2024/12/27

Taiwan Today

Taiwan Review

Mainland Periscope

September 01, 1964
Arms From Peiping

The Peiping regime has stepped up military aid to the Viet Cong guerrillas in embattled South Vietnam, according to a Vietnamese government White Paper published July 27.

The 181-page report, "Communist Aggression against the Republic of Vietnam," said, "It is particularly the aid from Communist China that has daily increased the murderous violence of this aggression."

The report said "evidence exists that considerable sums of money, large amounts of arms and equipment of every kind are sent secretly from the Communist countries to South Vietnam .... "

It charged that "the Peiping regime gives tangible proof of its aggressive policies by supplying increasing quantities of the latest type of heavy arms made in Communist China."

It said such Red Chinese-made weapons as 75 mm recoilless guns, 90 mm anti-tank bazookas, 7.92 mm heavy machine guns anti-aircraft use and 7.62 mm machine guns "have greatly increased the fire power of the Communist troops in South Vietnam."

Included in the report was a list of Red Chinese arms and munitions seized from the Viet Cong between July 2, 1963, and the end of April, 1964. The list included 100,000 rounds of 9.92 mm machine gun ammunition. The government said the list was incomplete.

An annex to the study contained 32 photographs of captured arms and materials with Red Chinese markings.

Among additional statistics on the guerrilla war, the White Paper said 2,073 persons were murdered by the Viet Cong in 1963. Of these, 1,558 were civilians, 415 local officials, and 100 national civil servants.

Newsweek of July 27 reported the Chinese Communists have concentrated a formidable military force in the frontier provinces of Kwangsi and Yunnan bordering Laos and Vietnam. Newsweek put Chinese Communist strength in the area at "300,000 troops with another 200,000 in reserve."

"With two full air force armies also headquartered nearby," the magazine said, "Peiping could throw some 1,200 jet fighters into the skies over Southeast Asia."

According to some military analysts, Newsweek said, a weak point in the Red Chinese preparations is transportation. Two railroads, a few highways, and a number of winding mountain trails constitute the only arteries from Communist China to Laos and Vietnam, the magazine noted.

"By Western standards, this is far from satisfactory for any large-scale military move," Newsweek said.

Viet Cong In Africa

The Peiping regime is using its three three satellites, North Vietnam, North Korea, and Albania, to further its revolutionary aims in Africa. Of these, North Vietnam is by far the most active.

From Algeria to Portuguese Guinea and the Congo, guerrilla tactics and propaganda of the Vietnamese Communists are being tried with some success.

Ho Chi Minh's regime in Hanoi has one important asset in its dealings with African states of the former French Community: the common language of French.

Personal ties are also strong. Ho knows several African statesmen. Gen. Nguyen Giap, the Communist military commander who defeated the French at Dienbienphu, enjoys an almost legendary reputation among Algerian army officers and he reportedly has made several unpublicized visits to Algeria.

Hanoi's biggest overt diplomatic effort in Africa was a tour by Foreign Minister Ung van Khiem in 1961.

North Vietnam has sent French-speaking teachers to Guinea. The Hanoi regime maintains an "embassy" there, as it does in Mali and Algeria.

North Vietnam's Lao Dong, the ruling Communist Party, and the affiliated "South Vietnam Liberation Front" have sent professors, technicians, and journalists to African countries, especially to Guinea and Mali.

The Liberation Front cultivates ties with opposition movements in many French-speaking African states, notably Senegal, Togo, and Dahomey.

It accredited an ambassador to the pro-Communist rump regime of Antoine Gizenga in the Congo (Leopoldville) in 1960. Hanoi newspapers and short-wave broadcasts now join Communist China in backing revolts in several Congo provinces.

(Moise Tshombe, new premier of the central government of the Congo, said July 27 in an interview with the U.S. News and World Report: "I have absolute proof of the participation of Communist China" in the rebellion in the eastern Congo.)

