down elected governments; they can abort and inhibit the policies of these governments. The problem is exacerbated by the very real increase in power of the extreme left wing people who really want to see the existing political system of this country changed radically."

Mr. Alan Taylor however puts up a brave defense contra portents of Britain's deepening crisis and disaster. He notes that after the Napoleonic Wars, Wellington was convinced that the country was ruined. In the 1880's the unemployed marched through Piccadilly and smashed every club window and William Morris believed that the pervasive discontent could lead to socialist revolution. Joseph Chamberlain, when he launched his tariff reform, believed that Britain was on the point of collapse. So it was in 1931 when the national government of James Ramsay MacDonald was formed. And therefore Mr. Taylor contends that "all this shall pass." One could agree, too, except that the analogy drawn by Mr. Taylor is not analogous to Britain's malaise of today. He forgets that British morale was buoyed up by its peculiar brand of pride, pride in its Empire - an Empire on which the sun never set - whichever and anon the Colonel Blimps and Kiplingesque others never tired of reminding themselves as well as all and sundry. And there was also the well-deserved pride of British work ethic and workmanship. Ever since these two standbys of British pride went awash after World War II, she has become the avant-garde advocate of La Dolce Vita led on by the Carnaby ^* set of the younger generation, so much so that, again to quote Time, "Britain has been able to maintain its living standard as high as it has because it has borrowed large amounts abroad (about $4 billion) and because Arab oil producers have deposited an estimated $2.5 billion in London's banks. The nation could be brought to the edge of bankruptcy if it started encountering difficulty renewing its loans or if the Arabs suddenly withdrew their deposits."

In contrast, our people are sustained like the British of yore by our work ethic and self-discipline and not by any psychological crutch of dependence on others or exploitation of other peoples. I mention the laudable and truly remarkable qualities of my compatriots in contrast to the present-day state of affairs in Britain out of dismay and in chagrin. In dismay because Britain (through certain of her own debilitating policies and flaccid ethos) has sunk to a low and seedy state of affairs that would have seemed inconceivable before World War II. Chagrin because the sterling qualities that shone so brightly as British traits of character seem to be tarnished - but I hope not beyond reburnishing. It seems that listlessness and lethargy have entirely swamped and inundated the British national will to work as though it had been over come by some insurmountable supervening power in the time of adversity since the loss of Britain's Empire. My reason for speaking at some length of Britain is because I deplore her present infelicitous plight and, extempore, I speak of my compatriots in order to give a spectrum of insight as to why we have grown stronger in our adversity and why we will be able to withstand whatever gale that blows our way in the future.

In this connection I wish to recall for all that some three years ago when the Third World forces in concert with the opportunists, the illiberal liberals, and the put-on leftists finally succeeded in their conspiracy to exclude us from the United Nations, they thought that in so doing the government and the people of our country on Taiwan would turn apathetic and soon wither away. We have proved them to be wrong, so very dead wrong. In fact, difficulties have further steeled our will for greater striving and achievement and - mirabile visu - all within the purview of the free enterprise system - the anathema of the Communist system. Therefore it was with quiet amusement, truthfully not unmixed with a modicum of disdain, that I read in the Newsweek issue of September 30, 1974: "It is not United Nations' policy," intoned the spokesman, "to display gifts from States that are not U.N. members," but, as Newsweek goes on to say, the 3 by 6 foot green marble plaque bearing a quotation from Confucius reportedly was removed by the Secretary General on virtual orders of Huang Hua because "that was Chiang Kai-shek's remaining symbol" and had to be done away with. As if by taking away the plaque the' Chinese Communists could make the Republic of China and all that she stands for disappear and vanish into nothingness. What travesty of tragicomedy it is for the U.N. to take orders from one member - Huang Hua! What humiliation it must be for the Secretary General to be expected to jump to attention at the command of Huang Hua, to say "Yes, Sir" to every displeasure, to guess with anticipation what every directive of Huang's knitted eyebrows means, and, to top it all, of having to play general factotum even to the extent of devising an official subterfuge outrageous and lame as it was farcical- for removing a plaque that had been officially received by the former Secretary General on behalf of the U.N. The hearts of those who stop to think will doubtless sympathize with Herr Waldheim. There is a Chinese allegory which fits to a T the present plight: Boxed in the ears until the cheeks turn tumid and still bragging of being well-nourished.

