Society forAnglo 1

Chinese ^Understanding

VOL 4 Number 2

FEBRUARY 1969

PRICE NINEPENCE

China's economyfact and fictionCHINA IS BEING subjected to anonslaught of denunciation for rejectingthe use of material incentives inindustry.

Now it is perfectly legitimate tocriticise the Chinese, or anyone else,for following economic polici.es thatseem to the critic to be ill-judged. Theissue of material incentives, forexample, has been hotly-debated withinChina both before and during theCultural devolution and there is everyreason why the debate should continueelsewhere, especially in countries wherea socialist economic base is beingmodified by the adoption of suchmeasures.

tt is legitimate to make out a casefor the view that in rejecting materialincentives an industrialising countrycondemns itself to a slower pace ofdevelopment and to rigidity and dis-tortion in the economy. The discussionshould be full and fearless, becausethere is no sense in switching fromblind acceptance of a system of centralregulation to blind acceptance of asystem guided by market forces.

Although central regulation wasnever the bogey in China that itbecame in Eastern Europe (the yearsof apprenticeship in the revolutionarybase areas provided a built-in correctiveto tendencies to ride rough-shod overprovincial opinion) it is always apotential source of friction. That iswhy the more flexible Chinese methodof matching supply to demand throughinnumerable contacts at town andvillage level proved superior to theRussian model, and incidentally en-couraged the attitude of ' serving thepeople '. Yet it is legitimate to questionthe Chinese methods and re-examinethem in the light of the purposes, to beserved in the future rather than in thepast.

One thing that is not legitimate inany serious examination, however, isto argue that because the methodsseem objectionable therefore they musthave produced bad results, therefore itcan be assumed that there is a chaoticsituation in the economy, social declineand stagnation. This line of reasoningis perhaps to be expected from th.eAmerican-financed teams in Hongkongand elsewhere and London newspaperswho depend on them for their news ofChina.

continued on page 2

The CulturalRevolutionand the family' THE Chinese Communists are break-ing up the family' — how often havewe heard it said, read it in headlines,seen it spelled out with ' chapter andverse ' by the China Watchers.

At th,e beginning of the Communemovement this type of propagandacame thick and fast:

' Husbands and wives are beingseparated. Children are being raisedby the state in institutions run byCommunist Party functionaries.Grandparents are being herded into

continued on page 3

The Ding family, of the Lunghua Production Brigade, Po Lo County,Kwangtung. (See ' The Cultural Revolution and the family '.)

China's economycontinued from page 1

More surprising is th.e unanimity withwhich the hitherto more scientificallyorientated countries of Soviet EasternEurope have taken up this positionsince they were cut off from directobservation of the progress of theChinese economy.

In an article entitled 'The CulturalRevolution and the Chinese Economy ',reprinted from the Soviet weeklyEconomic Gazette, the bulletin SovietNews published by the Press Depart-ment of the Soviet Embassy in 'Londonrecently told its readers that the mainemphasis of Chinese economic develop-ment is on building up ' the warindustry complex ' and that ' the aimsof improving the material and culturalstandards of the people are proclaimedto be " revisionist and reactionary "'.This is a terrifying thought, butfortunately it is not suggested by any-thing that is happening in China, whereover-riding priority is being given toindustry that caters for the needs ofagriculture (farm toots, fertilizer,insecticide, irrigation pumps, cropprocessing machinery), followed byindustries supplying consumer goods topeasants and urban workers, notablytextiles (this year has seen a recordoutput in more than half the maincentres of the industry) and plastics(for footwear, gramophone records,book bindings and protective film andtubing for the farms and bags fortheir supplies of chemicals).

'The heaviest losses from the Cul-tural Revolution', this plain-spokenreport continues, ' were suffered byindustry, including the coal, steel,power and transport industries/ In thatcase the Cultural Revolution can hardlyhave been a catastrophe economically,as the main industrial news from Chinain 1968 had been of a big spurt in coal-mining, new output records at two ofChina's leading steel centres, Anshanand Shanghai, a remarkable speed-up inturn-round of railway freight at portsand the completion of the spectacular6,700-metre road and rail bridge overthe Yangtze at Nanking.

This gigantic project, together withthe four-river drainage and reclamationproject in Shantung which reached itsclimax last year, and the opening of anumber of new fertilizer factories indifferent parts of the country, issufficient comment on the report'sfurther claim that' Capital constructionhas virtually come to a halt'.

