Guided Tourism in China

...Places to which visitors are denied access include Tibet, minority areas, border regions, the coastline of South China, defense works, forced-labor camps, and famine and flood areas...

...In the past three years, the Communist regime has stepped up political tourism...

...A member who has not seen a single river valley project in India was vociferous in praising the achievements of China in this matter when he saw one of her river valley projects which in magnitude was not one-tenth of our big projects...

...Some go to the wartime capital of Chungking, where an ostentatious combination guest-house and cultural palace has been erected...

...Most visitors or visiting delegations enter China through Hong Kong...

...By contrasting old and new, the Communists create the false impression that modern industry and planning were non-existent before they came to power...

...Obviously, he cannot find out from personal experience the figures, for example, on the production of foodstuffs or steel...

...It often happened that way...

...According to authoress Han Suyin, most visitors "do" China in about twenty days...

...He therefore finds himself in the position of having to repeat the statistics provided by the Communists, even though he may be cautious enough to note that they have been provided by his hosts...

...These include the effective utilization of guided tours, front organizations, cultural delegations, and controlled media of communications...

...but the professional status of the visitors (most of them cultural figures, authors, and leaders of public opinion in their home countries), their impact when they return (a sizable proportion write books or newspaper accounts), and the great interest which attaches to the powerful Communist state on the China mainland combine to make the handling of guests an important aspect of Peking's conduct of foreign relations...

...Frequently the visitor must wait until he leaves Communist territory and reaches the Hong Kong listening post before he can ascertain the full current picture and how his limited observations fit into it...

...Yet Richard L. Walker shows here that Peking's invited guests—even when they are accomplished European journalists—are almost as hemmed in as the Chinese among whom they move...

...Many, however, have stayed for as long as forty days to two months...

...Further difficulties for the visitors are the crowded schedules devised by their hosts, the time taken up by gestures of overwhelming official hospitality (especially the superb Chinese banquets and dinners), and the obligation to pay courteous attention to the lectures provided by the Government for tourists' "convenience...

...Cameron remarks: "I felt as though I had been talking to a brochure...

...There could be no better spot for the extensive briefing and self-confident recital of figures which prepare most visitors for the rest of their trip around China...

...Occasionally an inquisitive reporter will wander from the beaten path, but there are now a sufficient number of published accounts of these visits to indicate their uniformity...

...James Cameron, correspondent of the London News Chronicle...

...They go to Changchun to see the new Motor Car Factory No...

...A few have gone as far north as Harbin to see the new precision-instrument and cutting-tool factory and the jute factory located there...

...Some visitors ask to see a prison and are taken to a model jail in the suburbs of Peking outside the city wall...

...Few see any but model developments...

...Among its major functions it handles the affairs of the so-called Friendship Associations, which serve as front organizations in other countries for the distribution of Chinese Communist materials and which help to organize and direct groups visiting the mainland...

...few have talked to any but officially appointed spokesmen...

...Following the pattern set in Moscow, the Chinese Communists have set up an elaborate system which even the most discerning visitors find if difficult to escape Guided Tourism in China By Richard L. Walker The Mao regime in China has applied the same techniques for handling foreign visitors developed by the Soviet Communists over the past four decades...

...Most confine their visit to four main centers...

...Despite these problems, the accounts of some of the more discerning guided tourists have aided in affording understanding of China today...

...Very few of the visitors have had previous experience in China and must rely on the aid of interpreters provided by CPSCR...

...Numerous other obstacles stand in the way of balanced reporting of visits to the Communist mainland, even for those who go to Mao's China with a determination to penetrate through the organized hospitality...

...In this sense, they have provided a background of first-hand observation to help explain the recent flow of reports, and even official hints, of mass dissatisfaction and discontent emanating from Mao's China...

...At Fushun, several of the delegations have been introduced to the same model worker...

...In their later accounts, many of the tourists have reproduced the history and statistics rattled off for them during their tour...