I wonder how the Chinese Communists can erase history in this manner. Do they think that by removing a plaque they can obliterate from human annals the fact that the Republic ,of China is one of the U.N.'s founding members? Do they think that they can change history at will as they have attempted to do on the mainland? Do they think that by emulating the tyrant Emperor Ch'in Shih Huang, who incinerated books and buried alive scholars to keep people ignorant and to prevent ideas from propagating, they can really create a tyranny of a thousand years as Hitler's vaunted thousand-year Reich was to have been? Or is it a subtility with satanic intent that they do not want the Confucian concept of concord and brotherhood under Heaven to be a reality in order that as leader of the Third World, Communist China could be the wellspring of subversion, worldwide rebellion and chaos to redound to their advantage as Chou En-lai voiced on October 1?

After reading the news item regarding the plaque I was reminded again of the U.N.'s unprincipled hypocrisy, callousness and deviousness. Then, in turning over to the front of the magazine, I saw two drawings by Lurie. The first one depicts Herr Kurt Waldheim standing at soldierly attention with his panama held in front of his heart and with a rather self-satisfied yet expectant look on his face whilst the U.N. flag was being pulled up the flagpole by a uniformed flunky. The second drawing shows a tattered U.N. flag with part of the initial N patched with a piece of cloth like those usually found in a ragpicker's sack, and below, Herr Waldheim with his hat held in an alms-imploring fashion, his head askew, and the other arm akimbo, part-imploring, part-sardonical and part-embarrassing at the sight of the unseemly flag. What a brilliant, starkingly real portrayal of the U.N. of today! One cannot help wondering whether the Secretary General was musing about Beethoven and Confucius, who were recently discovered by the Chinese Communist regime to be traitors to socialist ideals, or was it self-pity in finding himself in such a tragicomic and historically ludicrous position.

Over the years, ever since its high and lofty ideals and principles were first enunciated, soon to be followed by internecine infighting, I have often thought that calling the U.N. the United Nations was a gross misnomer and a travesty of purpose of the first magnitude since the greater part of actions enunciated or evinced from that body could appropriately justify naming it "The Disunited Nations." For then it could be a forum true to its name and purpose for voicing irreconcilable differences. Its sole raison d'etre would be that both sides or multilateral sides could be heard with equal impartiality with no differences composed and no problems solved unless the disputants wished to do so in their own good time. I suggest this not in a spirit of facetiousness but in viewing the problem in honesty and without guile. The League of Nations of the pre-World War II epoch was in accord with its appellation. Its name, League of Nations, at least suggested overtly that it could be an organization for an alliance of a certain group or groups of nations. The U.N. of the post-World War II period, perhaps willfully or naively, sought to achieve ambitions far beyond its collective will and comprehension. In other words, the conceptualized ideal of a world of enduring peace and justice far outran the reality of the times. And the futile and febrile shortsighted, transitory accommodation policies of the Free World, which had the opportunity to shape the peace for a better world, did not measure up to statesmanship in their swaging of certain immutable principles.

Milton wrote profoundly and feelingly in his Paradise Lost when his eyesight gave way. How can we express in words and emotion our deepest regret for the opportunity lost for world peace - real enduring peace? I speak of enduring peace not in the sense of perpetual peace in the Kantian sense, but a reasonable and viable peace. In one of my talks in the United States in 1943, I pointed out the pitfalls by reminding my audience of the Confederation of Delos. Again, I wish to bring out the ineluctible failure of the League of Nations due to petty selfishness and passing advantage or downright insensitivity of the consequences that were involved during the crucial period when Japanese imperialists and militarists began their systematic step-by-step invasion of China as conceived in the Tanaka Memorial which was then labeled by most as a fraudulent document fostered by the government of China and foisted on the world. It spelled the beginning of the end of the League of Nations with the aftermath of world misery and carnage when Japan's expansionism was permitted to go unchecked.

