The Guardian
The Guardian of London published December 7, 1967, a report by Victor Zorza: "(Red) China is on the boil again. After several months of comparative quiet, military trucks full of soldiers reappeared in the streets of Peking yesterday.
"Posters, which have been conspicuously absent, again went up on the walls to call on the faithful to defend Chairman Mao's 'proletarian headquarters.' They were also enjoined to defend Lin Piao 'with their own blood.'
"Violent words of this kind have become the small change of the cultural revolution. They do not necessarily betoken violent action. What they do signify is that there is another crisis in the leadership, and that the position of Lin Piao as Mao's successor-designate is again being challenged.
"On the popular level, the revolution takes the form of struggles between 'Right' and 'Left' elements in schools, factories and offices.
"The extremist Left usually gets the blame for perpetuating the anarchy and disorder of the early stages of the cultural revolution, which was, in fact, fostered by the Mao leadership at the time. The conservative Right, which is pressing for the restoration of order, is blamed for trying to undo the supposed achievements of the cultural revolution.
"The course of these 'mass struggles,' which can be easily deduced from the (Red) Chinese press and radio, is paralleled by a similar struggle in the highest leadership which is careful, however, to present a united front to the nation and to the world at large.
"But every now and again either the moderate or the extremist faction comes out on top. The latest indications are that the extremists in the cultural revolution group - including Kang Sheng, its most active leader, and Chen Po-ta, once Mao's secretary - have been under attack on the ground that they were, as some posters described them, 'ultra-Leftist.'
"Lin Piao appears to have shifted his position several times from Left to Right and back again. The moderates have been represented by Chou En-lai, the Prime Minister, and Hsieh Fu-chih, the Security Minister who, after a period of disgrace, became the strong man of the cultural revolution as head of the Peking Revolutionary Committee which is supposed to control the capital.
"At the beginning of the week the Peking 'People's Daily' was confiscated after appearing in the streets, and yesterday the Peking 'masses' paraded outside the Revolutionary Committee with drums and gongs. In the past this has meant that the leaders are at each other's throats again." (Full text)
The Scotsman
The Scotsman of Edinburgh, Scotland, published December 5, 1967, a report from Hongkong: "The tumultuous encroachment of military rule over Communist China, crushing the Maoists' bid for power, is graphically demonstrated by the new shape of rule in Kansu Province in the remote north-west. Information reaching HongKong now presents a clear picture of the composition of the 'Preparatory Revolutionary Committee of Kansu Province.'
"Although the term Revolutionary Committee was coined by the Maoist faction in (Red) China's great power struggle to describe the 'new organs of power' through which Maoists would exercise their rule, the Preparatory Committee in Kansu is made up of anti-Maoist generals who were, only a few months ago, bitterly assailed by the Maoist Red Guards.
"The pattern in Kansu demonstrated that the handful of Revolutionary Committees that have emerged in Communist China more often represent cloaked anti-Maoist - or neutralist - rule than they do real Maoist power.
"In most provinces where the anti-Maoists or the neutralists are winning formal power, the established military high command, which controlled the local garrison before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution disputed all (Red) China, remains in power.
"The development of the Kansu Preparatory Committee also offers strong evidence for the existence of the 'Shadow Cabinet' of non-Maoist senior officers in Peking. Lanchow Radio of Kansu Province, reporting the mass rally celebrating the formation of the Preparatory Committee, noted that it had 'received approval' from various authorities in Peking.
"It is difficult to understand how such approval could be tendered, unless the authorities in Peking were now subject to pressure from a powerful group of senior military officers. Among that group is certainly Foreign Minister Chen Yi, himself a former field-marshal, who has now been formally restored to his Ministry after an eclipse of several months.
"Chen Yi, like General Wang En-mao, commander of Sinkiang, neighbor province to Kansu, has been under bitter attack by Red Guards throughout the year. The attacks on Wang En-mao, who still retains his command, have now been renewed with great vigor.
"But the most dramatic example remains Kansu, where the political commissar of the garrison, the commander of the garrison and the deputy commander were the chief figures in the rally announcing the formation of the Preparatory Committee. The three also hold the key offices in the committee.
"All three were previously accused of 'bloody suppression of the revolutionary movement' by Red Guards. They were reported to have suppressed a Maoist student rising in Lanchow in the spring with the loss of several hundreds killed and wounded, including 97 students killed.
"The reappearance of those men in pseudo-Maoist guise is even more remarkable than the survival of the commander of Honan Province, who was bitterly attacked by Red Guards as 'a butcher' for the vigor with which he put down disorder. Honan has become an anti-Maoist bastion, despite the appearance of its Preparatory Committee in September, 1967. In Honan, too, the general are in control.
"A general survey of all (Red) China's provinces reveals a remarkable preponderance of military men effectively exercising power, most of them distinctly non-Maoist - if not in every single case identifiably anti-Maoist.
