Kwangtung province has a population of more than 40 million and is noted for the independence, outspokeness and clannishness of its people. Various dialects are spoken. Kwangtung is China—or at least South China-in microcosm. Reports from the "New China News Agency," Canton Radio and Kwangtung residents reaching the outside world have been drawn on for a picture of the province since the upheaval of the "great proletarian cultural revolution."
Most of the Communist leaders of Kwangtung have worked under purged Lin Piao or Huang Yung-sheng, the disgraced chief of the "people's liberation army," at one time or another. The province has not reacted to the anti-Lin Piao campaign with any enthusiasm. Attitudes of top leaders have not been publicized. But Canton Radio called attention to the wayward views of lower-ranking officials. The broadcast concerned a study meeting of the Kwangtung Provincial Party Committee for cadres directly under the provincial authorities. The subject was Mao Tse-tung's instruction which laid down the guideline for the anti-Lin campaign: "Pursue Marxism-Leninism not revisionism, unite and don't split, be open and aboveboard and don't engage in conspiracy and intrigue."
The meeting was described as one of "struggle and unity." Some of those attending asked, "Why is it that after a great victory in the class or line struggle, and especially after the cultural revolution, we have a feeling that the struggle is almost over, whereas when a struggle is becoming fiercer, we feel frightened and confused? "They concluded that this must be because they had "insufficient understanding of the protracted nature and complexity of the class and line struggle and little spontaneity for continuing the revolution." They said that henceforth they should "not only be good at waging struggle against class enemies under normal circumstances, but also should do so under special circumstances." The "special features" of the "chieftains of the opportunist line" then were made the center of study, and those attending pledged to uphold party unity and struggle against "all words and actions unfavorable to party unity, be open and aboveboard and at all times speak out on their own political views, what they support and what they oppose, and adopt a clear stand."
The inference to be drawn is that the cadres had been privately expressing doubts, if not disapproval of the anti-Lin campaign. The exhortation to be "open and aboveboard" in stating their views was therefore not likely to be heeded, for to do so would be to state a position in opposition to that of the central authorities. Under the circumstances, it was not surprising that the Eighth Enlarged Plenum of the Kwangtung Provincial Revolutionary Committee pointedly emphasized political unity and the struggle against dissidents. Outlining the task for the current year, the Plenum stressed that "line education and the campaign to repudiate revisionism and rectify work style must be placed in the primary position in all work and grasped as the top priority major affair," that "we must regularly unfold active ideological struggle within the party revolutionary ranks" and that "party unity must be strengthened."
In Kwangtung, as in other provinces, the May 7 cadre schools have played an important role in exposing cadres to "ideological reform through labor" and have become the primary means and justification for the rehabilitation of cadres at various levels of administration.
According to Canton Radio, about 160,000 cadres had gone to study and labor in the 100 or so May 7 cadre schools which had been built as of early this year. There the cadres took part in the "three great revolutionary movements," washed away the "dust of bourgeois bureaucratism" and eliminated the influence of "absurd counter-revolutionary revisionist theories disseminated by charlatans like Liu Shao-chi and heightened their awareness of the line struggle and of the continuing revolution." Over the last few years, May 7 schools of the province have sent about 100,000 cadres to reinforce cadre forces at all places and on all fronts, "vigorously to strengthen the building of proletarian power," the broadcast said. As in other provinces, the veteran and once-execrated older cadres are resuming power.
The Kwangtung Plenum said: "There were big developments in industry and agriculture despite natural calamities and difficult material conditions last year." Canton Radio bore this out. Provincial authorities took particular pride in supposed achievements of the machinery industry. According to a broadcast, the amount of agricultural machinery produced in 1971 was greater than in 1970, when the output was said to have been from 100 to several hundred per cent above the level of the period before the "cultural revolution." Ninety per cent of communes were said to have set up agricultural machinery repair and assembly works and 66 per cent of production brigades to have established agricultural service stations. About 100 machinery works for the production of mining and metallurgical equipment were counted with production of 6,000 tons of metallurgical equipment and 2,000 tons of mining equipment produced in 1971, representing gains of 200 and 250 per cent, respectively, over 1970. Other provinces have made claims of massive growth in the machinery industry.
