COMMUNIST CHINA TODAY
Duncan, James S.
COMMUNIST CHINA TODAY by JAMES S. DUNCAN James Stuart Duncan, long one of Canada's leading businessmen, recently returned from a five-week, 14,000 mile journey through mainland China, where he...
...As long as China feels as strongly as she now does on the subject of modern revisionism, it would be just as difficult to envisage a Sino-Soviet rapprochement as it would be to assume that in this forty-eighth year of the Soviet revolution her people would accept a return to the rigidities of the Stalin era...
...They are trained to cooperate, to be prepared for sacrifice and the subordination of their own wishes to the service of their country...
...On the contrary, my impression is that having withstood successfully three years of adversities, the nation's leaders have emerged from their difficulties stronger than at any time since their revolution began in 1949...
...Steel production—requiring modem mills, advanced techniques, and large capital investments—had proved to be inadequate to meet China's growing requirements...
...Priority industries are running substantially ahead of pre-depression figures...
...It is true, of course, that this noteworthy development could not have taken place without U.S...
...It would be unfair, nevertheless, to say that Mao Tse-tung is not an ardent patriot and nationalist...
...The intelligentsia knew, although the masses did not, that I am a Canadian, that Canada has not recognized China, and that I am not only a capitalist but a landlord and a strong believer in much of what they reject...
...Ever since the land reform in 1951-52, when the landlords' and middle class farmers' holdings were divided among the peasants, the latter had been harried by a succession of fundamental organizational changes effecting ownership of the land, agricultural practices, a whole range of new occupations, and their family life...
...Unbelievable as it may appear, some are not yet entirely convinced that so much time spent on manual labor does not interfere with their students' other studies...
...My impression is that the heavy industries and primary power resources are still operating on a basis substantially below 1959...
...But it would be grossly unfair if one did not acknowledge the contribution which the able men who are leading China today have made towards its stability, its growth, and its stature...
...Or, "The working classes must win the right to their emancipation on the battlefield...
...Computers are being produced, at least in laboratories, which, with certain technical exceptions, are roughly comparable to those produced in England in 1960-61...
...but as a whole, my Western informants in China were impressed with the scientific and technical ability of many of those engaged in this work and with the advanced techniques and up-to-date scientific achievements which had been realized...
...In our arts courses, twenty per cent of the students' time must be devoted to political philosophy, Marxism, and the teachings of Mao Tse-tung...
...Steps were taken to reduce gradually the flow of university graduates whose numbers, because of the stagnation of industry, were proving to be in excess of requirements...
...Under-employment was appearing...
...Duncan's second intensive journey through China...
...China has been steadily gaining ground ever since...
...Moreover, the peasants now have the additional incentive of being able to sell the surplus production of their plots to purchasing agencies set up for this purpose...
...With some show of indignation, he went on to say, "A few of our teachers still seem to share some of your doubts...
...It is interesting to note, however, that unlike the policy pursued by the United States and other Western countries, none of the Soviet aid to China constituted a grant...
...It is true, too, that the base from which they started was small, but their increase in production of more than seventeen per cent per year from 1952 to 1959 was impressive...
...In 1956, the Communist government, confident of its infallibility, had decided to increase radically the speed of China's economic development...
...unemployment is rife...
...While it is true that during the first ten years following liberation the Soviet Union was of considerable help to China in laying the foundations of her industrialization, one should not minimize the substantial contribution made to their industrialization by the Chinese people themselves...
...As China's industrial economy recovers, more and more nations will expand their trading relations with her...
...Hundreds of thousands of men and women drafted from the agricultural communes during the Great Leap Forward to work in the large industrial centers were returned—with great reluctance, I am told—to work in the communes...
...This suggestion has some merit but it also has its dangers...
...they contain statements such as this: "The most urgent task before the Communist world is to oppose U.S...
...But the insomnia is not all on one side—Peking has its own share of troubles...
...In two of the universities I visited, I was taken through several floors of science buildings where students were working on radar, metallurgy, and nuclear science...
...There is undoubtedly an important element in China today, both in the communes and in the urban areas, which is opposed to the present regime...
...financial aid, but Taiwan is now economically self-supporting...
...The Soviet Contribution Soviet aid to China between liberation in 1949 and July, 1960, made a decisive contribution to the success of her revolution...
...Nevertheless, I do not believe the great masses of the Chinese people are either war-like or basically unfriendly...
...The split between them is too wide and springs from too many deep-rooted causes...
...The abundance of inexpensive coal and inexhaustible water resources is cited as one of the explanations of this lack of interest...
...270,000 tons of wolfram concentrates...
...The masses of the Western people are alleged to be oppressed and suffering...
...All these manifestations, they say, are uncontrovertible evidence of Western policies of aggression under the leadership of the United States...
...Our secondary objective," he continued, "is to orient our students' studies towards manual labor and the expansion of industrial and agricultural production and to foster their understanding of and respect for the viewpoint, aspirations, and thinking of the working masses...
...Schools, universities, railway stations, apartment blocks, exhibition halls, hotels, and public buildings were being constructed on an around-the-clock basis...
...The program called for China to move forward at a pace previously considered unattainable...
...The basic question is when—and at what cost...
...These factors will also tend to lessen that surplus for export which she needs to finance the import of certain raw materials and capital goods essential to her industrial development...
...There were also differences over Inner Mongolia, and intense resentment over Khrushchev's attitude toward Stalin, whom the Chinese looked upon as the acknowledged leader of international Communism...