It is true that we have no overallfigures for production in any branch.

and that this means that in the lastanalysis we can only express astonish-ment at some of the very low onessupplied from Washington or Moscow.Some fall-back in coal and steel pro-duction during 1967 would not be at allsurprising in view of the high-watermark reached in 1966 and the un-certainty prevailing during the periodwhen the old management were underattack and in the course of beingreplaced.

The same might be said of .engineer-ing industry, though it is now clearthat the technical advances being madein a number of branches at that timewere laying the basis for futureexpansion. The sector of industry ofwhich it could not be said is lightindustry. Textile production appearsto have exceeded expectations in 1967,while sales of five of the main con-sumer durables — sewing machines,radio sets, thermos flasks, enamel washbasins and aluminium cooking pans —increased by about 15 per cent.

Plan surpassedIn the first half of 1968 the output

of all the major light industrialproducts exceeded the state plan; theoutput of bicycles — a good index ofthe provision made for the immediateneeds of the ordinary person —was18 per cent higher than in any previoussix-month period.

The Soviet article says that grain andindustrial crops in 1967 remained atapproximately the same level as theprevious year, while animal husbandrymarkedly declined. The Chinese said,and still say, that the 1967 harvest wasan all-time record for grain, cotton,tobacco, bast fibre crops, sugar caneand beet and fruit and that there wasa record increase in the pig population.

Within a week of each other the USDepartment of Agriculture and SovietNews warned of the effects of a down-turn in the 1968 Chinese harvest,implying that China would be obligedto step up grain imports and even thenwould have to cut back consumption.

Yet in ten of the major grain-produc-ing provinces grain deliveries to thestate had already been reported higherthan at the same time in 1967, andadditional cash sales of surplus winterwheat were still in full spate at theend of September. Cotton also wasbetter than in 1967.

By all means argue that the legacyof the Cultural Revolution will beslower industrialisation and a slowergrowth rate in China if that is what

you believe, but do not pretend it hashappened already. There is no sense intalking of China as in decline at amoment when she is very much in theascendant, even though you may havedoubts about her goal.

To wring one's hands over Chineseagriculture when it has just solved itsthousand-year problem of ending theendemic food-deficiency of the northis about as sensible as lamenting thedearth of technical ability in China inthe month the Nanking Bridge isopened.

This has perhaps taken us some wayfrom the starting-point, whether theChinese are right to aim at an economicsystem in which the motive force is' serving the people' and not fatterpay packets, climbing up the careerladder or rising in the social scale. MostEuropeans — East and West — wouldagree that such a notion might beadmirable in precept but would provequite Utopian in practice and lead toinertia rather than progress.

Certainly it would do so if it weresimply instilled into people at schooland during apprenticeship and acceptedmore or less as a convention. If itwere grasped by young people deliber-ately as an ideal to aspire to, theoutcome would at least not be a fore-gone conclusion. But such dedicationrequires the fervour born of revolution-ary political conviction, in fact of directinvolvement in politics,

AH the talk today among thoseconcerned with the real problems ofthe world is about how the stagereached in technology, coupled withthe social attitudes of the people,determines the way society is to berun and the speed with which it willdevelop its resources. We hear inWestern Europe about the managerialsociety and in Eastern Europe aboutthe new system of management. InChina too the debate has been about

management.All the authority of Mao Tse-tung's

teaching, and treasured experiences ofthe revolution's hardest years, havebeen brought to bear against the ideaof a managerial elite, a hierarchy thatunderstands the alternatives anddecides which of them is better forthe people. The conception of manage-ment, as distinct from workers, of amanagerial career, of material induce-ments to take on increased responsi-bility is not only unacceptable on ideo-logical grounds. It is scorned as a meansof improving production.

Real impetus is not got this way, saythe Chinese, but by the sheer determin-ation and perseverence of workers

continued on page 7

Cultural Revolution and familycontinued from page 1

" houses of happiness " for the agedif they can't work.'

{R H Shackford in Scripps-Howard press, December 17,1958.)

The conclusion reached by this com-mentator was that the ' abolition of thefamily is an avowed, primary socio-logical objective of Red China's newcommune system . . .'.

These articles appeared about a weekafter the Chinese Communist Party hadin fact stated its policy towards familieson the communes:

' We stand for the abolition of theirrational patriarchal •system inheritedfrom the past and for the develop-ment of family life in which there isdemocracy and unity. This stand hasbeen warmly received by the masses.Therefore, in building residentialquarters, attention must be paid tobuilding the houses so that the mar-ried couples, the young and aged ofeach family can all live together.

(Resolution on some questionsconcerning the People's Com-munes— Central Committee ofChinese Communist Party —Wuhan, December 10, 1958.)