Without Cassandran prevision I now again say that the U.N. is ultimately doomed through the destruction of the principles upon which that organization was founded. For almost two decades the mention of the U.N. has brought forth cynical smiles and contemptuous smirks amongst political sophisticates and the knowing. Unfortunately everything augurs a Siegfried-like death, including a Wagnerian Gotterdammerung setting at the U.N. Many a wit has remarked that even the building itself presages its end because of its tombstone-like slab - a memorial to its demise. Being not of a superstitious bent, I was not dismayed by the architectural design. It was the poltroonery and utterly degrading opportunism that often amazed and nonplussed me, and the profaning of lofty ideals with such levity that grieved me.

The sudden frantic flurry of countries afraid of being left behind, racing to give recognition to the Mao Tse-tung regime, is pathetic. It reminds me of one of the tales of Hans Christian Andersen I read as a child. It tells the story of a charlatan who told the Emperor that he could weave the most beautiful garments of gold and silver: of the purest, lightest gossamer, and of such quality that only the very wisest courtiers of the realm could see and appreciate them. On the appointed day the charlatan came with the wondrous garments, and with great pomposity and ostentation decked the Emperor in his new raiment, piece by piece, after disrobing him from his mundane clothes. All the courtiers oohed and ahhed, vying with one another in praising those wondrous garments that the Emperor supposedly was wearing, for none of them wanted to be considered dense. In all that mood of adulation and adoration, a child in the imperial salon cried out: "The Emperor is naked! " Likewise the Chinese Communists, like the Chaldean sorcerers of old, have succeeded either in conning people or intimidating those who realize the Communist brummagems to be cheap. conjuring swindles, but who are opportunists and so unprincipled that they want to jump on the bandwagon and follow the passing fad. They are beneath contempt.

Apropos of what I have said, it would be valid for anyone to ask: Then why did the Republic of China remain in the United Nations since she had few illusions about the U.N.? I can best answer by reminding the reader of the chronology of the facts. The Republic of China fought a war not only against a foreign invasion. She also fought a war against the imposition of alien doctrines. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Father of the Republic of China, in his Three Principles, has synthesized for all of us the needs of the Chinese people. We reject categorically and in totality a Marx, a Lenin, or a Stalin in our political philosophy or in our system of government. All patriotic Chinese regard it as utterly shameless and demeaning for the Chinese Communists to idolize men of violence and deviltry as their mentors and Godfathers from the mould of the Mafia. The Republic of China staunchly believes in sovereignty, justice, integrity legitimism and fair play. For these ideals the Republic of China fought against Japanese aggression, became one of the U.N. Charter members, and also one of the five original sponsors of the U.N. As a founding member, it would have been both unseemly and irresponsible to withdraw since withdrawal would have meant implicitly as well as explicitly that we no longer supported those principles enunciated in the U.N. Charter which we had given our solemn word to uphold. I repeat, principles embodied in the Charter of the U.N. This does not mean for one moment that we now do not support the universally recognized principles and ideals encompassed in the U.N. but which are presently ignored and denigrated in their most vital and vibrant aspects. On the contrary, we withdrew because we believe that the U.N. has become a charnel house of dead principles.

Another all-commanding and pervasive reason is one which I can best explain by borrowing from the Hebrew word Mehdal, used in the self-searching, self-inquiring sense. The word connotes failure to do something which should have been done. We, the Republic of China, do not want it ever to be said that we, in a huff and on our own accord, took French leave from an organization we had helped found and supported from its birth. Nor do we want it ever to be said that in a legalistic sense we unilaterally deserted the U.N., to which we were honor-bound as a Charter member and as one of the founders obligated to support and even uphold it under trying circum stances, when it finally became patently untenable to our national honor and integrity. Now our conscience as a people and as a government is untroubled. The record of what transpired is not bedaggled but is clear for all history and posterity to judge.

To the ringing caveat of our President:
Transcendent composure in self-reliance, undaunted in the ambiance of change, we pledge our unswerving loyalty.

Three unobscured vistas-tout court

I

On August 10, 1974, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, in the course of remarks to a correspondent of the Central "Jews Agency, stated:

"It IS evident that President Richard Nixon's decision to resign was a difficult and agonizing one. However, it was a decision contingent upon the best interest of the United States."