...Yet there are aspects of Chinese education which are gravely disturbing...
...These shipments represent a substantial share of China's total imports of all commodities and place a burden on her short supply of foreign exchange...
...A true appreciation of Marxist, Leninist, and Mao Tse-tung's teaching is the highest form of education, and what you will never comprehend in the West is that the students benefit so much from the philosophy of Mao Tse-tung, from his teachings on how to study, to concentrate, to appreciate the value of education, that they actually learn more in the short time which is left to them than they would if manual labor and the teachings of Mao Tse-tung were left out altogether...
...Steel production, estimated at eighteen million tons a year for 1959, during the enthusiasm of the Great Leap Forward, dropped by more than half of the original estimate...
...Their small private garden plots, the last vestige of their earlier independence, had in most cases been taken from them when the communes were organized, and in many areas the peasants were no longer allowed to augment their shrinking incomes through the sale of home handicrafts or the product of their weaving activities, nor, indeed, had they any time left to devote to these simple and familiar tasks...
...Wide boulevards were cut through the centers of the cities, and ancient ramparts were torn down to provide for urban expansion...
...The future of China's industry and nuclear development will continue to be favored by educational programs which are turning out important numbers of well trained young men and women from her technical schools, and graduating from her universities, science institutes, and post graduate colleges impressive numbers of engineers, mathematicians, scientists, and research personnel...
...In the cities, industrial development and building activity were everywhere evident during my earlier visit to China in the spring of 1959...
...much as we disagree with the road which is being followed by Mao Tse-tung and his comrades...
...When one points out to them that it is only natural the West should take protective measures in view of the fact that China makes no secret of her dedication to the promotion of world revolution and her determination to rally all the socialist countries in an offensive against the United States, they immediately resort to skillful double-talk...
...Do we have a fleet off the coast of Maine or New Jersey...
...College entrance and teaching standards were raised...
...Some of the senior members of the nuclear team are, I was told, quite first class...
...They have not yet recovered from the wounds and indignities which the Western world unjustly and arrogantly inflicted upon them during the last century...
...The Progressive disagrees with part of Mr...
...Only two weeks after I left China, she exploded her first nuclear bomb...
...My conclusion is that the fundamental differences between the two countries could be resolved only on China's terms—a solution which would be inacceptable to the Soviet Union...
...were not delivered...
...But you don't understand," the official replied...
...In the science courses, twelve per cent is set aside for this purpose...
...They are trained to hate "American imperialists," who are represented to be the acme of all things despicable...
...as a result, buildings all through the areas I just visited remained in various stages of completion, untouched since 1961...
...Illiteracy in China will soon be a thing of the past, and education, however biased, is not only progressing at an unprecedented rate, but insofar as the sciences are concerned, is of a high order...
...The second five-year plan, which had been in operation since 1958, no longer made any sense and was discarded in 1961...
...But this is wrong and retrograde thinking and will gradually give way before the evidence of their incorrect opinions...
...They point out, for instance, that ten years ago the Chinese government outlined "the five principles for peaceful coexistence," and the third among these five was a "policy of non-interference in each other's affairs...
...But it should be tempered by a lessening of the "an-ti" campaign, and by continuously exploring the prospects, remote as they may seem, of getting closer together in trade, cultural matters, exchange of news agencies and of unclassified scientific information...
...Since time immemorial agriculture has been China's principal source of income...
...As 1959 drew to its close, a poor crop, poor planning, and unfulfilled expectations were driving the country towards a full-blown economic depression, which according to Marx, Lenin, and China's leader, Mao Tse-tung, was an occurrence exclusively reserved to the capitalist world...
...imperialism and its lackeys...
...China's total industrial output today is still considerably below that of 1959, but I look upon this as a passing phase and believe that time will reveal that the Soviets' sudden withdrawal in 1960, which dealt China such a staggering blow at the time, was not without its important compensations...
...Agriculture, suffering from disorganization and lack of labor, could no longer supply adequately the food requirements of a population growing at the rate of fourteen to fifteen million annually...
...China points to the U.S...
...In spite of recent tragic reverses, her agricultural economy is progressing and, barring natural calamities, will continue, within the foreseeable future, to more than offset the rapid growth of her population...
...The government attempted to close the gap with tens of thousands of primitive back yard furnaces operated by enthusiastic but unskilled workers throughout the communes and even in the schools and universities in the larger centers...
...I have already made up my mind...
...The gap between her economy and that of other great powers was to be narrowed, and, accordingly, her progress towards great power status was to be rapidly accelerated...
...Here is a country where law and order prevail, a country which, if not united, is at least pursuing a common policy, one which within the limitation of an outdated and inefficient Communist system is progressing, nevertheless, and making noteworthy efforts to improve the painfully low living standards of her people...
...In many respects, Chinese education has much to commend it...
...Moreover, in addition to all this, the communes were also to supply men and women by the hundreds of thousands for work in the cities and new industrial centers, and on construction teams organized to build apartment blocks and dining halls in the communes to replace the peasants' simple houses...
...The Leaders of China Yet China suffers from a fatal flaw...
...That recognition some day is inevitable is clear to all of us, but it would be an oversimplification to assume that because non-recognition was a grave error in 1949, recognition now is the obvious answer...
...Some of the second echelon men are apparently less able...