"The soldiers are, in sum, taking over and imposing a modicum of order on troubled (Red) China. They are crushing 'the Maoists' last bid for power." (Full text)
South China Morning Post
The South China Morning Post of Hongkong said November 27, 1967, "As in the Soviet Union following the posthumous denunciation of Stalin, so also in Communist China is history being re-written - of course not for the first time and with the object of showing that the leadership in power has never been wrong about anything. The 'great proletarian cultural revolution' inevitably has called for more changes - to send some comrades into oblivion and place others in the forefront as true revolutionaries who kept faith with the correct line. With Marshal Chu Teh in disgrace, Mr. Mao has already been credited as the founder of the Chinese Red Army. Recently, some fresh evidence has come to light. The names of President Liu Shao-chi (now branded as '(Red) China's Khruschev') and Marshal Chu, which with those of Mr. Mao and Mr. Chou En-lai were inscribed on a monument marking the completion of the Ming Tombs reservoir in 1958, have been obliterated.
"Even the records of the Korean War are being distorted. There are no parts for soldiers of the Korean People's Army in the new version of the play, 'Raid on the White Tiger Regiment' (depicting (Red) Chinese volunteers fighting shoulder to shoulder alongside North Koreans) and during the performances only Mr. Mao's portrait is displayed instead of being accompanied by that of Mr. Kim Il Sung, the North Korean leader, as in the original version. Marshal Yeh Chien-ying's name has been erased from the memorial in the Canton Revolutionary Heroes Garden dedicated to those who died in the Canton commune uprising in which he played a vital role. And in Yenan, history has been revised by replacing Marshal Chu Teh's former dwelling place with a house in which Marshal Lin Piao, Mr. Mao's heir apparent, is now claimed to have lived before. Radio Peking claims that 'history is ruthless. Whoever falls behind the march of the times and Mao Tse-tung's thought will be dropped and discarded by history!" (Full text)
Sunday Oregonian
The Sunday Oregonian of Portland, Oregon, said December 3, 1967: "The annual U.N. drama 'Will Red China be asked to join the club?' is easily as boring as even the worst of television's serial products. After 18 years, the division in the General Assembly is just what it was well before 1965, when Peking hit its crest in Assembly favor with a 47-47 tie vote and 20 abstentions. In a period of revolutionary turmoil, Red China has fallen from that peak, with 45 nations favoring admission, 58 black balls and 17 abstentions.
"And what if, at some time, the ayes should have it? The Assembly then would really be in a pretty pickle. For the Mao government in Peking has made clear its conditions for accepting an invitation to U.N. membership. These include: 'Imperialist puppets' like Nationalist China must be expelled, the 1961 resolution branding Peking the aggressor in Korea must be rescinded, and a new resolution blaming the United States for the war must be passed.
"It must be assumed, therefore, that Peking would turn down any bid not accompanied by these concessions. In such a pass, the U.N.'s face would be as red as mainland China.
"What is the sense, therefore, in taking up a week or so of the Assembly's time each year with this old re-run? Surely the Assembly has more urgent and more engaging business for a replacement." (Full text)
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer said November 25, 1967: "Red China continues to serve as the best witness against itself so far as membership in the United Nations is concerned. After a wild, bloody year and a half of 'cultural revolution,' which has coursed up and down mainland China, leaving even the matter of control of Peking itself in question, the acceptance of the Mao Tse-tung mob as representative of that country is ludicrous...
"But it must be remembered that Peking has not sought membership. Instead, it tried and failed to set up its own counter-U.N., of which Indonesia was a key member briefly. Peking has insisted, as a 'condition' of its joining the U.N., that Nationalist China be expelled, thus giving flourishing Formosa no voice at all in world councils; and that the United Nations itself 'apologize' for the defense of South Korea. It isn't likely to. The idea is preposterous.
"We are not particularly pleased that a country of (Red) China's immense size must remain outside the portals of world community, but until Mao Tse-tung and his advisers shed the 'Middle Kingdom' notion that the whole world revolves around Peking and rightly should pay tribute to it, Red China will evidently continue to careen around its own neighborhood like a mad dog, attacking everything within reach, and will be no fit member of an organization which at least tries to stand for peace and sanity in human affairs." (Partial text)
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times published November 23, 1967, a report by Charles Bartlett from New Delhi:
"The containment of Chinese communism in Asia is an exasperatingly difficult concept to grasp because none of the pieces of the wall fit neatly together.
"Some of the most thoughtful men in the Johnson Administration, particularly Robert McNamara, consider the security of India to be the crucial justification for the involvement in Vietnam.
"They regard the 500 million Indians, who outnumber the combined populations of Africa and South America, as the key to Asia and they fear that if the Viet Cong make their penetration stick, the subcontinent will crumble inevitably into Communist hands: Similarly if India falls of its own weight, the sacrifices in Vietnam will have been useless.