NCNA claimed that output of steel, pig iron and iron was up sharply throughout the mainland, and that Kwangtung had become self-sufficient in iron ore and could help supply other provinces. Kwangtung has not been an important coal producer, but Canton Radio said output in 1971 was up 40 per cent from 1970.
Another favored propaganda subject has been hydroelectric generation. Canton Radio said that Kwangtung's capacity had been increased 120 per cent and generation 96 per cent over 1965. The number of small power stations in the province was put at 8,100 with capacity of nearly 200,000 kilowatts.
Broadcasts claimed a bumper Kwangtung harvest for the 10th consecutive year, but no figures were given. Drought and flood affected some areas of the province, however. "Radicalism" on the part of basic-level rural cadres regarding the distribution of grain and cash and the level of ownership has obviously persisted despite official disapproval. Canton Radio reiterated the need to draw distinctions between "from each according to his ability and distribution according to labor" and "workpoints in command," between "socialist cooperation" and "equalization and transfer" and between "diversifying the economy" and "putting cash in command," and between "proper domestic sideline production" and "spontaneous capitalist trends." On the other hand, some cadres were censured for adopting a laissez-faire attitude toward grain distribution. A broadcast said a number of cadres has "relaxed leadership" over grain and failed to "seriously implement the party's policy on grain," nursing the idea that "since there is quite a lot of collective grain, the food ration for this year should increase somewhat and this year's grain reserve should be reduced a little." Under their influence, some localities engaged in "extravagant eating" under the banner of "bumper harvest" and gave feasts on the occasions of marriages and births. Such mentality and behavior were "extremely wrong," the commentary said.
Rustication of youth has continued in Kwangtung and is as heartily detested as ever by both young people and peasants. Canton Radio told last October of a send-off for Canton school graduates on their way to join the Production and Construction Corps of PLA Canton units on Hainan Island to take part in "revolution and construction."
Rusticated youths have been discriminated against by peasants. The latter recently were warned that the youths should be given equal treatment in rationing and other matters. Large numbers of youths have refused to be sent down to the countryside or to remain there. Many have gone into hiding in the cities. Youths sent to five counties bordering Hongkong had to be transferred to other rural areas to keep them from trying to escape. Youths who had left their assigned communes and returned to Canton were rounded up by the city authorities and returned to the countryside.
The rusticated must spend at least one or two years in rural areas before they are considered eligible to apply for further education. Only those who have behaved well politically, worked hard and have good academic records have any chance of selection. Their class background is also a factor.
Before the "cultural revolution," the so-called people's courts presided over by officials from the judiciary department had been responsible for passing sentences on lawbreakers. These courts have been replaced by "sentence promulgation meetings" usually supervised by members of the revolutionary committees, militia leaders and representatives of workers. At one recent meeting where a PLA officer presided, sentences ranged from three to five years of labor reform for 12 persons accused of trying to leave the country illegally and from seven to fifteen years for those who organized escape attempts. The heaviest sentence went to a defendant with a "landlord family background."
One person who had served a three-year reform camp sentence gave this description of his experiences: The 3,000 inmates were divided into six brigades of ten teams each. Public security personnel were in charge of each brigade. Five brigades were engaged in quarrying and the six was responsible for farming to supply the camp with food. Inmates received less than US$1 monthly. There were two doctors and three nurses for the clinic. Visitors were permitted once in two months and inmates could dispatch two letters monthly. The work day was nine hours plus two additional hours of political study and discussion.
Canton Radio reported on a symposium which emphasized Mao Tse-tung's "high evaluation of the great role of women in revolution" and urged that "we must advocate late marriage, grasp birth control well, run nursery organizations well and educate well the revolutionary succeeding generations." The influence of the "theory of the backwardness of women" and the "theory that women are useless" have not been eliminated and "a handful of class enemies still attempt to use various measures to sabotage the women's movement," the symposium agreed.
Married couples in both urban and rural Kwangtung are discouraged from having more than three children. Sterilization and contraceptives are employed. Sterilization operations for both males and females are carried out free of charge in urban and commune hospitals. So is abortion.