...Another factor which helps explain my doubts concerning a genuine reconciliation is to be found in China's aggressive foreign policy...
...Time is a great healer, and although I am not optimistic in this case, China may gradually be brought to realize that even though the United States was responsible for the initial error of non-recognition, problems have arisen in the meantime which require sympathetic understanding on both sides...
...The Sino-Soviet Split In the complex context of China's relations with the Soviet Union, it is too early to assess with any degree of accuracy the long term effect in China of Nikita Khrushchev's sudden fall from power last fall, but' among the many imponderables a few factors stand out clearly...
...The reality of China in 1965 is that, having survived the fires of adversity, she has emerged as a great nation, an awakened giant that for better or for worse will have a profound influence upon the kind of world in which we and our children's children will be living...
...The "Great Leap Forward" had begun...
...The older peasants, confused, exhausted by their many regimented tasks, receiving little in return for their labors, were becoming discouraged and disenchanted...
...These include defense industries, artificial fertilizer, synthetic fibers, light industries serving agriculture, certain types of commercial transportation, and equipment for oil production and mining...
...They are apt pupils and with their accustomed energy, intelligence, and resourcefulness were soon achieving a degree of industrial progress which astonished foreign observers...
...Strained relations were further aggravated by Khrushchev's visit to the United States, his alleged support of a two-China policy, and his refusal to cooperate with China in its offensive against India...
...These garden plots, which permit a modest degree of free enterprise, represent between five and seven per cent of the arable land of each commune, and they have played a decisive role in increasing the nation's food supply...
...Rebellious subjects, those who were unable to accommodate their independent spirits to the views imposed upon them, were sent to distant provinces so that "their thinking should be reformed by labor...
...He first traveled there six years ago, and reported his observations at length in the October, 1959, issue of The Progressive...
...imperialists and their lackeys...
...And then he added, "All our students must put in six weeks each year performing manual labor in the factories or in the communes...
...They are not partial to foreigners, and they are thoroughly confident of the superiority of their age-old culture...
...The national grain reserve was all used in 1960 to compensate for the poor crop in 1959...
...Meaningful as this event was in enlarging worldwide nuclear tensions, even before then China had emerged as one of the world's greatest nations...
...It is impossible, however, to assess with any degree of accuracy the actual progress made, because ever since the second five-year plan was discarded in 1961, no statistics of any kind have been published...
...Or again, "There is soil for war as long as the imperialist system of exploitation of man by man exists...
...Among them are scientists trained, as we know, in the United States and Europe, as well as in the U.S.S.R...
...He has taken credit for Khrushchev's fall from grace, and Mao's prestige in China and in many countries abroad is accordingly enhanced...
...It would seriously upset the Taiwanese government, whose only point of agreement with Peking is apparently a joint unwillingness to consider a two-China policy...
...The original knowledge was provided by the Soviet Union, but since China has been working on her own impressive advances have been made in her knowledge and application of radar, certain aspects of which compare with advanced practice in the West...
...To speed production in high-priority requirements, China is purchasing complete plants for the manufacture of vinylon from Japan, artificial fertilizer from Holland and Italy, alcohol from France, oil cracking from Germany, palm oil refining from Holland, and petroleum refining from Italy...
...Rooted behind their bamboo curtain, they not only do not know what is going on beyond it, but they do not want to know...
...It is because the countries concerned are confident that the United States will respect her obligations freely entered into...
...I observed in their literature, their lectures, and their discussion groups deliberate distortions not only of history but of conditions as they exist in the Western world today and the objectives and ideals towards which its people are working...
...This would indicate that China is no novice in metallurgy and that she has raw materials available for processing...
...Is Communism Working...
...Several years ago he was honored as Canadian "Businessman of the Year...
...bases surrounding her, to the Seventh Fleet, to the assistance which the United States has long given to Taiwan, to recent activities in the Gulf of Tonkin almost within sight of the southern tip of China...
...imperialists...
...It took only one poor crop, in 1959, to bring its weakness into the open...
...and she is building her own steam and hydraulic turbogenerators, railway coaches, heavy equipment for mines, artificial fertilizer factories and chemical plants, and manufacturing buses, trucks, and a sampling of automobiles...
...Others did so for self-preservation, because there was' no alternative...
...After graduation, a student is invited to express his preference concerning the kind of job he wishes to apply for and the locality in which he would prefer to reside...
...This recovery results not only from three successive years of good crops but from the substantial improvements in working and living conditions in the communes, and the return of private plots to the peasants...
...Much as we in the Western world deplore the indoctrination in Chinese education...
...Such an offer would undoubtedly be rejected both by Peking and Taipei, but it would at least have the merit of placing the onus of non-recognition on China and lift it from the shoulders of the United States, where it has rested for almost fifteen years...
...Before reporting on the impressions of China I acquired on my recently concluded visit, I want to sketch the background of developments preceding the current situation...
...China's leaders blame their setbacks on two factors, both of which have the virtue of exonerating them from responsibility for what happened...
...To disregard this defense commitment would be unthinkable and would rightly destroy the American image throughout Asia and the rest of the world...
...Are we surrounding any of your countries with offensive weapons...
...The production figures submitted by party leaders both in factories and in communes were not based on anything resembling reality, but upon their emotional conception of the results which should be obtained...
...As part of the grand design, the commune workers were to be mobilized not only to increase agricultural production but, with nothing more sophis-icated than a pick and shovel and a shoulder pole, to construct immense reservoirs, dig irrigation canals and ditches, build roads, install pumping stations, carry out reforestation and extensive soil conservation schemes, and operate small scale industries and surface coal mines...