"But the Indians are the first to reject this link between their fate and the war in Southeast Asia. Prime Minister Gandhi constantly risks her tenuous relationship with President Johnson to declare her distaste for the war. Young Indians assail the American visitor with complaints that the United States is intervening in a civil war.
"It is difficult to understand why the Indians fail to see the interrelationship. Their generals frequently argue that Washington should give more weight in the allocation of military aid to the length of the Sino-Indian frontier. They already have an incipient guerrilla problem of their own in Assam, a state dangerously vulnerable to (Red) Chinese penetration.
"Moreover the Indians are increasingly apprehensive that the (Red) Chinese will launch an invasion of neighboring Burma, the softest sector of the Asian underbelly. The Indians warn that if this happens, concern for their own security will oblige them to go to war. And while they insist their army can handle the (Red) Chinese ground forces, they concede they will need air support from a friend, presumably the United States.
"The Indians are reluctant to ask Washington for a flat commitment to respond with airpower in these circumstances. They suspect they will be turned down and it is hardly consistent to seek a pledge of air support in Burma while they criticize the deployment of American aircraft in Vietnam.
"The Thais share a long border with Burma and Thailand would be equally menaced if Burma were invaded. But top Thai officials show no alarm at Burma's vulnerability. They seem in fact somewhat pleased that the homeland of Secretary General U Thant, who has annoyed them by diagnosing South Vietnam's problem as an internal uprising, should be troubled by the same symptoms.
"The Thais do not behave like a nation expecting to fight a major land war. Their defense expenditures total only 3% of their national income and they have filled only 80,000 of 120,000 billets authorized for the army. Since they have explicit commitments from Washington, they will rely heavily on U.S. help if an invasion of Burma develops.
"The picture is further complicated by Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia, who views the North Vietnamese as a more immediate threat than the (Red) Chinese. He is counting on the American presence in Asia to deter (Red) China but he heartily opposes the effort in Vietnam because he believes that it will serve ultimately to discourage America's attention to Asia and inflame the aggressive spirit of the North Vietnamese.
"The Indonesians discount the American role in Vietnam as even a partial cause of their success in routing communism at home. In fact Vice President Humphrey found it necessary two weeks ago to reassure the ruling generals that the Johnson Administration does not consider their victory a by-product of the stand in Vietnam. They were angry at Washington's inclination to take part of the credit.
"It is easy to forgive these nations for being obsessed with their own problems. They have all freshly emerged from colonialism or worse and they find it hard to subordinate their self-concerns to a continental strategy.
"They have learned how to count on the United States before they learned how to share the give-and-take of an alliance. Their uncomfortable awareness that the American people are impatient with them is the best hope that they will quickly learn to think in larger and more realistic terms." (Full text)
Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor of Boston published December 8, 1967, a special report by Ernest Weatherall from Rawalpindi, Pakistan: "…When American newsmen ask Pakistani officials whether they are receiving military aid from Communist China, they nod, but won't go into detail. All they say is, 'It's moving.'
"Among some of the items that are moving from (Red) Chinese freighters in Karachi and onto the Pakistani docks are (Red) Chinese-built MIGs, tanks, trucks and technicians in their blue party uniforms. They are flown to Lahore or Rawalpindi and transferred to military bases where they don their Mao buttons and teach Pakistanis how to operate equipment.
"The close relationship Pakistan has with the (Red) Chinese is of great concern to the Soviets and Americans, but Pakistani officials insist that they are not working against the interests of the other two nations by accepting military aid from (Red) China...
"In 1965, the Indo-Pakistani war began, and the United States was embarrassed that the tanks they had delivered to Pakistan were being used against India...
"After the war, United States refused to sell any lethal weapons to either India or Pakistan. This hit the Pakistanis hardest since they had been completely geared to American military hardware.
"They turned to the Soviets for military aid, but the Soviet Union, which had brought both sides together at Tashkent to end the war, agreed with the United States that to deny both sides arms would promote peace in the subcontinent...
"But Peking was willing. Despite the upheaval of the cultural revolution, the supplies have been arriving. Pakistani officials insist that they have no military-aid pact with Communist China, despite Radio Peking broadcasts which state they would come to the aid of Pakistan if it were attacked.
"Pakistan also insists that it is not concerned about the pattern of (Red) China's losing friends and angering people in her diplomatic relations. Despite what occurred with the Soviet Union, Indonesia, Burma, and several other countries, Pakistan feels it can continue its friendship with (Red) China...
"Be that as it may, the Pakistanis are keeping a close watch on the (Red) Chinese to make sure they don't find any fertile ground for their Marxist concepts.
"By tradition, the Pakistanis have always been closely allied to the West, and for many years worked closely with the Americans. Many of them are often embarrassed when Americans express surprise at their friendship with Communist China..." (Partial text)