In September, 1963, Hanoi sent agents and diplomats to East Germany, Cuba, and Algeria. Their instructions, according to Chinese Communist news dispatches, were to "intensify the struggle against the United States armed aggressors and their lackeys."

The Liberation Front and another body called the Committee for Peace and Renovation of South Vietnam -perform "quasi-diplomatic functions in Africa. Hanoi's military instrument there appears to be the secret People's Revolution Party.

A document obtained in May, 1962, by Western intelligence officers proved that the party is in fact a branch of Lao Dong. It seems to have provided guidance for guerrilla tactics adopted by rebels with considerable success in Portuguese Guinea and in Kwilu province of the Congo (Leopoldville). Tactics resemble those used in South Vietnam.

In March, 1964, a North Vietnam educational mission visited Guinea and Mali, which need French-speaking teachers. Newspapers in Conakry and Bamako said the mission was "valuable."

The North Vietnam "embassy" in Algeria set up in February, 1963, is extremely active. Three members of its staff recently visited a factory in the eastern Algerian city of Constantine. They showed a film on "the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people for their liberation."

North Vietnam, like the Peiping regime, hopes eventually to be recognized everywhere in Africa. In June, 1964, it was recognized by only six non-Communist governments in the entire world, whereas 70 countries recognized South Vietnam.

New Spy Center

A new Chinese Communist spy center in Latin America, operating under the disguise of an overseas bureau of Peiping's "New China News Agency", has emerged since the old espionage network in Brazil was smashed after the April political revolution in that country.

The new "operational intelligence base", as a correspondent of the Scripps-Howard newspapers calls it, is in Mexico City.

This follows the tested tactics of Mao Tse-tung's brand of guerrilla warfare: to disappear in one place and to emerge in another.

With nine Chinese Communist spies still in jail in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City correspondent Hal Hendrix reported on July 9 that at least five Chinese Communists are operating in the open in Mexico City, and out of the five, at least three are not "newsmen" but "military officers." Hendrix gave their names as follows: Capt. Wu Chu and Lts. Tuan Chin-che and Cheng Pien. Hendrix said all five men are "known to be intelligence agents, not correspondents."

In free world nations, only the "New China News Agency" in Paris has a staff comparable with that in Mexico City, the report said.

The Mexico bureau is said to be maintaining close liaison with the bureau in Havana and the Chinese Communist "embassy" in Cuba. Observers in Mexico City believe the new propaganda, agitation and espionage center in Mexico has taken on the work formerly assigned to the nine agents in Brazil.

Hendrix noted that Peiping has more than once openly described the functions of the "New China News Agency" as those of the "eyes, ears and mouth of the Chinese Communist Party."

The Peiping regime is in dead earnest about fomenting race riots in the. United States.

Trying to exploit racial conflict, Peiping's People's Daily headlined its July 24 editorial "Stand Up And Fight" in an effort to incite the U.S. Negro population.

The editorial, broadcast by Radio Peiping, said Mao Tse-tung's theories of armed revolution are applicable to the American Negroes' "historical struggle." It reads in part:

"The U.S. ruling circles are bent on stamping out the American Negroes' movement by applying their counter-revolutionary dual tactics.

"They use the civil rights bill and other hocus pocus to deceive the Negroes and lull their fighting spirits."

Meanwhile, U.S. Negro writer James Baldwin told the West German news magazine Der Spiegel July 26 that the racial crisis in the United States may explode in another "civil war between black and white."

In an exclusive interview with the West German magazine, Baldwin said Negroes in Harlem and the South have "hoarded weapons for years...and for only one purpose, that's the day of unavoidable bloody conflict."

The author of The Fire Next Time, Baldwin said "The fire has started....The point we have reached, had to be reached....It will get worse before we can hope it will get better. The turning point may be disaster."

This is consistent with Mao Tse-tung's August 8, 1963, Manifesto to the American Negroes appealing for racial struggle" against the "dominating capitalist, imperialist Whites."

On August 8, 1963, it may be recalled, Mao Tse-tung issued in his own name a manifesto appealing for worldwide support to the "struggles" of American Negroes against American "imperialism."