...China's friendship toward the Soviet Union, many evidences of which were so obvious during my previous visit in 1959, was never entirely genuine...
...The answer is obvious...
...f The size of the communes was reduced...
...China's tragedy is that her leaders, with the ardent faith of the primitive Christian and the fervor of the evangelist, are dedicated first and foremost not to the improvement of living conditions in China—this takes second place only—but to the promotion of world revolution...
...They are like the man who said, "Don't confuse me with facts...
...Furthermore, recognition at this time would neither change China's attitude toward the United States, nor her dedication to the promotion of world revolution and the ultimate destruction of the capitalist system...
...but he understands that "as the state has given him all his education," it has first call on his services...
...she influences the thinking of Communist peoples and parties all across Europe and in the distant lands of Africa and Latin America...
...The failure of the Great Leap Forward had a damaging effect on the people's morale, and their belief in the infallibility of the government must have been seriously shaken...
...It is little known that China, in partial repayment of her debt, supplied the U.S.S.R...
...Does this not clearly indicate that we are a peace-loving people whereas you are a war mongering people preparing for World War III and the invasion of our mainland...
...Accordingly, more than five million tons have been imported annually since 1961, with Canada the largest supplier...
...Advances in Technology In my travels throughout China, I soon discovered there are certain subjects which are simply not discussed...
...One of the saddest instances of enforced "choice" is the dispatch of tens of thousands of young high school graduates of both sexes, mostly from Shanghai, to colonize the distant and sparsely populated provinces of Sin-kiang and Inner Mongolia, both to help local production and to increase the proportion of Chinese in the mixed population of these provinces...
...The modest living conditions of the Chinese leaders, the small salaries they receive (Mao Tse-tung is purported to draw the equivalent of $200 a month and lives in a four room cottage), and the relatively small differential in pay between the worker and the intellectual or the senior engineer in a factory tend to strengthen the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect which is evident throughout the nation...
...No form of democratic government, as we understand it in the West, could have coped with the situation that confronted China in 1949...
...will be paid in full, including interest, by sometime this spring...
...However, the Chinese are a proud people...
...In their view, Khrushchev's crude abuse of Stalin had damaged the world image of Communism, and worse still, it was done without prior consultation with China...
...I should not be surprised if the majority of the young adults, who know nothing of the benefits which are enjoyed by those living under a different system, would, if a free election took place—an impossibility under Communism—vote preponderantly for a continuation of their present system of government...
...Notwithstanding her recent economic setback, China is a formidable reality, and we should never sell her short...
...and second, the Soviet Union, in July, 1960, withdrew all her experts, tore up hundreds of contracts, ceased her cooperation in more than 250 scientific and technical projects, and terminated the supplying of critical raw materials and urgently required machine tools and equipment...
...This is, of course, a qualified danger...
...Its dissent is on Page 5. —The Editors...
...He has been chairman of the Hydro-electric Power Commission of Ontario, and president of Massey-Harris-Ferguson, a Toronto-based farm implement company with international markets...
...The forward thrust of China's economy, which had been gaining ground so spectacularly over the preceding ten years, culminating in 1958 and early 1959 in what her leaders aptly described as the "Great Leap Forward," was halted late in 1959 and then dramatically reversed in 1960 and 1961...
...In one of these, work was being carried on with isotopes produced, so I was told, by the nuclear reactor installed by the Soviet Union in the Peking Academy of Science in 1959...
...Our primary objective," said the senior official who received me in one of China's large universities, "is to train our students to understand and apply Marxist-Leninist thinking and the philosophy of our great leader, Mao Tse-tung...
...The comment was made by a Western scientist whom I met in China that whereas he encountered no outstanding mathematicians, the general knowledge of this science was excellent and the application of mathematics to instrumentation was progressing rapidly...
...Other factories in a more advanced stage were unable to get into production because the machine tools on order in the U.S.S.R...
...At the same time the pace of China's industrialization was sharply increased, with priprity given not to consumer goods but to heavy industry...
...1 Within the commune itself, further decentralization took place, and mass labor mobilization and construction teams were reduced to a minimum, thereby enabling the peasants to devote more of their time to agricultural production...
...Events have not been standing still, and no appreciation of the problem involved, nor of America's dilemma, can be intelligently assessed without some knowledge of the developments that have taken place in Asia, and particularly in Taiwan (Formosa), during the intervening years...
...In the long run, however, it is difficult to see how any important improvement in the Sino-Soviet relationship can result from these endeavors...
...The children are trained to hate all "reactionaries" among the Chinese—those whose independent spirits result in their approaching certain aspects of the party line with muffled disapproval...
...These constant changes were unsettling enough, but the most radical upheaval of all came with the formation of the communes in the summer of 1958...
...The United States, in China's view, is the "most ferocious imperialistic country, which is following the mad strategic aim of conquering the world, and frantically suppressing the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed peoples and nations...
...China casts her long shadow over Asia...
...Basically, non-recognition resulted from a failure to appreciate the significance and depth of the groundswell that brought the Communists to power and the degree of permanence of their regime when once established...
...and China causes sleepless nights among many leaders of the United States and other nations of the Western world...
...The Chinese leaders, with few exceptions, are untraveled men...
