Correspondents' Correspondence
COTTIN, JONATHAN & ABRAMS, ARNOLD & BERGER, MICHAEL
Correspondents' correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Chen's China Club Hong Kong - For the first time since Mao...
...Ask me anything you like ?? except the whereabouts of Lin Piao...
...Jonathan Cottin...
...They underestimate us, they envy us, and they do not respect us...
...Until the Chinese initiated their Ping-Pong diplomacy last spring, U.S...
...Thus in the future candidates may choose to purchase more television and radio time rather than maintain large telephone operations...
...Strauss protested that such a session was "highly inappropriate...
...He says his meetings with Americans are not yet a regular part of the club's activities...
...One Chinese businessman living in the city told me, "The Japanese have consistently miscalculated their relationship with us...
...With Peking's approval, he founded the Marco Polo club in 1956...
...I am not trying to make converts of you," Chen declared...
...We have not forgotten the rape of Nanking...
...Until that time, China was thought of as a great nation, but once it was defeated, the word 'chankoro' [a derisive term roughly comparable to 'chink'] began to be used here...
...The Chinese regard themselves as a cosmopolitan people, while viewing the Japanese as insular in every sense of the word...
...Now Mr...
...The Democrats, more than $9 million in debt to, among others, the airlines and the phone company, believe the Republican-dominated agencies will make it hard to fly or call without first depositing something more negotiable than an IOU...
...Their bitter coexistence in today's Japan casts doubt upon the hopeful talk about rapprochement...
...Wallace meant well, yet what he didn't know was that the people were lowering their umbrellas not out of respect, but because of the mud his car was splashing on them...
...With provisions like these, dismayed reformers observe, it is not difficult to understand why Richard Nixon was glad to sign the election reform act into law...
...The articulate and outgoing host presented home movies made in China, distributed propaganda material and willingly fielded questions about life behind the Bamboo Curtain...
...Although that war gave our nation confidence, it left us with very ambivalent emotions about China...
...citizens had been excluded...
...I only want to explain things about my country and to help eliminate misconceptions about us...
...Though he describes himself simply as "a patriotic Chinese trying to help his country," Chen is a far from typical citizen of the People's Republic...
...CAB Chairman Secor Browne replied through an underling that he was not acting ex parte and will meet with anyone on the credit question??even Democrats...
...residents here remain in separate and slightly-less-than-equal status...
...They are particularly uneasy about an amendment pushed through by minority leader Hugh Scott, who often carries in plays from the coach...
...One Chinese professor, however, boldly predicted: "The Japanese will rearm...
...now the club is open to Americans who have visited the mainland...
...Michael Berger Reform Backfire Washington??On January 19, bowing to the reformers, Congress decided to repeal the never enforced Corrupt Practices Act and replace it with the Federal Election Campaign Act...
...In late January two dozen U.S...
...they will move closer to the Soviets...
...The provision directs the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to draw up regulations governing political candidates' use of airplanes and telephones on credit...
...His attitude, and that of most of the 50,000 Chinese living in Japan, transcends ideology...
...Nevertheless, those of us present had an unspoken agreement not to ask probing questions about Chinese affairs...
...First, there now seems to be no way that the unions' registration-drive money can be used for anything other than enrolling union members and their immediate families...
...Westerners accorded membership meet monthly over drinks and dinner with Chen and other Communist representatives in Hong Kong...
...How respectful and polite the Chinese people are,' he said...
...We are trying to do things our way...
...China Tokyo??Our future," says a Japanese businessman, "must include China...
...The gloom at Democratic headquarters thickened when Treasurer Robert Strauss heard that Scott had called a meeting with the chairmen of the CAB and FCC to discuss the credit rules...
...Then he discussed the merits of life in Chinese agricultural communes, depicting them as self-sustaining economic units eminently suited to the nation's needs...
...Moreover, many of them seem to have forgotten what their troops did in China...
...I feel closer to Americans than I do to them...
...We must trade...
...Signed with a flourish by Richard Nixon, the measure seemed to signal a brave new era in national politics: It includes a ceiling on media spending, tight provisions for disclosure of all expenditures and contributions over $100, and safeguards against a rich family buying a seat for a favorite son...