Now, ten years later, we can beginto see what effect the Cultural Revo-lution has had on family life. Chinesefriends tell me that before the CulturalRevolution, despite the many socialchanges since 1949, there was a gap ifnot a conflict between the threegenerations within the family. Nowthey study Mao's works together andface up squarely to contradictionsbetween youth and age. Since everyone,of any generation, is concerned with' serving the people', their thoughtsare turned outward to the needs ofsociety; the family is seen within thislarger setting. ' Instead of family chit-chat about airy nothings', said onefriend, ' we discuss community prob-lems and ' affairs of state '. The resultis a greater harmony and a completelynew comradely atmosphere.'

One of the most fascinating examplesof the change was made dramaticallyclear to me at Kwangchow (Canton)last November when I saw the familyof Ding Lai-yu, the barber of theLunghua Production Brigade in Po LoCounty, Kwangtung.

SACU NEWS Is published by theSociety (or Anglo-Chinese Under-standing Ltd, 24 Warren Street,London, Wl, and printed byGoodwin Press Ltd. <TU), 135Fonthlll Road, London. N4.

Ding Lai-yu had learned the hardway — from bitter experience. Theimportance of political ideas andpropaganda was brought home to himwhen, during the Cultural Revolution,he attended a study class organised bythe production brigade. ' Where bet-ter ', he thought, ' to start spreadingthe ideas that within my own family? '.He consulted his wife, who works inthe commune tailoring shop. She didnot go for the idea. As a semi-literatemother she thought this was not herbusiness. But his two elder daughterswere keen and, in a short time, theypersuaded mum. They started a regulardaily reading of Mao's quotations atthe family table. Soon the elder girlsintroduced a song or two and later thetwo younger daughters started toexpress their political feelings in dance.Now this family is well known in PoLo County and beyond as a FamilyPropaganda Team, going the rounds ofthe production teams in the area withtheir performance.

DelightfulFor a delightful, and at times

hilarious, two hours Ding and hisfamily held th.e stage before anaudience of 1,500, mostly Chinese butwith a sprinkling of foreigners, includ-ing myself, at one of Kwangchow'smany theatres.

As an ensemble of eight the familyregaled us with readings and songsrendered with enormous verve andenthusiasm, and no little talent, theseven-year-old girl getting across witha powerful, indeed stentorian, voicethat would do credit to any polishedPeking Opera star. Never have I heardsuch a volume of sound coming fromsuch a young throat. She and her five-year-old sister took the stage withdelightful freshness and charm andgreat expertise, using traditional Chin-es.e dance routines to express modernissues; the booting out of Liu Shao-chi; praise to Mao Tse-tung and theCommunist Party; condemning Ameri-can aggression in Vietnam; cursing thelandlord of pre-Liberation days. Thebaby boy — two-and-a-half — con-ducted the rest of the family in manyof the songs with great gusto andjoined vigorously with the rest in theensemble numbers, clutching his littlered book in his chubby fingers andbeaming with obvious delight. Theten-year-old lad brought the housedown as, in the middle of a song withhis dad in praise of communes, he mostunselfconsciously, and unprofessionally.

scratched his shock of black hair. Nogroup of professionals could have givengreater delight and more effectivelyconveyed their political message, thanthis family of eight.

The father had introduced the per-formance, making comparisons fromhis own experience of life before andafter Liberation. Speaking withoutnotes he gave us some idea of how ithas come about that he and his familyare today not only expert but alsored. This is what he said:

My name is Ding Lai-yu, poor peasantcommune member in Lung-hua Pro-duction Brigade of Lung-hsi People'sCommune in Lo Luo County, Kwang-tung Province. We are eight in thefamily. Under the brilliant Leadership ofthe Chinese Communist Party andChairman Mao Tse-tung, we have beenleading a very happy life. However inthe old society we were oppressed bythe ' three big mountains'. W.e had adog's life. For instance, my wife wassold to a landlord as a maidservant. Shehas had more than enough of lashingsand insults.

But now the wretched of the oldsociety have become the masters of th.emotherland. I joined the Chinese Com-munist Party and later was electedleader of the Production Brigade inour Commune. I now have a happyfamily. I always tell my children thatwe owe our emancipation to theChinese Communist Party and ourhappiness to Chairman Mao.

Chairman Mao teaches us: ' Neverforget the class struggle'. As well asour every-day study of Chairman Mao'sworks, we often make six comparisonsamong ourselves.