...Most visitors also take a side trip to the Kao Kan collective farm near Mukden...

...The individual visitor to Mao's China is obviously so limited in the duration and extent of his travels that he must rely on the figures of the regime for placing what he has seen into some sort of overall account when he makes his report after leaving China...

...It is difficult for the non-Chinese-speaking guest to get around without guides, and, although many visitors are under the impression that they are free to go where they will, supervision is such as to indicate that all has been well planned in advance...

...As we ground into Canton station . . . the new Government man appeared with superlative timing precisely at my window...

...Primary attention is given to the countries of Asia (especially Japan and India), with growing overtures to Latin America...

...in the end I was sorry to lose him, but somehow he was always replaced...

...Of the 1956 visitors, 1,243 were Japanese, according to the Japan-China Friendship Association...

...The latter organization was established in May 1954 under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and works in conjunction with the Ministry of Culture and the various mass organizations in China...

...The Indian, Sailakumar Mukherjee, tells how the Vice-General Secretary of CPSCR and the Vice-Secretary of the China-India Friendship Association journeyed all the way from Peking to Shumchun to greet the 35-member Indian "friendship delegation" in 1954 and stayed with the delegation throughout its journey...

...The Indian professor J. C. Jain...

...Anshan is enormous, but, as Schmid points out, it hardly compares with some of the new installations in Japan and West Germany...

...the London editor of Ce Soir, Adalbert de Segonzac...

...There are variations on this itinerary, but most of those who have written accounts of their visits to China have followed roughly the same course...

...Many Indian visitors have, for instance, reproduced on faith figures on the Chinese land tenure situation before the Communists came to power, figures which subsequent Communist reports have indicated were sheer fabrication...

...Walker, a veteran of the Pacific War, is assistant professor of history at Yale University...

...Indeed, many of the spanking new plants are impressive and do make good showpieces...

...G. S. Gale, who accompanied the Attlee mission to China in 1954...

...If the trip is by plane, the return trip is usually by train...

...He is author of the widely-acclaimed China Under Communism and of a 1952 New Leader special section, "Lattimore and the IPR...

...These accounts must be read in conjunction with a close monitoring of the Chinese press and of the reports of refugees who continue to pour into Hong Kong and Macao...

...He was more than amiable...

...Robert Guillain has commented on the uniformity of official answers, even those given in private...

...All of the named observers have agreed on the tragic fact that "a formerly shrill, noisy, infinitely amusing nation has become silent, bored and gloomy," to quote Guillain...

...From the moment they cross the border into Chinese territory at Shumchun and board the train to Canton, they receive personal attention and their journey moves expeditiously...

...Some visitors have not troubled to visit works in their own countries of the type they are shown in China...

...These figures are small in comparison, for example, with the more than one million visitors to Great Britain in 1956...

...Usually, invitations are timed so that the guests can see one of the mass demonstrations or parades of power staged on such occasions as May 1, Red Army Day (August 1), or the anniversary of the proclamation of the regime, October 1. The Japanese journalist Hitoshi Wada states that he and some fellow Japanese were invited to China in 1955 with the stipulation that they enter within a specified ten-day period...

...Most of the visitors to the mainland in the late spring and summer that year knew nothing about the seriousness of the situation until they left China...

...Within China local newspapers are not allowed to circulate freely, and the news which would enable the observer to place his observations within a context is confined to official briefings, handouts, and the few papers and magazines which are official at the national level...

...Obviously the regime is interested in showing, and most visitors interested in seeing, what is new in the new China...

...Robert Guillain, correspondent of Le Monde—these and many others have published accounts of visits to the same jail where they are given the same briefing by the same person on how the prisoners (two-thirds of them political) are enjoying their "reform through labor service...

...Peking itself has always been hailed as one of the most beautiful cities in the world...