Unexpected Visit

"Premier" Chou En-lai and "Foreign Minister" Chen Yi went to Burma July 10 for a two-day surprise visit.

There had been no advance indication of Chou's visit. His trip presumably was to counter any influence Soviet "Deputy Premier" Mikoyan may have exerted during his recent three-day visit.

Mikoyan visited Rangoon on his way back from Indonesia, where he tried to swing the Indonesian Communist Party away from its pro-Red Chinese stand.
Chou succeeded in obtaining a favorable Rangoon communique which forecast an extension of economic and technical ties.

The Peiping regime was able to reach agreement with the Burmese government despite the fact that it supports the main dissident element in Burma.

Communist China's instrument of armed guerrilla violence in Burma has been the "White Flag" Communist Party of Burma, which went underground in 1949 two months after independence and switched its allegiance from Moscow to Peiping in December, 1962.

The "White Flag" Communists have maintained a "political office" in Peiping for several years, and their leader, Yebaw Ba Thein Tin, took refuge in Communist China last November.

The "White Flag" rebels have been building up their strength in the jungle since November, levying "taxes" in rural areas, demanding protection money and "loans" from villages, and generally organizing plunder, ambushes, abductions, and the destruction of property.

It seems that Mikoyan's visit to Burma was less successful. There was no communique pledging Burmese support for Russia's attempts to get itself invited to the second Afro-Asian conference, although Mikoyan was reported to have offered Burma large-scale economic and military aid.

Also some observers linked Chou's surprise visit with the worsening situation in Southeast Asia. With UN Secretary- General U Thant paying a visit to his native Burma in late July, the Chinese Reds also may have wanted to use Ne Win as a go-between to Thant.

Digging A New Grave

The Chinese Communists disclosed July 30 they had rejected Moscow's new proposal for a conference of Communist parties and accused the Kremlin of preparing an "open split" in world Communism.

The "New China News Agency" quoted a Red Chinese central committee letter to Moscow July 28 as saying: "We will never take part in any international meeting, or any preparatory meeting for it, which you call for the purpose of splitting the international Communist movement."

The Soviet Union had formally asked the Red Chinese and 24 other Communist parties to attend a conference to deal with the crisis caused by the Red Chinese-Soviet split.

The bluntly worded Peiping letter, containing 12,000 Chinese words, was in reply to a June 15 letter from the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee.

The Peiping regime said it persists in its "stand for an international meeting of the fraternal parties for unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism to be held after ample preparation."

It also said the Russians "distort and reject the reasonable proposal advanced in our letter of May 7, 1964, and turn a deaf ear to the views of the many fraternal parties demanding unity and opposing a split."

"In relation to the total number of Communists in the world, those who really believe in revisionism constitute only a small fraction and they are bound to come to grief," the letter said.

The Chinese Reds told the Soviets, "There are some who dance obediently in response to your baton, but their number is dwindling.

"Therefore, history will prove that the meeting you intend to call unilaterally and forcibly, without consultation with the fraternal parties and without their agreement, can be nothing but an insignificant meeting which is against Communism, against the people and against the revolution and which serves the bourgeoisie, like the congresses called by the second international to oppose Leninism."

The Chinese Communists continued, "since you have made up your minds, you will most probably call the meeting. Otherwise, by breaking your word would you not become a laughing-stock down the centuries? As the saying goes, you can't dismount from the tiger you are riding. You are caught in an insoluble dilemma. You are falling into a trap of your own making and will end by losing your skin.

"If you do not call the meeting, people will say that you have followed the advice of the (Red) Chinese and the Marxist-Leninist parties and you will lose face. If you do call the meeting you will land yourselves in an impasse without any way out. We firmly believe that the day your so-called meeting takes place will be the day you step into your grave."

Increased Trade

Despite the breach in the Communist world, the Peiping regime did more business with the Soviet Union and Communist countries of Eastern Europe in 1963 than with any other region.