The first comparison is between theold society and the new. ChairmanMao says: ' The Chinese CommunistParty is the core of leadership of thewhole Chinese people. Without thiscore, the cause of socialism cannot bevictorious.' Under the wise leadershipof Chairman Mao and the ChineseCommunist Party, our new society islike a paradise. Politically we enjoyequal rights. All the labouring peopleare enjoying a happy life. The oldsociety was worse than hell, a cannibalsociety. The minority lived in luxury atthe expense of the majority. The broadmasses of the labouring people lived ahand-to-mouth existence. But worse!They had to sell their children. Theyhad to go begging. It was in that oldsociety that my parents were starvedto death. Leaving six children behind.We had nobody to depend on. We hadpractically nothing to eat and no houseto live in. We stayed in a dilapidated

continued on page 4

Cultural Revolution and family FUEL IN SNOWYcontinued from page 3

temple. When I was 14 I drifted frommy homeplace in Tahi County to Po LoCounty where I am now living. Luckily! was adopted by a poor-peasantfamily. That damned old society! It hadbroken my family.

The second comparison is betweenthe countryside in the old society andin the new one. In the old countrysidewe could only see wretched houses.Even if the labouring folk had athatched house of their own, theycould not stay there long. At the sametime the landlords lived in luxury. Nowwe have a collective economy. Radicalchanges have taken place, economicallyand politically, in the life of the formerpoor and lower-middle peasants. NowI own a house. This is something 1would not have dared to dream of inthe old days. Now its a fact, thanks toChairman Mao.

The third comparison is between ourfamily in the past and in the newsociety. Then, in the old society wewere eight. Politically we had no rightto speak. What we had were lathingsand insults. We had to go begging. Myparents were starved to death leavingsix children to nobody's care. Now, weare again eight in the family andwe are leading a happy life. Three ofmy six children go to school. What isespecially wonderful is that my sixbrothers and sisters who were sold offor ran away have been reunited. Howmuch I have to thank Chairman Maofor!

The fourth comparison is betweenthe Kuomintang and the Chinese Com-munist Party. It was in the nature ofthe Kuomintang to oppress and exploitthe working people. The KMT betrayedChina. They were in collusion with theimperialists who invaded China andrepressed the Chinese people. By con-

SACU NEWS welcomes contri-butions, either in the form ofarticles, reports of events orletters. Material intended forpublication should be sent tocentral office not later than thetenth day of the month prior topublication.

It is the aim of SACU NEWSto encourage free discussion.The views expressed are notnecessarily those of the Councilof Management.

trast, the Chinese Communist Partyprotects the people, devotes itselfutterly to the interests of the people.

The fifth comparison is between thereactionary puppet army and thePeople's Liberation Army. The bandittroops of Chiang Kai-shek were nomore than the instrument of the bour-geois dictatorship. They beat the work-ing people and were responsible for allmanner of evii things. But the People'sLiberation Army is an army of thepeople. They hit hard at the classenemies. They protect the people. Wepoor and lower-middle peasants havethe deepest love for our own army.

The sixth comparison is between thebourgeois dictatorship and the dictator-ship of the proletariat. If the bour-geoisie takes back the power from ourhands, we shall suffer for the secondtime, again we shall lead a dog's life.Under the dictatorship of the pro-letariat we poor and lower-middlepeasants are forever happy — fromgeneration to generation.

Following Chairman Mao's teachingthat ' we must never forget the classstruggle' the whole of my familythoroughly criticised and repudiatedthe theory of Liu Shao-chj of ' the dyingout of the class struggle'. We haveraised our political consciousness andour consciousness of the struggle bet-ween the two lines — the revolutionaryand the reactionary. Thus we havecome to understand that Chairman Maois dearest to us all and that theChinese Communist Party is the bestand the People's Liberation Army isthe most beloved army. My wholefamily read Chairman Mao's worksevery day and try to follow his instruc-tions in whatever we are doing. Theremay be thousands and thousands ofbooks but we are determined to readChairman Mao's works all our lives.There may be thousands and thousandsof roads, but we have made up ourminds to follow the road pointed outby Chairman Mao.

Chairman Mao teaches us that 'Theproletariat can liberate itself only whenthe whole of mankind is liberated '. Atpresent two-thirds of the workingpeople of the world are still underoppression. They too are leading arotten life. We are resolved to studyand creatively apply the thought ofMao Tse-tung and actively propagateit so that the whole world as well asthe whole of China is illuminated bythe thought of Mao Tse-tung. We willcarry through to the end the revolutionin China and the world revolution.