She agreed with President Gerald R. Ford that it is the "finest personal decision" for America "as well as for the free world."

Further asked to comment on Mr. Nixon's statement of having "unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a. century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China, we must now ensure that the one quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain not our enemies but our friends," Madame Chiang had this to say:

"The 'unlocking' of the doors of the mainland would indeed be a very good thing were it true. Unlocking the doors means free egress and ingress. First, let us talk about egress. The pity of it all is that it is only a theoretical 'unlocking' for we all know that in egress no compatriots of ours are permitted to leave the country and their enforced serfdom. The only ones that leave the mainland escape by swimming to Hongkong, or Communist functionaries who are sent out as so-called diplomats, trade officials, or those on special tasks or missions and even they move about in threes or more to prevent their decamping and asking for asylum from the 'decadent' countries wherever they are stationed or to the 'decadent West.'

"As to ingress, I can quote from extremely impartial sources. We all have heard of and about the well-known sinologist Lord Michael Lindsay. We also know over the years where his sympathy lies, yet he has become so disenchanted with the Maoist regime after his visit together with his wife to the mainland last summer."

Madame Chiang further enumerated the facts as given by Lord Lindsay to the effect, (1) All diplomatic missions in Peiping are completely isolated, incapable of obtaining information other than that printed in the "People's Daily"; (2) Only Australians certified by the Australian Communist Party as loyal to the Communist cause would be given visas by the Chinese Communist "embassy" in Canberra.

Lady Lindsay, herself a Chinese, came to the conclusion that the present-day Peiping regime is "more threatening and ferocious than a tiger." Lord Lindsay further charged that all Chinese people on the mainland are poverty-stricken, except Mao and his cohorts and cadres. And the people do not even have the freedom not to speak, Lady Lindsay added.

Madame Chiang pointed out another example from another source based upon a speech given by former Deputy Director of the U.S. Liaison Office in Peiping, China expert Mr. Alfred Jenkins, who said he thought that the Maoist regime has great difficulties in power succession, lacks stable systems, and is opposed to systems, intellectualism, professionalism, urbanization and the elite of society. Mr. Jenkins' assessment is that such a regime cannot bring true wellbeing to the Chinese people and cannot open a glorious vista for the country, she said, and added:

"Could anyone with a modicum of intelligence ever honestly think that establishing formal relations with a repressive regime can mean that the Chinese people on the mainland will turn instantly from being 'enemies' of the United States into 'friends' of the United States? I say categorically that there is no such thing as instant friendship as instant coffee. On the contrary, the Chinese people are friends of the American people of long standing despite the Communist regime. In fact, reason and factual reports from refugees fleeing the Maoist tyranny tell us that the Chinese people resent and are bitter towards the U.S. detente and the establishment of closer liaison between the two governments because the people feel that the U.S. is putting the stamp of approval on their enslavement.

"In point of fact they (eel that the United States by so doing is helping the Maoist cabal to enchain them with redemption set further away from achievement. They also feel that the United States is dealing a psychologically lethal blow to their emancipation from servitude. This I know is not the purpose nor the wish of the American people but this is how millions upon millions of my compatriots feel. The millions upon millions of refugees who were fortunate enough to flee to safety and are in Hongkong and elsewhere are each and every one a living testament of that cruel tyrannical rule. I can do nothing but to report the facts as they are.

"Now at last we have the 'literary investigation' of a giant of a man, the Gulag Archipelago. I recall that once upon a time the intellectuals of the West, aided by the liberals of the day, hailed the re-establishment of friendly relations between the American people and the great Russian people. Furthermore it was said that the Russian people (not Stalin's regime) will soon embrace democracy and all the ideals of democracy, some added, cautiously with gradualness. Even the fact that Maxim Litvinov had an English wife was trotted out to help perpetrate the great political hoax and swindle of the age. Yet unless Solzhenitzyn's testimony is an out-and-out fabrication of the grossest genre it portrays the Russian people, instead of enjoying the blessings of democracy as we understand it, are being systematically emasculated of their spiritual, intellectual and personal freedoms to a degree that literally affected tens of millions, according to the Gulag. U.S. recognition of Stalin only exacerbated their status of antediluvian slavery.