...The great masses of illiterate people, however, were merely taught to respect their leaders and conform to their policies...
...Their minds are closed to the sweeping changes which characterize the world of today...
...But the failure was skillfully handled by the government, and the great majority of the people tend to attribute recent reverses exclusively to poor crops and the Soviet defection...
...China states that "with the socialist camp and the international proletariat as a nucleus," her aim is to unite all the forces that can be united to form a broad front "against U.S...
...Unfortunately, Mao and the Chinese leaders compound their fanaticism with a lamentable lack of knowledge and understanding of the world that lies beyond the frontiers of Asia...
...Cut adrift from the Soviet Union, China today is producing her own Mig fighters...
...Obviously," I said, "your students are getting an excellent Communist training and becoming skilled manual workers, but what time is there left to give them a sound education...
...By the fall of 1959 it became evident that agriculture was in deep trouble...
...I thought it was time for me to slide in a question...
...The people are trained, organized, exercised, disciplined, drilled, marched in formation in the streets and on the playgrounds, instructed in revolutionary methods, led in formation to mass rallies, and yet I cannot but believe that hate is not natural to them and militarism is not their cup of tea...
...Informed opinion before the detonation took place agreed that China was capable of exploding a simple bomb any time she wished to do so, and that she was capable of developing a considerable atomic arsenal within ten years, but without the means of modern delivery, the development of which, although given considerable attention, was still lagging...
...But this prejudiced and inaccurate concept of life beyond their frontiers is being imposed upon the masses with all the skills of indoctrination and propaganda for which these expert psychologists and leaders in the science of influencing mass thinking are justly famous...
...Printed booklets outlining official party views are distributed by the millions...
...Another category of plants which were already in operation had to revise schedules or even close down because of the Soviets' refusal to supply the critical raw materials required for production...
...emphasis was once more placed on agriculture...
...Another source of friction centered around the important border clashes with the Soviets in Sinkiang, the seriousness of which is frequently underestimated in the West...
...and all Western governments are the mere tools of small groups of scheming, plotting, conniving, and selfish capitalists...
...Perhaps the most significant fact which I found emerging from the post-depression period is that the government has come through these years of errors and failures practically unscathed...
...Then followed the Soviets' unwillingness to be drawn into military adventures over Taiwan...
...My conclusion therefore, unsatisfactory as I recognize it to be, is that a wait-and-see policy is still the best approach for the present...
...her army is being equipped by her own efforts...
...Agriculture has not only regained all lost ground but 1964 production figures, when available, will probably eclipse all past records...
...Here again, it is explained that no one was "obliged" to go to these distant places...
...China has so far taken little interest in the development of the peaceful application of nuclear energy...
...China is in many respects a nation in arms...
...A sharp decrease in agricultural production, therefore, not only affected the people's living standards, which in 1959 were already distressingly low, but had an almost immediate effect on industrial production, dependent as it was on both the income generated by agriculture and the importation of capital goods from abroad...
...Although the government talks freely about the necessity to "struggle" against the reactionaries in the cities and communes, I have seen no significant evidence of lack of support...
...Duncan is an exceptionally well-qualified observer by virtue of his extraordinarily broad background in business and industry, international trade, military and public affairs, and education...
...34,000 tons of beryllium concentrates...
...Both Moscow and Peking have moved cautionously to explore the possibilities of a rapprochement from which China would have most to gain, but which would obviously be beneficial to both and to the solidariy tof world Communism...
...Duncan's comment on recognition of Communist China...
...Many of their differences are of long standing...
...A special, highly concentrated, and successful effort was made in this field to offset the Soviets' refusal to supply certain critical materials, and apparently China is now in a position to provide all the special steel, alloys, and other critical raw materials essential to the construction of jet aircraft and jet engines...
...But through my many interviews, I was able to piece together enough information to provide a general picture of developments in some of these sensitive areas...
...Industrial production in all probability will follow a slower pace than it did during the first ten years of the revolution because it has been brought home to Chinese leaders by their recent painful experience that the development of industry will be conditioned for many years to come by the development and progress of agriculture—still the largest income-producing element in China's economy, and a most important source of industrial raw materials, of exports, and of foreign exchange...
...But other sources of weakness came to light under the stresses of China's difficulties...
...They brought not only an end to civil strife, but national unity of purpose, a sense of national accomplishment, and an honest if implacable government, which appealed to a people wearied of the hardships, confusion, and tyranny of civil war, and who had never experienced freedom as we understand it in the West...
...and in China, expert guidance, blueprints for heavy and light industry, critical raw materials, machine tools, mining and oil drilling equipment, transportation by sea, rail, and air, military equipment, ground and air defense, and military support which made the offensive in North Korea possible...
...Whether some other grouping of parties or some other leader could have provided the type of government required in that great emergency is a matter of conjecture...
...This is Mr...
...The question, "Is Communism working in China...
...Some have suggested that an offer by the United States to recognize China, while continuing to insure the independence of Taiwan, should be considered...
...In the midst of these difficulties the Soviet Union, whose contributions to China's development cannot be overestimated, decided to end its program of assistance...
...Education in China Perhaps China's greatest asset in scientific and industrial development is the remarkable degree of intelligent and serious-minded application of her young students, their sense of mission to catch up with and surpass the achievements of other countries, and their willingness to accept the sacrifices which such dedication entails...
...But the majority-—even of the intellectuals—accepted the inevitable...