Roland Berger

WEATHERUNDERSTANDING modern China byreading books would be easier if therewere few.er of them. Ideally, one shouldhave the time to do more than dipinto them; one should drink deep ornot at all. The library, an importantpart of the Anglo-Chinese Educationalinstitute, has been growing year byyear, and the character of the booksacquired seems to change annually.

Two years ago a large proportion ofthe books were reports by people whovisited China or taught there. SophiaKnight's Window on Shanghai; DeliaJenner's Letters; Charles Taylor'sReporter in Red China; Mikhail A.Klochko's Soviet Scientist in China;Portisch's Eye Witness; and the morerecent book by two Australians,Mackerras and Hunter's China Ob-served— each has its own flavour andstance and outlook.

Early in 1967 several short factualbooks appeared: Han Suyin's China inthe Year 2001, about China's presentand future, was sandwiched in betweenMortal Flower and Birdless Summer,volumes two and three of her hugebiographical history. Lyn Harrington, aCanadian writer, links China's past andpresent with carefully chosen wordsand pictures in two books for youngpeople, China and the Chinese, and TheGrand Canal of China.

In 1968, however, books tended to bespecialised or to be collections ofsource material, anthologies of litera-ture or poetry, yearbooks, atlases orpicture books. Some concentrate onoriental armour, or sailing ships, or thelion dog. Others deal with the MayFourth movement, Asian frontiers, theRed Guards or the Cultural Revolution.Do-it-yourself books teach paper-fold-ing and brushwork, but there is also ahistory of landscape painting and someAfro-Asian caricatures of imperialists.

The way China has been caricaturedand characterised is described inDawson's Chinese Chameleon. In theworld of reality is the large book ofcolour photographs with its imagina-tive and informative text by severalauthors, E Schulthess' China; and alsoHerrmann's excellent historical atlas.When the struggle against Japan was atits height in 1942, Mao Tse-tung,quoting a well-known Chinese proverbobserved that the prime need ofthe illiterate and uneducated was not1 more flowers on the brocade' but'fuel in snowy weather'. Icy winds ofprejudice make fuel a prime needtoday as well.

M 2 B

The artist's view

SHORT OF A VISIT to China oneself,there is no alternative to a persistentsearch for and sifting through thewritings of those who know this up-heaving country from first-handexperience. The search is full of pit-falls, since the official line prevails inthe press, and personal accounts mayoffer too narrow a vista for thediscriminating enquirer. But if, in thesearch, we come across an impressionof China that is at once broad in itsscope, detached in its viewpoint, andinformed in its comparisons — east vis-a-vis west, then we have a valuablefind.

Holy China, by Feiiks Topolski, is arare experience. On-the-spot line-draw-ing reactions —a form which Topolskihas perfected over many years ofscrutinising events the world round,and seen for the past 15 years in hisbroadsheet, the Chronicle, but thistime together with his own jottedwords, which act as telling guidelinesto an unfamiliar environment. It is notan easy tour of contemporary China.Topolski's hand and eye are quick, andhis mind teems with unexpectedassociations. We are obliged to pageback and forth, pondering a sketch, co-

ordinating it with the text, -chewingover the suggestions and implications.Yet the task is rewarding and al-together absorbing.

An artist's response to China isbound to be quite another kettle offish from that of any other profes-sional. Topolski's study is far fromconventional, far from academic, butit is nonetheless informed by anexperience of the world that fewpeople from any walk of life couldmatch. A random quote or two fromhis provocative and often lyrical textwill illustrate the point.

'Tien An Men Square, on the firstMay night, bursts at the seams withamateur folklore groups from all overthe country performing for a million ofthemselves: a giant open air squaremile of a HAPPENING. Ten thousandbands, choirs, dancing feet, whirling,flag-banners hoisting, slogans roaring,applause:

' This is the realisation of anunmatchable, all-in happening, a caco-phony of the truest ultra-modernity.And much more: humanity gathered inone congested spot by an idea, accu-mulating single-minded force and, fullycharged, exploding, leaping, unaided by

supermachines, into new space dimen-sions. This pandemonium, this babel ofall the senses, is today's symphony ofart-faith-will. Puny " observers " fromthe West, Russians included, theirassertive instincts at work, react piece-meat, get at and examine details to fittherr own measure: their dwarfed artand "good taste", their sectarianismsand their " freedoms ". Thus, measureby false measure, they recover confi-dence, and even attempt a patronisingirony. But the whole; the wholeanswers well for China. Simpler, andtherefore less boneheaded " delegates "from Africa and Asia are perhaps able

to perceive the Majesty and Miracle.''Steep, dug-out acres: cluttering and

clattering. Metal, timber, bricks, shrillgaiety, banging, heaving, sliding down,multi-lev,elied, mufti-aged, multitudin-ous agitation — walling up The Com-munal Irrigation Scheme, its culmina-tion the calm pointedness of a canal.