Canton Radio has boasted of greatly augmented postal routes and an increase in the circulation of leading Communist newspapers by 260 per cent since 1965. Not mentioned was the totality of mail censorship. Two peasants of one commune were put on trial before their peers on charges of having complained about living conditions in letters dispatched to relatives living outside the mainland. Those who received letters containing unfavorable comments on the Chinese Communists were censured and sent to Mao-study sessions to be purged of any "counterrevolutionary" ideas which might have infected them.
Mistake are glossed over to get back veteran cadres
Re-employment of cadres who "made mistakes" before and during the "cultural revolution" and who consequently were "dragged out" by Red Guards is being applied with increasing emphasis in many provinces. Many provincial broadcasts reflected a decidedly anti-leftist tone.
Nanning Radio said that Tu-An Yao Autonomous County had "seriously implemented" the party's policy and had "correctly treated and employed veteran cadres" who had made mistakes. The cadres, who had been heads of departments and bureaus of the county, "took part in revolution for a long time but then fell under the evil influence of the counterrevolutionary line of swindlers like Liu Shao-chi before the great proletarian cultural revolution, were gradually allotted leadership work again in county and other offices. Ninety-one per cent of veteran cadres had been reemployed.
To those who had been concerned about this wholesale rehabilitation, the county Chinese Communist Committee said, "The idea of negating everything without analysis is a metaphysical world outlook and reflects the ultraleftists trend of thought. The committee organized dissenters to study Mao's policy on cadres "in conjunction with reality" and to repudiate the "ultraleftist trend of thought."
Nanning Radio cited a specific case. Some objected to the re-employment of a former deputy secretary of the county CCP committee, holding "He cannot act as a leadership member again." They were told: "He joined the revolution comparatively early, worked actively for the party for many years and made certain contributions to the revolution. His nature and main trend are good." He was re-elected. Those who had attacked cadres originally sent down to May 7 camps were denounced.
Chengtu Radio reported from Szechwan that a former CCP committee secretary of Chienfeng commune who had "carried out the bourgeois reactionary line and made mistakes" had been appointed vice chairman of the commune revolutionary committee and re-elected secretary when the new CCP committee was set up.
In Shansi, Taiyuan Radio reported a number of veteran cadres who had made mistakes had recalled the bitterness of the revisionist line.
A Kunming Radio broadcast told the sort of policy expected of rehabilitated cadres. While emphasizing that a course be steered between left and right, the broadcast said, cadres should avoid leftist trends. The commentator said, "Is it better to veer to the left than the right? This mentality is one of the main ideological obstacles hindering the all-around implementation of the party's rural economic policies. Is it true that veering a little to the left is better than veering a little to the right? No. In carrying out party politics, it is wrong to veer to the right and it is also wrong to veer to the left. If one goes to the right, one will stifle the masses' revolutionary activism, sabotage the productive forces and cause damage to the revolution and production. If in implementing the party's rural economic policies, we waver between left and right, pay no heed to natural conditions and blindly carry out excessively leftist policies, we are bound to violate Chairman Mao's revolutionary line and harm the revolution. Would this not mean being fooled by swindlers like Liu Shao-chi? "
This is the record of events pertaining to the Chinese Communists from March 21 through April 15:
March 21—Peking Review and Hongkong left-wing journals carried advertisements for the Canton trade fair opening April 15.
The Chinese Communists are expected to buy a large variety of high-technology products, mainly agricultural tools, from Canada.
A Hongkong newsapaper, the Star, said President Nixon told Chinese Communist Party "chairman" Mao Tse-tung and "premier" Chou En-lai in Peiping that "they should concentrate on perfecting their medium-range ballistic missiles and leave building ICBMs to the Americans. "
Japan detected an abnormally high level of atmospheric radioactivity believed to have come from Peiping's 14th nuclear test on the Lop Nor range in Sinkiang province March 18.
Peiping invited two separate British business delegations to attend the Canton trade fair in April. One group was organized by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the other was the British Airport Construction and Equipment Association mission.
Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad, now adviser to President Sadat, left Cairo for Peiping.
Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev said Russia was ready to improve relations with the Chinese Communists but that Peiping would have to take the initiative.