...In the short period of only four months, from July to October, 120 million peasant households representing approximately 520 million people are alleged to have "voluntarily and spontaneously" given up their land, burned their property deeds in great public bonfires, and, as landless servants of the state, elected to become members of 26,000 communes...
...While agriculture is progressing and will, I believe, continue to do so under the modified commune system, the rapid increase in China's population and the probability of periodic crop failures will tend to hamper China's efforts to raise her people's living standards...
...The Issue of Recognition Unless China is to continue to be cut off from all contacts with the outer world, as she largely is at present, I do not believe that it will be possible to prevent a gradual process of liberalization such as has taken place in the Soviet Union in the past decade...
...While in China, I visited several universities, primary and secondary schools, and nurseries and discussed educational problems with an eminent educationalist and a senior civil servant...
...The immense task of governing a country of more than 700 million people and the success with which it has been pulled together and made to work inclines us to approach the criticism of its leaders with a certain degree of humility...
...They were, however, an inevitable corollary of her food shortage...
...Colleges, research institutes, and concrete roads were being built in the rice paddies...
...The chaotic conditions which existed in China in 1949, to which the Japanese invasion and the Communists themselves contributed a major share, required the imperative of a strong, ruthless, and authoritarian government...
...This massive assistance was rendered over the whole range of China's economy and involved basic planning, education, industry, scientific development, training of personnel both in the U.S.S.R...
...China's still impoverished and backward economy is incapable of sustaining a prolonged war...
...On the other hand, the younger generation has thoroughly absorbed the class hatred and anti-imperialism with which they are indoctrinated from childhood...
...Everything that I have seen in my two visits to China has confirmed my long-held opinion that the non-recognition of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 by the United States and other countries, some of which no doubt merely followed the U.S...
...They are taught the merits of discipline and a serious approach to life...
...The Soviets' refusal to supply China with nuclear weapons, followed by a gradual withdrawal of their cooperation in the nuclear field, widened the split...
...The privilege of education is impressed upon them, and respect for their leaders is fostered...
...The Chinese leaders hastened the transformation of the rural cooperatives into the commune system, thereby placing at the disposal of the government tens of millions of agricultural workers for such purposes as it might designate...
...In World War II, Mr...
...No student, however brilliant, can enter a university unless he has successfully passed the tests of the "three goods": "good ideology and correct thinking," "good scholarship," and "good health...
...When actual rather than imaginary figures became known, the picture revealed was sobering indeed...
...They all went of their own volition after their line of duty was pointed out to them...
...Mao Tse-tung undoubtedly has become the outstanding personality in the world of Communism, although not necessarily the most important leader...
...If this state of voluntary ignorance of world conditions, this hatred of America, and this misrepresentation of conditions in the non-Communist world were confined to the government, it would be sad enough...
...China had never forgotten Russia's territorial acquisitions, Stalin's refusal to help during the early stages of her revolution, and his recognition and support of Chiang Kai-shek all through World War II...
...A reasonable degree of relaxation was introduced, and greater care exercised to ensure that the legitimate wishes of the peasants be given consideration...
...The Tide Turns The government was slow to meet this calamitous situation—but when it decided to act it did so with energy and determination: ^1 Industry was relegated to second position...
...Differences on ideological ground first came out into the open at the Twentieth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in 1956, and they took form more recently with China's stern and uncompromising condemnation of the evolution which has been taking place in the Soviet Union ever since Stalin's death and which China calls "modern revisionism...
...I cannot but conclude that so long as the Chinese government continues to be dedicated to a policy of aggression against the system under which the people of the Western world live and prosper, she constitutes a grave danger to world peace...
...The Soviet experts, I was told, not only received instructions from Moscow to return home immediately, but to bring with them their plans and blueprints, leaving the Chinese often without the knowledge, the equipment, or the instrumentation necessary to complete the unfinished plants in accordance with the original designs...
...His influence with the Communist parties of Asia, South America, and Africa, which have been hovering between allegiance to China or the Soviet Union, will be measurably increased...
...Capital accumulation was shrinking rapidly...
...Modern factories were springing up everywhere, mostly built under Soviet supervision, equipped with Soviet machine tools, and initially guided by Soviet experts...
...But they do not point out that Mao in 1956 explained the general principles of China's foreign policy along these lines: "We must give active support to national independence and liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as just struggles in all countries of the world...
...But the commune, the foundation upon which the agricultural pattern was now based, was new, relatively untried, and correspondingly insecure...
...He has been governor of the University of Toronto, director of Atomic Energy of Canada, and chairman of numerous national and international trade organizations...
...This was the central conclusion I brought back with me recently after my last journey across 14,000 miles of mainland China...
...The picture I carried away with me in the spring of 1959, when the Great Leap Forward was at its height, was one of unremitting activity, of supreme self-confidence, of unquestioned faith in the future, and of superhuman effort...
...The fact remains that the Communists did provide one and did so with eminent success...
...The image of the United States would be badly sullied if she deserted Taiwan...
...Others have made an occasional trip to Russia or to underdeveloped nations...
...Let me hasten to state that while I deplore the policies of their government, I am prejudiced in favor of the Chinese people...
...she has designed and will in time go into the production of jet engines...
...They are just about the nicest, friendliest, most hospitable people and certainly among the most hard-working, resourceful, and intelligent I have met anywhere...
...But never during my five-and-a-half week stay in their midst did I experience an unpleasant incident or see an unfriendly look, even though at times I must have tried their patience with many indiscreet questions...