'labouring China takes on the auraof symbolic action. Posters, performers,statues, writing, hieratize real gesturesor, as a young American will imitatethe tough mannerisms of the screen,life here models itself on the art thatserves it.'

By all means, see it. There is a copyof Holy China, on loan from a member,in the library at Warren Street.

Kate Allt

Import Development Ltd.

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Letters to SACU

Honest opinionFrom Geoffrey Haworth, CheshireI AM VERY glad that the SACUCouncil has issued a statement aboutthe British subjects at present detainedin China (SACU News, January).Although I was present as an observerat the meeting when this matter wasdiscussed, I had to leave before thestatement was agreed and I shouldlike to be allowed to make somecomments on it.

When speaking to audiences whichyou know must be misinformed aboutand prejudiced against China, I find itvery difficult not to exaggerate in theopposite direction, and I feel that theCouncil statement perhaps errs in thisrespect. May I give some details?

' The charges and evidence were soflimsy . . .' This may be true, but issurely irrelevant. No charges, howeverflimsy, and no evidence have beenbrought against Anthony Grey.

' It is widely believed in Hongkong. . . " It is also widely believed in thiscountry that British subjects are beingdetained in China for no reason at ail.Surely we have the right and duty toprotest against ail cases of apparentinjustice and to continue to press forinformation.

'The fact is that Hongkong is a littlebit of China.' Yes, it is, and althoughas far as I know the Chinese govern-ment has never asked us to give itback, I think we should initiate nego-tiations to return it as soon as pos-sible. In the meantime it is a Britishpossession and we are responsible formaintaining law and order there.

' From the personal point of viewtheir relations and friends are rightlyconcerned . . .' Only personal? Surelydetention without any information iswrong and we should say so.

'. . . the aim of overthrowing orsubverting China . . .' In what way?We have recognised China, w,e areincreasing our trade with her, and forthe last four years we have, in oppo-sition to the USA, voted for her admis-sion to the United Nations.

When meeting revolutionary com-mittees in China in August 1967, it wasnot apparently possible to make anyimpression on their point of view, butthey did appreciate and expect argu-ment and honest expression of opinionon our part, and I do not think theinterests of SACU are serv,ed by anuncritical attitude to everything thathappens in China, or the passive accept-ance of things we believe to be wrong.

THE following, taken from a HsinhuaNews Agency statement, states theofficial Chinese view on the detentionof Anthony Grey. It was publishedon December 27, 1968. — Editor.

'The British authorities claim thatthe Hongkong British authorities havealready released Hsueh Ping and sevenother journalists, but China has not yetreleased Grey. They allege that theChinese government has "shifted itsground ".

'All this is nothing but maliciousdistortion and vilification. The Chinesegovernment has all along taken a clear-cut stand towards the Grey question.The Information Department of theChinese Foreign Ministry announced ina statement on July 21 of last yearthat in view of the Hongkong Britishauthorities' savage persecution of eightpatriotic Chinese journalists, includingcorrespondents of the Hsinhua NewsAgency, Hongkong Branch, the Chinesegovernment decid.ed to restrict Grey'sfreedom of movement.

' But the Hongkong British authori-ties did not immediately release theeight patriotic Chinese journalists.Instead they went from bad to worseand detained more patriotic Chinesejournalists in succession. . . .

' Since the Hongkong British auth-orities continue to keep thirteenpatriotic Chinese journalists in jail, theChinese government is fully justified incontinuing to restrict Grey's freedomof movement. This is the consistentstand of the Chinese government.'

Free them allFrom Sheila Green, Lancashire

. . . May 1 say that my husband and I(and some of our friends) supportChina over the Anthony Grey issue.We are of the opinion that the peopleresponsible for his continued detentionare the British Government for thecontinuation of their oppressive policiesin Hongkong. The Government has notbeen as zealous in exposing theGovernment of South Africa for im-prisoning people holding Zambian pass-ports.

We also deplore the failure of the' free' press in not publishing DrNeedham's letter.

I am sure we all look forward tothe release of Anthony Grey and tWeChinese people of Hongkong.

Faithful readerFrom Miss N G Dick, London

I'm sorry 1 can't come to your meet-ings but I read every word of theliterature you send me. I was particular-ly glad of the article on Mr Grey. Ithought there would be an explanationalong the lines you suggest. . . .