U.S. Ambassador to France Arthur Watson met with Chinese Communist "ambassador" Huang Chen for a second time.
Edwin Reischauer, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, said conclusions drawn from the Nixon-Chou communique that the United States had made great concessions on Taiwan were incorrect. He said American forces on Taiwan are small and largely for the purpose of maintaining a military supply line to Vietnam. He said omission of any reference to the American treaty commitment to Taiwan in the Shanghai communique and Chinese Communist silence in the face of subsequent U.S. pledges to abide by the U.S.-Taiwan mutual defense pact indicated Peiping had in effect publicly accepted the status quo, at least for the time being.
U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers said efforts to improve relations with the Chinese Communists would in no way jeopardize U.S. relations with America's allies and Russia.
Retired General Edward Lansdale, USAF, proposed in his book In the Midst of Wars—An American's Mission to Southeast Asia a formula for defeating Communist aggression. "If every country allied with us (U.S.) worked conscientiously on its prime defense (allegiance) among its own people, and if the United States became the champion of its expressed principles by channeling all our foreign aid singularly into such defense, Communist expansion through the use of politicized guerrilla terrorism could be brought to a stop."
Lansdale wrote: "As a practical American, however, I had and have few illusions that Washington would adopt this attainable ideal." "Thus, I could only conclude that U.S. aid would fall short of helping to build true defenses, that vulnerabilities would continue to exist around the world, and that sharp-eyed Communists would recognize and exploit them. This means that we can expect more people's war Maoist-style, in our time."
March 22—The Chinese Communists and the Soviet Union again failed to reach agreement on navigation rights on boundary rivers.
Philippines Senator Salvador Laurel left Peiping for home after a visit to the Chinese mainland. He toured a factory, a people's commune, a kindergarten and sites of historical and cultural interest. He met with Chang Hsi-jo "president" of the (Red) "Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs."
March 23—U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Marshall Green said he succeeded in assuring America's Asian allies that a closer U.S.-Peiping relationship resulting from President Nixon's trip to Peiping would not be at their expense.
The London Times correspondent in Moscoy, David Bonavia, said the Soviets regard Peiping as the principal unstable element in the world scene. Its foreign policy is undergoing transformation and the Peiping leadership in itself has shown signs of instability in recent months.
U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim reportedly agreed to name a Chinese Communist as undersecretary in charge of a new U.N. department to deal with problems related to colonialism.
The Central News Agency of the Republic of China said Peiping is facing an increasingly serious internal split which is threatening to overthrow its "proletarian dictatorship." Red Flag magazine recently charged many party cadres with "paying lip service only" to Peiping and "are planning intrigues behind the party's back." It also said many "re-educated" former landowners, counter revolutionaries, rightists and class enemies have infiltrated the party.
March 24—Chinese Communist "premier" Chou En-lai described U.S. policy in Indochina as "bankrupt" and pledged all-out support for Communists in Southeast Asia until "final victory."
The Chinese Communist leadership apparently decided against purges of the "People's Liberation Army" following disappearance last September of "defense minister" Lin Piao and other chiefs of the general staff. Instead, the leadership has subjected army cadres to close control at all levels.
William Buckley Jr. pointed out in an article the difference between life in the free world and that behind the Iron Curtain. He said: "In Taiwan in Greece and in Spain a human being can: 1) practice his religion, 2) quit his job, 3) join a labor union, 4) leave the country, 5) travel within the country where he wants to, 6) enter into contracts whether to buy or provide a personal service. 7) What he owns is his. 8) He is free to buy all but a very few books, and in fact he can get these by the mildest exertions. 9) He may say anything he wants to say: except that he cannot attempt to bring down the government.
"In (Red) China you may not practice a religion, you may not change your job without permission of the state, there are no labor unions to join, you cannot leave the country or travel within your country except by special permission. You may not engage in contracts except by leave of the state, which owns all your services. You may not own property, outside the toothbrush category. You may read only accepted works of Communist theology. You may not criticize the state nor, obviously, attempt to bring down the government.
"At a positive level, you are required to submit to hours of instruction every week in the state religion, to fawn on its leaders' dogmas, rituals and hope (but not pray) that you will find yourself aligned with the winning faction during civil uprisings.