...Peking reported The continuing State Department prohibition against American journalists on the Chinese mainland—and the restrictions placed by the Communist regime on other Western correspondents—have forced us to rely on official handouts and tourist reports for first-hand information on the world's most populous nation...

...This survey, based on close reading of many tourist accounts, is adapted from Problems of Communism magazine...

...This is sometimes followed by a journey into West China, to Sian, Lanchow, and possibly the new oil center at Yumen...

...No foreign visitor has yet been permitted to rove the countryside at will...

...For those who ask to visit places or persons unacceptable for the guided tour, there is usually the reply that the hosts will try to arrange it, but the scheduled visit is naturally over before any reply is forthcoming...

...Many tourists visit Mao's birthplace and talk to an uncle of his (one correspondent refers to "uncles" working in shifts), and most visit Shanghai and Hangchow and then return to Hong Kong...

...Cameron, one of the more discerning of the visitors, comments on such a visit: "And then one saw the simple peasant, chosen at random, and he was so palpably well rehearsed, one's questions faded way...

...Mukherjee comments : "I could feel that many members of our delegation to China were not even aware of many similar or greater accomplishments of India when we were shown industries or handicrafts of China or the progress China had made in art and culture...

...CPSCR provides interpreters, arranges interviews, and in general gives guests in China flattering attention and hospitality...

...Visitors to China are handled by the China International Tourist Service, which is an agency of the Chinese People's Society for Cultural Relations with foreign countries (CPSCR...

...First, of course, is the language problem...

...Anshan is very impressive with its new rolling mill, blast furnaces and seamless tube steel plant...

...Such observers as Hitoshi Wada, E. S. Kirby, James Cameron, Robert Guillain, Peter Schmid, George S. Gale and many others have helped to balance the more uncritical accounts of recognized fellow-travelers...

...The itinerary usually includes a train trip from Canton to Hankow and then on to Peking...

...It was in Hong Kong that the story of the 1954 floods, the worst in Chinese history, broke...

...1, and they visit the industrial triangle of the cities Mukden, Fushun and Anshan...

...it breaks down completely as soon as he takes a single step off the tourist trail...

...Anonymous conversations on park benches would be about the best the foreigner could hope to achieve in terms of getting unofficial views...

...About one-third to one-half of the visit is passed in Peking in a combination of interviews, conferences, parties, meetings, "cultural" activities, and short trips outside the city...

...Swiss reporter Peter Schmid remarks: "The Travel Bureau functions with smooth efficiency as long as the visitor sticks to the beaten track...

...To quote Cameron again: "I found myself beside a young man who by chance spoke English, who was by chance going to Canton, who by chance knew both my name and my mission, and who by chance was in a position to stand by me until the end of the ride...

...Then comes a trip to China's industrial heart, Manchuria...

...Even the perceptive Scotsman James Cameron, who feels that he "saw a great deal more than has been seen for some years," reports on the same model factories, farms, collectives, Shanghai kindergarten and other sights as, for example, the Indian Dhirendranath Das Gupta, Adalbert de Segonzac and others...

...In Manchuria, visitors see various new industrial plants...

...He believes that this was to insure the presence of the Japanese journalists at the time of the visit of the then Indonesian Premier, Ali Sastroamidjojo...

...From Peking visitors go to the Great Wall, visit the university center out toward the West Hills, tour the model Taiping Village a short distance to the west...

...that in 1955 more than 4,700 visitors from 63 countries had come to China, and the People's Daily of January 21, 1957 claimed that the number for 1956 had increased to over 5,200 persons representing 75 countries...

...one asked for a village and one found oneself in a place so immaculate that its roads were tramped smooth by the feet of endless delegations that had gone before...

...Because the guided tour includes new industrial plants, new housing and model installations, even the most cynical observer is likely to get the impression that the Communists are accomplishing wonders...

...There has been, on the whole, greater skepticism among Western people of the Governments handouts than of tourist accounts...