Individual ArtFrom John PapworthTHE issue raised by Professor Coulsonin his resignation letter is important;as I understand him he is urging we usestraightforward English and not usejargon phrases which derive their mean-ing very largely from what a powerfulgroup of politicians in a given countrymay decide is suitable for their policypurposes at a given time.

The phrase ' bourgeois art' for ex-ample is meaningless for purposes ofdiscussion, as distinct from abuse,unless we know what these powergroups at the top in countries likeChina and Russia currently want it tomean.

My atlas indicates that China is not acountry but a continent and one largerthan the land surface of Europe as faras the Urals. Wh.en one reflects onthe sheer diversity of peoples andconditions in Europe is it unreasonableto suppose that China is equally richin this diversity ? How then can oneapply to an intensely individual formof creativity, and one that springslargely from the unconscious of theartist, and which is thus not susceptibleto production for objective needs suchas propaganda without abandoning theinspiration of the unconscious and thusdemeaning the product, such sweepingterms as ' bourgeois ar t ' ?

There is a further example of' gobbiedygook' in the article about anew bridge in your January issue whenit states ' it is the biggest . . . so fardesigned or built by the Chinese work-ing class'. This is not so much des-cription as incantation, and at the altarsof thought processes which need toimprison the free flow of language asthe necessary cost of maintaining thegrip of these processes on the mind.

To seek to encompass the individualriches and variety of millions of humanpersonalities by a sweeping jargonphrase such as ' the working class' isnot only to abuse the humanity ofthose millions by reducing them col-lectively to a single block of verbalcannon fodder, but to deaden th,eimaginative responsiveness of thehabitual reader of such phrases andtheir authors alike.

Since the declared object of SACUis ' to foster friendly relations betweenBritain and China', by which 1 sup-pose is meant the people of thesecountries, and since most people inBritain are not Marxists, might it notbe better if descriptive articles werecouched in ordinary plain Englishrather than the highly subjective ten-dentiousness of the ritual phraseologyof the Marxist straight-jacket?

Society for Anglo-Chinese Understand-ing Ltd (Founded 15 May 1965)

Office: 24 Warren Street, London W.ITelephone 01-387 0074

Telegrams ANGCHfN London W.IChairman: Dr Joseph NeedhamDeputy-Chairman:

Professor Joan RobinsonVice-Chairman: Mrs Mary AdamsSecretary: Mrs Betty Paterson

China's economycontinued from page 2

moved to exert their best efforts bythe knowledge chat all the people aregoing to benefit from it.

Not only the most valuable technicaladvances but the most beneficial stepsin management are those hit upon bythe workers and technicians them-selves, probing for the simplest way ofovercoming an obstacle or breakingthrough an irksome limit. Wheneverthe iron and steel plant at Shihkiach-wang needed its machinery for boostingfurnace temperature serviced, forexample, expert specialists had to besummoned from outside and frustratingdelays and uncertainty ensued.

This high precision machinery wasnot of the sort that ordinary steelworkers could be let loose on, or sothe professional management hadalways insisted until they were over-ruled this year as a result of theCultural Revolution. The ' Revolution-ary Committee' of the works gaveauthority for the machine to bedismantled and repaired by the workersand it was. ft took twenty days todiscover how to reassemble all theparts, but even that was less than theoutside experts had taken before.

On this kind of basis China talksabout launching a new leap forward.Plenty of people in the West are readyto explain why it would be no morethan a leap into chaos, but — and herewe come back to our starting point —it is up to them to take all theShihkiachwangs, all the Kweiyangs (atthe Kweiyang Cotton Mill the workersexposed a situation in which theadministration had expanded itself to22 sections, accounting for 8 per centof the payroll), all the Yangtze Bridgesand the seven successive good harvests,and show where China is going wrongand why our method would be better.

Percy TimberlakeEditor, China Trade and

Economic Newsletter

SACU DIARYFebruary

5 Cambridge Branch. ' China, Indiaand World Hunger,' Speakers:Dr Hugh Gray, MP and MalcolmCaldwelf, lecturer at School ofOriental and African Studies,London. Keynes Hall, Kings Col-lege, 8 15 pm.

7 Barnet Branch. Films from China.Followed by the Annual Generalof the Meeting Branch. HendonTown Hall, The Burroughs,NW4. 7 30 pm.

I} Discussion Meeting. ' China andJapan.' Introduced by MichaelSaso who liv.ed in Japan for someyears. 24 Warren Street Wl.7 30 pm.