There was a marked decline in trade between Communist China and her hostile European Communist colleagues, but Red China still received 40 per cent of its imports from the Soviet bloc and sent 48 per cent of its exports there.

The new figures on world trade are included in the United Nations Statistical Bulletin.

A comparison of trade figures in 1961 and 1963 showed significant gains for the Peiping regime only in Asia.

Peiping's exports to Japan more than doubled and exports to the rest of Asia increased by almost 50 per cent in the two-year period.

The Chinese Reds continued to maintain a favorable balance of trade, selling goods worth US$1.7 billion and buying goods worth US$1.4 billion in the two years.

The most favorable balances of trade were in Asia, where the Peiping regime exported goods worth US$535 million and imported goods worth US$175 million in 1963. The only significant deficits in Communist China's trade resulted from the massive grain purchases made in Canada and Australia. But the surplus from Asian commerce was enough to offset the deficit in grain dealings.

U.N. statistics indicate a slight trade between the United States and the Peiping regime, but actually there is none. The US$4 million in exports from Red China includes US$3.5 million in cashmere wool from Mongolia, whose figures are lumped with Communist China's totals, and some minor totals for Chinese Communist works of art, which the U.S. government records as Red Chinese imports because they were made there but which actually are shipped from other countries.

The Peiping regime launched a trade offensive in Middle Eastern countries. The Chinese Reds' imports in that area in 1961 were US$33 million and in 1963 US$65 million; exports in 1961 were US$29 million and in 1963 US$39 million.

Window Censorship

Peiping's supervision of the small details of life in Communist China extends even to censoring window displays.

Storekeepers on the Chinese mainland are being denounced for trying to boost business by using capitalist sales techniques.

They are accused of arranging displays without any "political content" and for "purely commercial purposes."

The Communist newspaper Ta Kung Pao condemned Peiping window displays that it described as "entirely inconsistent with the spirit of our great era."

A goldsmith was attacked for decorating his windows with longevity and unicorn charms. A draper was criticized for displaying embroidered court robes dating back to imperial days. A photo studio was assailed for promoting formal dress for wedding photographs. The paper branded the charms as "relics of superstition" and the formal wear as "objects belonging to old, discredited customs."

Most stores on the Chinese mainland are owned by the Communist regime. Managers are "government employees" required to fulfill monthly and annual norms or quotas.

Also, on the Communist-held mainland, a pretty girl cannot buy a pair of tight-fitting slacks.

In Shanghai, a young woman ordered a pair of slacks from the Kaomei Dressmaking Shop and requested that the legs be extra narrow.

According to Peiping's Ta Kung Pao, the sales personnel "explained to the customer again and again that the legs of the slacks must be in proportion to the size of the hips and that the shop would not take orders for slacks with very narrow-sized legs."

The customer then asked the sales personnel to make the hip measurement a little tight and the shop produced a pair of slacks with legs measuring 5.5 inches in width.

When the customer asked for narrower legs, she was told that this "would result in a pair of tight-fitting slacks with very narrow legs and that such kind of bizarre wear would be frowned upon."

Sales personnel also "explained to her the reasons why Socialist commerce should not turn out commodities harmful to prevailing social practices," Ta Kung Pao reported.

The customer demanded to know whether wearing a pair of narrow-legged slacks was a "bourgeois" idea or would make her a "fei" girl. "Fei," literally "flying," is a term used to describe Red China's equivalent of the beat generation and juvenile delinquents in general.

According to the Communist newspaper, the girl said: "Should I really be subject to restrictions when ordering a pair of slacks? You commercial workers actually want to interfere with my personal affairs."

The girl's protest was of no avail. Despite the intervention of a male friend, her request was refused. The position of the sales personnel was praised by the paper.

This is just another of the drab, humorless, tightly controlled life that Peiping has prescribed. Under Chinese Communism, a woolen suit is a "bourgeois luxury" and happiness in any personal context is, ideologically speaking, a dirty word.

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