The Los Angeles Times (2/12/78) published this article by Linda Mathews from Hongkong:
"Long before the death of Mao Tse-tung, ordinary mainland Chinese citizens weary of his periodic campaigns to revive their revolutionary spirit and the austere living conditions he prescribed for (Red) China found a way to register their feelings.
" 'I'm waiting for this to die,' they would say, pointing to the place on their chins where Mao, on his chili, had a distinctive mole.
"So common did this ritual become that after a while, a shorthand version developed. People signaled their displeasure with the Mao regime by touching their chins silently at appropriate moments, assured that like-minded friends would understand, even without words.
"This ritual, described by former Peking residents now living in Hong Kong, provides another reminder of the existence of dissidents in (Red) China, where restrictions on political expression are tighter than almost anywhere else on earth and where dissent, consequently, is more hazardous.
"Chinese (Communist) officials sanction some very limited political debate, but anyone who goes beyond the limits faces ostracism, long periods of 'reform through labor' and, in some cases, death. Thus, (mainland) Chinese dissidents dare not be as visible or as vocal as their counterparts elsewhere.
"Recent visitors to the town of Shaoshan, Mao's birthplace, spotted a startling wall poster that must have been the work of an underground dissident. Read in the prescribed modern fashion, from left to right, the Chinese characters praised Mao and his successor as Communist Party Chairman, Hua Kuo-feng. But when read in the old-fashioned, right left style that the Communists have sought to eliminate, one line of characters clearly spelled out: 'Hua Kuo-feng is an unfit successor to our beloved Chairman Mao.'
"The editors of the Kwangming Daily, (Red) China's leading intellectual journal, have used a similarly underhanded device to raise doubts about Hua's political durability. Like generations of Chinese political writers, they masked their critiques with historical allusions. Their attack on Hua came disguised as an innocuous discussion of an inept Chinese prime minister who lived before Christ.
"Although the word games and historical treatises apparently in vogue in (mainland) Chinese intellectual circles may provide a needed outlet for political opposition, analysts here believe that such clandestine activities so far have had only limited impact on (mainland) Chinese life.
" 'Putting a secret message in a wall poster is only one step above writing a dissenting note to yourself and burying it in the backyard,' one diplomat said. 'If very few other people know of your political opinions, how much potency can they have?'
"Other China scholars, however, detect signs that dissenting (mainland) Chinese, emboldened by Hua's loosening of the restrictions on art and literature, are mounting more open protests. And some experts flatly predict that the dissident movement will eventually resemble that in the Soviet Union - small but vocal and capable of galvanizing world opinion.
"Already, some (mainland) Chinese protesters show a surprising sophistication about the human rights debate raging worldwide. Late last year, intelligence sources here and on Taiwan re ported that a wall poster in Sian, a city deep in. China's interior, had complained that the official media. had never carried a word about the 1975 Helsinki declaration of human rights.
"'It doesn't matter whether... the Helsinki declaration is good or bad,' the poster said. 'But it at least ought to be made public so that the whole people can distinguish for themselves whether it is right or wrong.'
"(Mainland) Chinese dissent already seems to be taking on some Soviet colorations. Only last month, for example, the first known Chinese collection of underground literary works surfaced in Peking, despite what the authors said were strenuous efforts by the Peking' Revolutionary Committee — in effect, the city council — to suppress their publication.
"In (Red) China, dissidents have rarely been willing to put up a wall poster or utter a slogan without at least the indirect backing of high-placed officials or the local police.
" .... For according to Chinese refugees, well-publicized poster campaigns with rare exceptions turn out to be nothing more than conflicts between party or local factions rather than the quasi- democratic debates that foreigners imagine. Under this agreement, each side to the dispute protects those poster writers who, bidden or unbidden, further its cause.
" 'You would have to be very brave to put up a poster all by yourself,' a college-age refugee from Canton said. 'Usually people work on wall posters because they have been encouraged to do it by their work units (factories or communes). The writer can try to be original in his phrasing or by doing a drawing. But the basic ideas are almost always something that has been discussed in study sessions.'
"Yet dissent, (mainland) Chinese-style, may be due for a change. Susan Shirk, a China scholar at UC San Diego, has predicted that (mainland) Chinese dissidents, like their Soviet counterparts, will eventually venture beyond the safe targets approved by higher-ups and challenge the fundamental precepts of the Communist political systems." (Partial text)
Washington Post — Woodcock's mistake
The Washington Post (2/21/78) published this article by Michael Lindsay: "Giving evidence to a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee last September, Prof. Robert Scalapino said, 'But one can only view with some apprehension the recent course of (Chinese Communist)- American negotiations. On the American side, it was decided to attempt a "low posture" approach ... The effort seemed to be to avoid anything that might displease or give offense to Peking, and in the process to suggest that the United States was prepared to make very considerable concessions in order to attain normalization rapidly.'
"Woodcock's recent comments on relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China indicate that this 'low posture' approach is still in effect. It seems clear that he never tried to argue in Peking for the position supported by a majority of the American people: that the United States should have full relations with both Peking and Taipei.
" .... The present 'low posture' policy does more to produce a risk of (Red) Chinese-Soviet rapprochement than the failure to normalize on Peking's terms. The new Chinese Communist party constitution and Hua Kuo-feng's speech to the 11th Party Congress made clear that the Chinese Communist Party is hostile to all capitalist regimes and regards the relationship with the United States as a tactical alliance against the immediately more dangerous enemy. What would provide the strongest motive for seeking detente with the Soviet Union would be a conclusion that United States was too opportunist, unprincipled and lacking in determination to be a useful ally against the spread of Soviet hegemony.
"If the United States were to abandon an old and friendly ally to win the favor of one Communist regime, Chinese (Communist) leaders would have reason to suspect that the United States would have even less scruples about abandoning a tactical alliance with (Red) China if it seemed expedient to win Soviet favor. If Woodcock could reason as clearly as the Chinese Communists, he might suspect that Chinese (Communist) leaders are so insistent on the Taiwan issue because they want to secure something they can only get from the United States before seeking detente with the Soviet Union.
"In effect, Woodcock and those who share his views want to forgo the attainable objective of winning the respect of Chinese (Communist) leaders in order to pursue the unattainable objective of winning friendship for a capitalist society from believing and practicing Marxist-Leninists." (Full text)