China’s Problem— Marx Or Malthus

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29728, 23 January 1962, Page 14

China’s Problem— Marx Or Malthus

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 22.

The Chinese Communirts refused to be regarded as a satellite group and wanted to be the centre of a culture, said the president of the International Federation of University Women, Dr. Merebeth E. Cameron, in an address to the Dominion conference of the New Zealand Federation of University Women.

Taking as her subject “China in revolution,” Miss Cameron said that the “ise of the Chinese Communists was just a new phase of a revolution which had been going on for 150 years Though there was a close ideological connexion witn the Russian idea, she con sidered that the Chinese revolution stemmed from the movements of the nineteenth century.

Though the Chinese Com ■ munists wanted to imitate certain features of Weste n culture, they showed a cer tain resentment to Western thought and culture as a whole. They had accepted Marxism, which was an aspect of Western thought as applied in Russia, as a magic formula by which in oppressed country could leap forward to prosperity. It seemed to offer the means whereby the Chinese could be restored to number one position in the world. For China to become a strong industrial Power, however, there must first be a vast increase in agricultural prosperity. Dr Cameron said there had been great change; in land distribution. The old landlords had been overthrown and, since 1958, full scale agricultural communes had been established witn co-operative distribution.

The peasants had been through the mill, but fam.ly groups were now living together again. The Ug problem was how to feed 700 million people before .he industrial campaign could be started.

“Who will win—Marx O’ Malthus?” asked Dr. Cameron.

A fair question was whether hysterical extremum could be maintained year after year, as it had been with propaganda campaigns and doses of fear and terror. It was wishful thinking, however, to imagine the Chinese revolution on the verge of collapse. A change in the Chinese Communists themselves was more likely. The future might show that many features of Chinese life which had been submerged had proved to be ineradicable.