...The cultural and historic bonds uniting Japan and China are undeniably deep, but no more so than the tradition of misunderstanding, suspicion and hate that divides the two peoples...
...Second, another of the bill's amendments stipulates that paid tele-phoners and telephone equipment must be included in a candidate's overall media spending limit...
...But," asked one, "would the Japanese have passed up a chance like that...
...We may both be Asian," said a Chinese professor, "but we are not the same...
...Said Chen: "Those men understood China...
...they will return to Southeast Asia to protect their interests...
...It was pouring the day Wallace arrived," he recalled, "and as your Vice President went through the streets in his motorcade, he was greatly impressed by the way people lowered their umbrellas, despite the rain, when he passed...
...After President Nixon announced his trip to Peking, most people I interviewed were cautious in evaluating what that dramatic maneuver would mean for Japanese-Chinese relations...
...This may change in the wake of President Nixon's visit to Peking, but for the time being U.S...
...A personal friend of Premier Chou En-lai, Chen has been an effective liaison between Communist China and Western correspondents, officials and businessmen...
...Since he does not look Chinese and cannot speak the language, he is probably as much an enigma to the Communists as he is a source of fascination for us...
...As an example of American misunderstanding, Chen offered an anecdote about Vice President Henry A. Wallace's 1944 visit to Chungking, China's wartime capital...
...They were the guests of Percy Chen, a 71-year-old former Nationalist who has served two decades in Hong Kong as an unofficial emissary for Peking...
...The son of Eugene Chen, a former Nationalist foreign minister, he was born in Trinidad, educated in England, trained as an attorney, and practices law here...
...There are too many ties between us, and we are so close...
...Arnold Abrams Japan vs...
...They took advantage of the black market to obtain much land illegally...
...In the past, these funds went toward nonpartisan community-wide efforts that invariably swelled the ranks of Democratic voters...
...Meanwhile, labor's political strategists see danger to their campaign activities on two fronts...
...Chen's China Club Hong Kong - For the first time since Mao Tse-tung rose to power in 1949, Chinese Communist functionaries are openly meeting here with Americans...
...He told of his acquaintance with Mikhail Borodin, the Russian revolutionary agent, whom he escorted from China when Chiang Kai-shek turned on the Communists in 1927...
...Despite living in Tokyo for 15 years, I have only one close Japanese friend...
...It will be a natural step against China...
...Times are changing, but Chen still steps warily, awaiting further cues from Peking...
...We all knew the purpose of the session was to make contact, not to hold an ideological debate...
...Whether they favor Peking or Taipei or neither, they can usually agree on one point ??they don't like the Japanese...
...And since labor traditionally has been most effective at putting its manpower resources to work on telephone squads, some politicians may begin to look elsewhere for support...
...He also spoke touchingly of his American friends in Chungking during the War, particularly John Stewart Service, John Paton Davies and George Atcheson ??the former Foreign Service officers blamed by Senator Joseph McCarthy for the U.S...
...We know about the disadvantages??I don't want to say mistakes ?? of Western development," Chen explained...
...Hidetoshi Kato, a distinguished Japanese social psychologist, believes this enmity is rooted in history: "It goes back to the Sino-Japan-ese war in 1894...
...How different they are from us...
...At the same time, many older Japanese feel a profound resentment toward those Chinese who found themselves on the winning side in 1945...
...Nonetheless, this revised version of a bill the President had vetoed in 1970 has caused some very long faces around town, for it deals several harsh blows to the Democrats and their allies in the labor movement...
...journalists and businessmen gathered for cocktails and dinner in the private dining room of one of this city's leading hotels...
...loss" of China...
...We weren't really losing the war in China," said a Japanese political analyst, "but suddenly there were the Chinese, standing with the Americans as if they had won...
...A great nation should not have been so weak...
...After dinner Chen narrated his movies and recounted personal experiences for us...
...Local Chinese businessmen don't deny that a lot of double dealing went on...
Vol. 55 • March 1972 • No. 5