March 25—Peiping's "New China News Agency" attacked the Soviet weekly New Times for a report on the nomination of President Chiang Kai-shek for another term and for calling the Kuomintang the "ruling party in Taiwan" and referring to Chiang Kai-shek as "Generalissimo" and "director general" and "president of the Republic of China."
March 26—The Hongkong Standard reported Chinese Communist "defense minister" Lin Piao tried to take tape recordings of talks between "premier" Chou En-lai and Henry Kissinger to Russia last September.
March 27—U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Marshall Green said in Washington that a peaceful means to solve problems between Peiping and Taipei would have to be found before the United States could remove its troops from Taiwan.
March 28—Chinese Communist "premier" Chou En-lai and his wife, Teng Ying-chao, called on Mrs. Lois Wheeler Snow, widow of American newsman Edgar Snow.
Hongkong's South China Morning Post reported Boeing executives held talks with Peiping officials at the Bank of China in Hongkong on sale of commercial jets to the Chinese Communists, who were also reportedly interested in the Anglo-French Concorde and the long-range Russian IL-62 passenger jets.
Chinese students in Spain, England, France, Belgium, West Germany and Austria decided to create a permanent anti-Communist and patriotic organization.
Peiping invited U.S. House Democratic and Republican leaders Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Gerald Ford of Michigan to visit the Chinese mainland.
Chinese Communist representatives to the United Nations moved into a 260-room motel they bought March 15.
March 29—U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Willis Armstrong said extension of development credits to Peiping is remote.
Taipei intelligence sources revealed 80 per cent of heads of "military districts" and "revolutionary committees" on the Chinese mainland have been avoiding public appearances, indicating an increasingly serious power struggle.
March 30—Hsieh Fu-chih, "vice premier" and member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, died March 26 of stomach cancer. "Premier" Chou En-lai delivered a eulogy at the funeral.
NCNA assailed Japan's "scheme" to annex the "Tiaoyutai and other islands appertaining to Taiwan."
March 31—Chinese Communist "foreign minister" Chi Peng-fei said King Hussein's plan for a federal Jordan was an overt political plot to "split the unity" of the Arab peoples. Chi made the comment at a Peiping banquet for a delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Abu Nidal.
People's Daily charged the United States with sabotaging the Paris peace talks. The verbal attack was provoked by U.S. announcement that Washington would not attend the talks for the time being.
Of the 21 members elected to the Politburo by the CCP's Ninth Congress in April, 1969, eight have not been seen in public or mentioned in official dispatches recently. The Politburo had a standing committee of five members: Mao Tse-tung, Lin Piao, Chen Po-ta, Chou En-lai and Kang Sheng. Lin Piao, "defense minister," has vanished. Chen Po-ta, "ghost writer" for Mao and Lin, has not been seen publicly since August of 1970; Kang Sheng, secret police chief, was last heard from at "marshal" Chen Yi's funeral January 6. Huang Yung-sheng, "chief of staff of the army," has not been seen in public since last September. Wu Fa-hsien, "air force chief of staff," also has been out of sight since then. Other high ranking military and political figures missing for the last six months or so include Madam Yen Chun, Lin Piao's wife and a member of the Politburo.
April 1—The Chinese Communist failure in the "great leap forward" prompted a mainland-wide campaign for efficient management in industry and rational planning. Overzealousness and mismanagement and ultra-idealism were said largely responsible for failure of the "great leap."
April 2—Communist goods may now enter Philippine ports. The Manila Times said President Marcos had directed United Nations Ambassador Reyes to continue talks on possibilities for establishing trade with the Chinese Communists. President Marcos said Reyes and Chinese Communist U.N. representative Huang Hua had been meeting periodically.
Philippines Senator Salvador Laurel, who visited Peiping recently, said Peiping would not accept government-to-government trade with the Philippines until diplomatic relations had been established.
Wang Kuo-huan "vice president of the (Red) China-Japan Friendship association" said the hostile policy of Japan's Sato government toward the Chinese Communists was blocking normalization of relations.
April 3—Maltese Prime Minister Dom Mintoff said he had accepted an invitation to visit the Chinese mainland to work out a bilateral program which would help Malta attain economic independence in seven years.