...When that day comes, the mantle of hate and militarism artificially created will gradually slip from the shoulders of the Chinese people because both, I am persuaded, are foreign to their national characteristics...
...Then there is the Soviet advocacy of peaceful coexistence, which Peking describes unflatteringly, and inaccurately, as "the foul practice of collaboration with the U.S...
...In a single decade the revolutionary government of China had brought its people a sense of national unity and achievement and miracles of production surpassing the expectations of the outside world and even of the Chinese Communist Party itself...
...When one considers that there are approximately 520 million peasants in the communes and that they grow a substantial part of the food they consume instead of having to obtain it from the commune, as was largely the case until 1959, one can readily see how the private plot has contributed greatly to meeting China's food problem...
...I find difficult to answer objectively because of my own deep conviction that Communism is an outdated and unsuccessful approach to any nation's problems...
...And last but not least, were the Soviet Union's economic sanctions in July, 1960, in a vain attempt to compel the Chinese leaders to come to heel...
...Everywhere I was embarrassed by their unfailing hospitality, their extreme courtesy, and the endless trouble they would take to insure my comfort or meet my smallest wish...
...they ask...
...But the United States is committed by her treaty of 1953 certainly not to support an invasion of mainland China, which she does not even remotely contemplate, but to defend the independence of Taiwan...
...Then 1960 and 1961 also turned out to be exceptionally poor crop years, and conditions in the communes deteriorated rapidly...
...The Chinese relied upon persuasion more than extermination, but a form of persuasion, of argument, of "struggle," to use their own phraseology, from which there was no escape...
...Conditions there, I am told, are forbidding...
...Personally, although claiming no special knowledge of the subject, I do not question China's ability a few years hence to develop a hydrogen bomb and a simple means of delivery...
...Why is private capital, for instance, which in 1964 alone amounted to more than $200 million, flowing into Taiwan from Japan, Hong Kong, many other Asian nations, Europe, and the United States...
...A lecture which one of my informants attended, delivered by a foreign nuclear physicist and followed by a two-and-a-half hour question period, revealed that the young scientists present had a substantial knowledge of the subject under discussion...
...An atmosphere of despondency began to settle over them...
...f Birth control was re-established...
...All Soviet credit was on a relatively short-term basis, and the last of China's debt to the U.S.S.R...
...In every institution of learning I visited in China, I saw the young being deliberately and consciously trained not to be open-minded but to be prejudiced, trained to hate "class enemies" such as "landlords," who no longer exist in China since all land was taken from them more than ten years ago, but who are still denounced as the incarnation of all evil...
...But I do seriously question whether without Soviet assistance, which is unlikely, she could within this generation develop the industrial and financial resources which would enable her to use the bomb against any Asian nation, including Taiwan, without exposing herself to massive retaliation against which she would be incapable of protecting herself...
...Communist China in 1965 is emerging from a succession of economic calamities which would have shaken most governments to their very foundations...
...On every occasion I returned from these visits and interviews greatly concerned and saddened by the evidence that these bright young people, so likeable, so eager, and so receptive, are being molded and influenced by an uncompromising ideological indoctrination...
...and many other highly sophisticated products...
...China's principal asset will continue to be centered around her alert and resourceful people...
...I am strongly of the opinion, however, that the younger generation and many of the older people are enthusiastic supporters of the present regime, just as is the case in the U.S.S.R...
...i[ Another important and unpalatable decision was courageously taken —to import grains in large quantities from capitalist countries...
...Many of them, seeing the progress being made, and impressed by a new sense of national honesty, of unselfish dedication and of resurgence, became genuine converts to the Communist cause...
...Some have never left their own country...
...The government admits this and talks constantly about the necessity of continuing its struggle against the "reactionary bourgeois elements...
...They appear happy, tidy, well-dressed...
...First, there were three successive years of exceptionally poor crops...
...with more than $1.4 billion worth of mineral products and metals, many of which were considered indispensable to Soviet development of the most advanced branches of science and for the manufacture of rockets and nuclear weapons...
...In her judgment, revisionism will eventually lead the Soviets back to a form of modified capitalism and constitutes a major danger to Chinese and world Communism...
...The Chinese quarrel with the Soviet Union, shrewdly exploited, has proved to be popular with the people, who have taken pride in their government's show of independence and its decision to go it alone...
...The ideological quarrel, and the argument over which of the two countries represents the true faith and which has the key to the future, is but one facet of their estrangement, and in my opinion it is not the most important one...
...The Chinese government has clearly stated that she will not consider recognition, nor will she join the United Nations, so long as Taiwan is recognized and protected...
...While some of the motives of the United States and the Western world are misunderstood and misinterpreted by the Chinese, some of the other distortions are explainable only by Chinese xenophobia and doctrinaire beliefs that all capitalist motives are open to the gravest suspicion...
...Food shortages were becoming widespread, and severe rationing of food and cotton textiles was imposed upon the people...
...The strong and well-conceived remedial measures taken by the government gradually brought order out of chaos, and a slow overall recovery began early in 1963, aided by a greatly improved crop in 1962...
...It undoubtedly stimulated the energetic and resourceful Chinese people to develop greater skills and produce a variety of materials, alloys, and equipment previously imported...
...If these happen to coincide with the government's requirements, his wish is granted...