"What more cynical and farcical reasoning can there be? Clearly contemporary history has shown that the U.S. government did a great disservice to the Russian people as well as to the American people. For what Americans were and are going through today globally are the results of decisions made during and after World War II by some of her leaders.

"The evidence is all there for us to see. Need I say more? "

II

Lord Lindsay, a sinologist of long standing, was graduated from Oxford in economics and went to China in 1937 as a professor at Yenching University in 1937. In June, 1941, he married Miss Li Hsiao-Ii. He and his wife were with the Chinese Communists for four years during World War II and were on close terms with Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai He helped train Communist broadcasters and technicians in Yenan. They visited mainland China three times between 1949 and 1973 and were in Taiwan in 1973.

Lord Lindsay has been teaching international relations in the United States. On August 3, he gave a lecture on the Chinese Communists at the Catholic University in Washington. He and Lady Lindsay then answered questions from the audience.

These are excerpts from Lord Lindsay's lecture:

- "What 'Serve the People' actually means is giving them what the Communist Party has decided they ought to have, and using an elaborate apparatus of persuasion to induce the people to say that this is what they want."

- "Mao Tse-tung decided (in 1958) that (Red) China could solve its basic economic problems and enter an era of 'good clothes and enough food' by putting politics in command, organizing the people in communes with military organization and rousing the people to work extremely hard on new projects such as local iron and steel production. The masses contributed the hard work and were rewarded with an economic depression about as serious as that in the United States after 1929 and several years of widespread malnutrition."

- "The important difference between the United States and the People's Republic is that the American people can do something about it if they are really seriously annoyed by attempts of their officials to give them what they do not want, while the Chinese people can do almost nothing. Even high ranking Communist leaders were purged for trying to oppose the policies of 1958."

- "I recently heard about the experience of an official from Fukien who had to go to Swatow on business and could not find a hotel room. Finally, the manager of one hotel offered to find a room in exchange for a packet of Fukien tea which is highly prized in Kwangtung. The hotel was actually empty and the manager explained that he and his staff were paid the same whether the hotel was full or empty and found it less trouble to keep it empty. Such managers would find themselves in trouble in any society which regularly allowed the public expression of spontaneous criticism. "

- "There are elements in the Chinese tradition which agree with the American view that governments owe their just powers to the consent of the governed. One can also say that a good democratic government is one that obtains its support from informed public opinion. It is this latter standard that the People's Republic of China completely fails to meet."

- "The most depressing feature of the People's Republic is the way in which the party treats the masses as if they were mentally deficient children who cannot be trusted to judge their own interests or trusted with the information needed to form any reasoned judgment about public affairs."

- "A simple way to describe the People's Republic of China is as a large scale practical application of the kind of techniques advocated by Prof. B. F. Skinner. This may be why so many American intellectuals admire the People's Re public. The Chinese Communists are doing in China what they would like to do in America if only they had the power. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Skinner argues for a society in which the masses have been so effectively manipulated that they want what their rulers consider that they should want and think as their rulers consider that they should think. The Chinese Communists' claim of learning from the masses is not compatible with this type of society. A certain amount of feed-back from views expressed by the masses improves the stability of the system and improves the control of the rulers so long as the feed-back is not allowed to become strong enough to override the decisions of the rulers. The Chinese Communists have kept the feed-back from the masses well below this level except on two occasions, the period of free criticism in 1957 and the Cultural Revolution.. Both occasions showed that a full willingness to learn from the masses would have destroyed the system."

- "I am not too afraid that (Communist) China will become a danger to the world because I believe that the Chinese people have more intelligence than the Communist leaders are willing to admit. It seems that Communist indoctrination will meet a steadily growing skepticism from a less and less docile population."

- "In both the Chinese political tradition and the Communist political tradition, it is normal to try to join the winning side as soon as it becomes clear which side is likely to win. The continuing struggle shows that leading party members have not been able to make any confident prediction from all the information available to them. In this situation it is silly to make predictions from the minute fraction of this information that is available in the United States."