12 Public Meeting. 'Any Questions

on China? For details seeadvertisements and specialleaflet. (Please send in yourquestions before the meeting.)Porchester Hall, Queensway W2.730 pm.

13 Cambridge Branch. AGM follow-ed by Chinese film * TunnelWarfare'. Keynes Hall, King'sCollege. 8 pm.

19 Camden Branch. 'China and USRelations.' Speaker: PremenAddy. Holborn Central Library,Theobalds Road WC1. 730 pm.

25 Discussion Meeting. ' The Lifeand Works of Lu Hsun.' Intro-duced by Paul Lewenstein. 24Warren Street WI. 730 pm.

26 Manchester Branch. ' Tibet andSino-lndian relations.' Speaker:Mr. A T d'Eye. Friends MeetingHouse, Mount Street. 730 pm.

Weekend school?WHY NOT spend a weekend inLondon and learn more about China?If there is enough support SACU willarrange a non-residential weekendschool on the weekend March 28-30. Itwill be held at 24 Warren Street whichhas a very pleasant meeting room andlibrary, together with a small kitchen.

As expenses will be low, this willenable us to keep the fee for theschool within everyone's means — prob-ably about £1. The number of sessionsand the aspects of China to be studiedwill depend on the wishes of thoseinterested.

So please write to central office nowand tell us whether you would like toattend the school and, if so, yourthoughts on the following:a) Number of sessions? i.e. Friday

evening ? All or part of Saturdayand Sunday?

b) What aspects of China and herpeople you would like to study?

c) All work and no play? Or films/slides to be included in the pro-gramme?

d) Any improvements you think w.ecould make on previous schools?

e) If you would need help in findingaccommodation in London?

All your answers will be carefullyconsidered and the programme for theweekend will be printed in nextmonth's SACU News.

On televisionON January 20 the first of eightprogrammes for the sixth form onChina ushered in the series with apoem by Mao Tse-tung accompanied byfilms of the Long March. It then tracedthe growth of rebellion and revolutionfrom the May Fourth demonstrationsculminating in th.e victory parade inPeking in October 1949.

Edgar Snow described the thin, gauntCommunist leader who had no needfor bodyguards when he was living andworking and writing in Yenan. JeromeChen described the ' rectification 'movement (1942-44), how the hithertoforeign doctrine had to be rewrittenin terms that would be understood byilliterate peasants, so that party andmasses could become united firstagainst the Japanese, and later whenthey faced Chiang Kai-shek's well-armed forces.

The next seven programmes willcover the empire that lasted for 2,000years, and its artistic achievements,describe its collapse and the failure ofthe Nationalist Government. They willshow how the Communist administra-tion has succeeded in making Chinastrong and united. You can see themon B'B'C-1 in the school programmes,on Mondays at 11 30 aman d Wednes-days at noon. M Z B

SACK'S AGMTHIS will be held on May 17, andfurther particulars of the meeting willbe announced in the March SACUNews. As some Branches will be hold-ing their own AGMs during Februaryand March members may like to takethe opportunity at these meetings ofputting forward resolutions for thenational Annual General Meetingthrough their Branch.

The Society's programme and policy,to be successful, should reflect theviews of its membership and resolu-tions, either from a Branch or signedby five individual members, which canbe debated at the AGM are one of thebest ways of seeing that this is in factthe case. So please book the dateMay 17 in your diaries — come to theAGM — and start thinking about yourresolutions NOW.

Air France to ShanghaiAir France weekly service to Shanghai, flown byBoeing Jet Intercontinental, gives businessmen,exporters, diplomats and official travellers fast,direct access to the heart of industrial areas. Theflight leaves Orly, Paris at 11 a.m. on Mondays andthe Boeing reaches Shanghai on Tuesdays at3.30 p.m. The return flight departs Shanghai onTuesdays at 6.20 p.m. and arrives at Orly at11.30 a.m. Wednesday. London-Shanghai jet eco-nomy return fare is £461.3.0. (1st class return£789.4.0.Air France is the first West European airline to begranted a route to Shanghai, and the new servicebrings to seven the total number of flights a weekby the company to the Far East. Countries served byAir France include Iran, Pakistan, India, Thailand,Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Phillipines,

Japan—and now the People's Republic of China.Destination in many of these countries may be usedas stop-over points on your journey to Shanghai.Full details can be obtained from your Travel Agentor nearest Air France office.

AIR FRANCE, 15B NEW BOND STREET, W.I. GHO 9O3OJnr.,i1hm,ctsn5t:1*. MW:!,BIH 9H 7)31/i.G'jip* 1*1-32! 1351/5 ( • Oj'u 77M73