...COMMUNIST CHINA TODAY by JAMES S. DUNCAN James Stuart Duncan, long one of Canada's leading businessmen, recently returned from a five-week, 14,000 mile journey through mainland China, where he visited communes, universities, factories, schools, and homes, and interviewed scores of senior government officials, economists, members of the diplomatic corps, workers and peasants...
...The 'Great Leap Forward' A series of economic disasters overtook China toward the end of 1959, lasted throughout 1960 and 1961, and despite significant strides forward since then, she has not yet fully recovered from those reverses...
...The detonation of China's first nuclear bomb and the reaction to it caused no surprise, except probably among the Chinese people, who had received no advance information...
...China imposed upon her people great sacrifices in repaying these debts during the critical period of the revolution's reconstruction, and undoubtedly the completion of payments will greatly ease her balance of trade position in the future...
...The Years of Retreat But the laws of economics cannot be disregarded with impunity...
...The government is stable, more strongly entrenched today than at any time since the revolution, and accordingly insures a unity of purpose among her people...
...He is both, but above all he is 'a Marxist, a fanatical disciple of Lenin, a prophet whose duty, as he conceives it, is to show the underdeveloped and dependent countries the way towards liberation and to champion the "oppressed" working classes of Europe, Australia, and North America...
...The iron was so inferior it was virtually useless, and the whole costly program had to be scrapped...
...The struggle to change the thinking of the people was confined largely to the upper strata of society—the intellectuals, the capitalists, the civil servants, the merchants...
...The Reality of China Regardless of the outcome of the recognition problem, China with her 700 million vital, disciplined, hardworking, and dedicated peoples, while incapable for many years to come of developing the sophisticated weaponry necessary to challenge the West, is nevertheless already the Asian Colossus...
...To record estimates of a decline in production would be tantamount to an admission of ineffectual application of the party line...
...individual private plots were restored to the peasants...
...I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that from nearly every angle Taiwan represents the most successful example of American financial aid and counsel, combined with an autocratic but able and honest government, strongly wed to a system of free enterprise, and supported by an intelligent, resourceful, and hard working people...
...Remarkable progress has been made in recent years in the field of radar...
...Chinese children are always treated with kindness...
...Yet the Chinese government has not only survived, but has been tempered and strengthened in the fires of adversity...
...As the Marxists see it, freedom is nonexistent...
...The back yard furnaces which were to make such a substantial contribution to the nation's supply of pig iron proved to be a massive failure...
...Industry as a whole entered a period of stagnation...
...The fact that the government has been able to stabilize the situation and initiate a slow but orderly recovery in industry and a rapid advance in agriculture has contributed substantially toward re-establishing the prestige of its leadership in the minds of the people...
...As long ago as 1936, Mao Tse-tung made the statement, frequently overlooked, that "We are certainly not fighting for an emancipated China in order to turn the country over to Moscow," and resentment was frequently expressed, both before and after he came to power, concerning the high-handed manner in which the Soviets were attempting to impose their policies on the Communist world...
...Duncan served as Canada's Deputy Minister of Defense for Air and a chairman of the Agricultural and Food Committee of UNRRA...
...China has paid back and is paying back the Soviet Union, mostly in goods, but also in gold and convertible foreign exchange, plus interest on all loans and goods and services received...
...Orders were issued that all building programs other than those given top priority were to be stopped immediately...
...Among these were such important items as 100,000 tons of lithium concentrates...
...much as we detest the enforced conformity, the basic lack of freedom of the Chinese people, and the ruthless measures which were inflicted upon those who disagreed in the early stages of the revolution, there is much else in China today which must be admired...
...Today Taiwan is a show window which gives hope to Asian and African people who are seeking a way to a better life and do not wish to follow the restrictive and stultifying path of Communism...
...But so long as China's militant spirit prevails, so long as she believes it is her unswerving proletarian duty to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, the danger that she might spark a conflict which could escalate into a larger one is ever present...
...and with her armies, the greatest in the world, she will influence, to an ever-growing extent, Southeast Asia and even India and Pakistan...
...World Revolution Hundreds of millions of Chinese accept without question the distortions which are presented to them through the daily press, through the dissemination of official literature purporting to give the "correct interpretation" of events, the public address system, the mass rallies, and the institutions of learning...
...Such an offer of recognition would also give rise to unrest not only in Taiwan but throughout Southeast Asia and Japan...
...In Mao Tse-tung, the Communists found a leader of unusual ability, ruthlessness, and strength of character, a man who has a remarkable understanding of mass psychology and the art of manipulating, guiding, and influencing the minds of the masses...
...The harsh treatment of the landlords, whom the Communists relentlessly sacrificed and whose land they took to fulfill their revolutionary promises to distribute it among the peasants, will always remain a blot on a revolutionary record' otherwise less cruel than that of the U.S.S.R...
...Armaments, military forces, and nuclear developments are among them...
...Outstanding results have also been obtained in metallurgy...
...As Chairman Mao Tse-tung put it, "Every kind of miracle can be performed under the leadership of the Communist Party...
...The atomic explosion notwithstanding, it cannot be translated for many years to come into a threat to North America or Western Europe...
...lead, was an error of great magnitude...
...To them the West is a conglomeration of imperialists, colonialists, and exploiters...
...As I see it, China's government today is one of the most durable and stable in the world, and I do not foresee any circumstances, either external or internal, in the next ten years or so which are likely to cause its overthrow...
Vol. 29 • April 1965 • No. 4