- "The People's Republic of China has never allowed diplomatic missions to function as embassies. The diplomatic community in Peking has been so isolated that the missions of the Soviet bloc countries have been willing to cooperate with those of Western countries in pooling any scraps of information they have been able to get about the situation in (Red) China. Several people with practical experience have told me that one can get more information about (Red) China in Hongkong than Peking."

- "To change the U.S. liaison office in Peking to an embassy would have obvious advantages for the Peking regime. The change would raise its prestige in the eyes of its subjects and would lower the morale of the rival regime in Taiwan. The United States would gain nothing unless the Peking regime changed the policies it has followed since 1949 and allowed the U.S. embassy to function as a normal embassy, for example, to buy any publications on sale to the (mainland) Chinese public and to have the right of travel to anywhere open to ordinary (mainland) Chinese citizens."

- "Quoting a Chinese Communist document of March, 1973: 'Now our influences have reached the United States. If only we work with patience and enthusiasm, Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung's thought will definitely be integrated with the practice of the revolutionary movement in the United States, thereby speeding up the process of revolution in the United States. Chairman Mao said, "Hope is pinned on the people of the United States." Revolution has already triumphed in China. If revolution triumphs also in the United States it will create a tremendous impact on the whole world."

- " 'Chairman Mao invited Nixon to visit China in order to exploit contradictions.' The document goes on to argue that Mao was capitalizing on contradictions to frustrate the strategic deployment of the Soviet revisionists, aggravate contradictions between the United States and the Soviet Union, aggravate contradictions between U.S. imperialism and its lackeys, and promote the liberation of Taiwan."

- "In 1973 two parties of academics from Australia visited the People's Republic and made rather critical remarks. I met a friend who had been on one of these parties and asked him what the Chinese reaction had been. He told me that the Peking embassy in Canberra was only issuing visas to people approved by the Australian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), the pro-Peking party."

- "Last year my wife and I briefly encountered an American academic party in (mainland) China and later met one member of the party in Hongkong. He said that most of the party had been completely disgusted by their treatment in China but that the leader of the party had urged them all not to say anything that might offend the Chinese (Communist) authorities. In a number of cases visitors who had published highly laudatory accounts of the People's Republic have been far more critical in private conversations."

- "Unless there is a radical change of policy in Peking, the prospects for a genuine detente in the American sense of the word are very limited. The interchange of visiting parties between the U.S. and the People's Republic may well continue, especially in technical fields. The chances of genuinely free contacts between Americans and the (mainland) Chinese people are extremely small because they would be more likely to foment revolution in the People's Republic than in the United States."

Lady Lindsay came to these conclusions after her 1973 return to the mainland:

- "The Chinese Communist regime is dictatorial and bureaucratic. The regime emphasizes propaganda and has no regard for the people, who are suffering many difficulties in their fight for survival. People have no freedom and cannot speak out. The Chinese Communists are 'more threatening and ferocious than a tiger.' "

Lord and Lady Lindsay made these points in the question and answer period:

- Lady Lindsay: "The viewpoint toward the Chinese Communists of Michael Lindsay and I are different. Michael always was in an independent position. He always criticized them when he found they were wrong. Sometimes I was even against him. We had never made friends with Liu Shao-chi and Peng Teh-huai and were very close to Mao Tse tung, Chou En-lai, Nieh Jung-chen and Chu Teh. At that time, we hoped the China mainland would be built up. After the Cultural Revolution, Liu Shao-chi was purged and Nixon went to the China mainland. Everything seemed more hopeful. We were against the pro-Soviet line policy in the past. Thus I thought the trip there would give me a good chance to look around. But I found I was entirely wrong."

- Lady Lindsay: "I did see many of my relatives and friends (on the mainland). But we did not talk about political affairs. Especially, our viewpoints are different from their government's. We could only discuss things with the authorities. If we did it with the people there, the next day I dare not think what would happen to them."

- Lord Lindsay: "Confucius' thought is deeply within the hearts of the Chinese people. In order to destroy the tradition, the Communists extol Ch'in Shih Huang and criticize Confucius."