Chinese mainland provincial radio broadcasts claimed a 1971 grain output for Anhwei province of 13,500,000 metric tons, for Hopei province of 13,300,000 metric tons and Shansi province of 5,800,000 metric tons. The 1971 farm output claim of 246,000,000 m/t represented a 33 per cent increase over the 185,000,000 total estimated for 1957.
Chinese Communist "ambassador" to France Huang Chen left for home leave.
April 4—U.S. Representative John Ashbrook criticized the Nixon administration for covering up Peiping's role in drug-trafficking. Echoing the criticism were Rep. John Rooney of New York, syndicated columnist Paul Scott and writer Allan Brownfeld. Professor Stefan Possony of the Hoover Institute said the Chinese Communists have the capacity to replace suppliers like Turkey.
April 5—Prime Minister Dom Mintoff of Malta met Chinese Communist "premier" Chou En-lai three times to seek economic aid. Also present at the talks were Chinese Communist "vice premier" Li Hsien-nien, "vice foreign minister" Chiao Kuan-hua and "vice minister of economic relations with foreign countries" Han Tsung-ching.
U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim announced appointment of Tang Ming-chao as undersecretary-general for political affairs and de colonization. Tang, 62, was graduated from Tsinghua University and studied at the University of California. He had been alternate representative of the Chinese Communist U.N. delegation with rank of ambassador. He was a deputy in the Chinese Communist "people's congress and served as a council member of the "Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs."
April 6—People's Daily hailed the Communist offensive in South Vietnam and pledged "all-out support" for the North Vietnamese people.
April 7—Anti-Communist guerrillas have stepped up operations along highways in the east and north of Kwangtung province. A traveler reaching Hongkong said the guerrillas launched a series of raids against Communist truck convoys and inflicted heavy damage.
A Central News Agency report said three battalions of Chinese Communist troops left Lofusan training camp where "resist-America and aid-Vietnam volunteers" were being trained. The volunteers were moved to Canton on their way to Vietnam.
Peiping accused the United States of trying to "blackmail the Vietnamese people" by threats to intensify the war and of indiscriminately bombing North and South Vietnam.
Former French Minister of Culture, Andre Malraux said U.S.-Peiping contacts had changed the character of the Vietnam War and "the truly great drama of Asia will begin the day Mao dies."
Peiping continued to push forward with development of nuclear weapons.
The nuclear test conducted March 18 was said to have been a possible trigger for a hydrogen bomb or a warhead for an intermediate range ballistic missile.
April 8—U.S. Senator Mike Mansfield, Democrat of Montana, said "the (Red) Chinese market has been overemphasized. Trade possibilities are less than people think."
April 9—NCNA broadcast a People's Daily article which said Peiping resolutely supports the Mediterranean countries in their struggle against the U.S. and Soviet "scramble for hegemony" in the Mediterranean.
Piro Dodbiba, leader of an Albanian government delegation, talked with Chinese Communist officials, including "minister of foreign trade" Pai Hsiang-kuo and "minister of agriculture and forestry" Sha Feng.
Chinese Communist leadership is still encountering difficulty in regimenting the rank and file of the party and has not yet been able to make any substantial progress in reconstructing the (Red) Chinese Youth Communist League. The party and the CYCL structures were wrecked during the "cultural revolution" and the purge of "defense minister" Lin Piao.
April 10—A new book (Red) "Chinese Opium Narcotics—A Threat to the Survival of the West" by James Turnbull said Peiping is carrying out a massive secret chemical warfare strategy with opium and heroin exports to the non-Communist world. Turnbull said the Chinese Communist drug drive aims at financing subversive activities abroad, corrupting and weakening people of the free world and destroying the morale of American troops fighting in Southeast Asia. He pointed out the border areas between Yunnan and Burma have become a major center where illicit distributing companies enjoy covert protection of the Chinese Communist "ministry of foreign trade."
Twenty-one Chinese refugees fled the mainland and entered Hongkong illegally over the week-end.
April 11—Professor A. Doak Barnett said at a "China symposium" in Washington, D.C., that Peiping will face a serious succession crisis after Mao Tse-tung dies. He said Peiping's new leadership formed in the wake of the "cultural revolution" is decentralized and relatively unstable.