- Lord Lindsay: "Before I came to the United States, I was in England and Australia for a long time. I can say that during that time the British and Australians did not put any handicaps in the way of the Chinese Communists. It all occurred because the Chinese Communists built up their own wall to isolate themselves on the mainland."

III

In his syndicated column, William Buckley expressed these views:

"President Ford said some strange things over at Ohio State. Rather it was the juxtaposition that was strange. On the one hand he spoke sheer economic orthodoxy. On the other, he applauded the achievements of a slave state. It is one of the paradoxes he inherited from Mr. Nixon, but one which he apparently carries easily.

"He spoke about China. He visited (mainland) China in 1972, he recalled, and he knows from what he saw with his own eyes, and from the figures he has since perused, that the Chinese (Communist) economy is improving by leaps and bounds. More precisely, he said that it was 'gaining momentum.'

"Mr. Ford then explained that in order to experience economic progress without inflation, it is necessary to increase productivity. In order to increase productivity, a people must exercise a combination of two virtues. The first is self-restraint; the second, creativity.

"Now, the (mainland) Chinese certainly exercise self-restraint. If there was visible to President Ford during his visit to (mainland) China a single impulse toward personal freedom, he saw something I did not see earlier in the same year, or any of the other journalists I traveled with. For Mr. Ford to comment seriously that the young people of (mainland) China are 'extremely well disciplined' flirts with gallows humor. We are still reminded, every decade or so, of the remark made by Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, returned from a Potemkin tour through the Soviet Union shortly after the world war, that it was a remarkable place - 'no labor union troubles.' It would be a little like returning from Hitler Germany in 1945 and remarking the total absence of any problems with Jews.

"Discipline is a virtue when it is self-imposed. When it is imposed, as in (mainland) China, by screaming Red Guards who roast dissent, and nowadays forage for any inclination by their fellow citizens towards Confucius, or Beethoven, you have a kind of discipline that was exercised by galley slaves who, in silence and darkness, propel their craft withersoever the government listen. This is not something to celebrate, even if it can be established that the craft is 'gaining momentum.' They run awfully fast at the Olympics, but undoubtedly they could be got to run even faster if they were chased by tanks.

"One worries about such lapses. And recalls that haunted moment at Dartmouth University. It was (a) a few years after Orwell's sunburst, his novel '1984' depicting the grim character of the totalitarian system to come, the authority of which would go by the name of 'Big Brother.' And (b) a few months after the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president of the United States.

"Ike went up to New Hampshire to address the students and would you believe it, he told them that he wanted the government to be 'nothing more than a. Big Brother to them.' It was then that Republicans reached the sorrowful conclusion that if Zane Grey hadn't written about it, Dwight Eisenhower wouldn't know about it.

"What Mr. Ford needs to ask himself is whether that freedom which we celebrate in this country has become counterproductive. I mean, in the strictest sense of the word. Is it true that because we as citizens are free in a way that the (mainland) Chinese are not, that the (mainland) Chinese are gaining momentum? Do we need a little of the whiplash, so that we too might become 'extremely well disciplined?' There are still a few reactionaries calling for wage and price controls, which are a step in the direction of authoritarianism. But Mr. Ford says he disapproves of them.

"Or - could it be? - that it isn't more of the stick that we need, but more of the carrot? In order to increase productivity, there has got to be incentive. Is that incentive substantially diminished because of the exactions already imposed on creative people? I mean, of course, and primarily, the tax structure. And, secondarily, restrictive practices, whether caused by labor unions or protected monopolies or oligopolies. Forty per cent of what we all earn is sucked in by the government. Increase that 40 per cent to 100 per cent and you have the (mainland) Chinese situation. What would happen if we went the other way? Back, say to 25 per cent?

"There would be an interesting alternative, and one drools at the thought of it. Mr. Ford says that we 'welcome' the challenge of (mainland) Chinese competition. We could dramatize this by saying in as many words that free men work better and more productively than slaves. And by lightening the load on the American worker rather than increasing it."

^* "Carnaby set": Carnaby Street is in Chelsea (Chelsea is in London's Bohemian section). The members were the first ones who set the degenerate style of the Hippies in the 1950's