Jerrold Schecter of Time, who visited Peiping recently, said great changes in every aspect would occur on the Chinese mainland after Mao's death. He said: "Tremendous political pressures" were imposed on the people to force them to conform with official Maoist ideology and that the people are being "programmed" in their thinking. However, he added, "People are not completely regimented yet."
Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik said President Nixon's Peiping visit has caused new world tension because of the deep suspicions of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Malik said: "Indonesia has not fully believed in the joint communique because of its own experience not only in the past but until today, where there is still subversion in our country."
Peiping charged Moscow with aggression under a new guise. Quoting an Albanian newspaper, NCNA said Soviet "revisionists are still following the old Czarist policy of expansionism trying to enslave the peoples of other nations." It accused Moscow of advocating "limited sovereignty" to justify annexation of small nations by big powers. It also charged that Soviet foreign aid is designed to make the recipient countries dependent on Moscow economically as well as politically.
April 12—Chinese Communist "premier" Chou En-lai and "Politburo" members Yao Wen-yuan and Chang Chun-chiao met with some 30 young American left-wingers who spent a month on the mainland. They were members of the "Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars." Present at the meeting were "vice foreign minister" Chiao Kuan-hua; Chang Wen-chin, head of the "European and American affairs section;" Chou Pei-yuan, a nuclear physicist; and Chi Cao-cui, "vice chairman of the revolutionary committee at Peiping University."
Peiping returned the visit of the American table tennis team which visited the Chinese mainland last year by sending a 14-member group to the United States.
Bangkok accepted Peiping's invitation to send a badminton team to Peiping.
The Free China Relief Association predicted that a new refugee exodus from the Chinese mainland is in the offing. The prediction was based on the 38 Chinese refugees who swam to Hongkong early this week despite cold weather.
April 13—Secret Chinese Communist documents obtained by free Chinese agents on the mainland confirmed earlier reports that Lin Piao and his supporters were purged after an abortive coup. The documents bore file numbers Chung Fa No.3 and Chung Fa No.4 and were issued by Chinese Communist authorities for circulation among higher party and military personnel. These were involved in the abortive coup: "defense minister" Lin Piao; his wife, Yeh Chun; "chief of general staff" Huang Yung-sheng; "first commissar of the navy" Li Tso-peng; "chief of logistics command" Chiu Hui-tso; Lin Piao's son, Lin Li-kuo; "deputy chief of operations of the air force" Yeh Chun; and seven others. The documents revealed that the Lin group started to plot Mao's overthrow after Lin and his chief supporters were criticized at the second plenary session of the Ninth National Congress of the CCP in August, 1970. The plot was betrayed by one of the conspirators. This resulted in Lin's purge in mid-September of last year.
Chinese Communist "premier" Chou En-lai said he was willing to send a political mission to Japan "if the visit would deal a blow to the Sato administration."
Former Japanese foreign minister Takeo Miki went to Peiping for talks to normalize Peiping-Tokyo relations.
April 14—Peiping's (Red) "China-Japan Friendship Association" and a Japanese Democratic Socialist Party delegation signed a communique reiterating a three-point requirement for restoration of Peiping-Tokyo diplomatic relations. The points were: (l) The government of the "People's Republic of China" should be recognized as the sole legal government representing the Chinese people; (2) Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory and "the Taiwan question is purely (Red) China's internal affair;" and (3) the Japan-Taiwan treaty "is illegal and invalid and must be abrogated."
U.S. House Internal Security Committee Chairman Richard Ichord, Democrat-Missouri, said development of the pro-Maoist "revolutionary union" investigated last year showed "the birth of revolutionary groups is constantly recurring and requires our eternal vigilance."
Chen Cheng-jen, former "minister of the eighth ministry of machine building," died in Peiping April 6 of cardiac arrest at the age of 65.
April 15—U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield and Republican Leader Hugh Scott left for Peiping on a 16-day visit.
Stefan Possony, director of research at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace of Stanford University, urged the United States to underwrite "poppy reconnaissance" flights over the Chinese mainland to photograph suspected opium poppy plantations.