The Press MONDAY, MARCH 13, 1967. Chinese Puzzle

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31317, 13 March 1967, Page 12

The Press MONDAY, MARCH 13, 1967. Chinese Puzzle

Chairman Mao’s Red Guards have been ordered back to school —nine months after the schools and colleges were closed to set China’s youth marching with the “great cultural revolution”. Now, apparently, the revolution has been halted, to stem the counterrevolution against Maoism. It may be significant that only two weeks ago another call was made on the Army to give full support to the task of crushing “ reactionary elements ”. It may be indicative, too, of the massive proportions of the anti-Maoist revolt and the confusion prevailing in China that Maoist forces are said to have control in only five of the country’s 26 provinces and autonomous regions. There is a suspicion that increasing disorders along China’s vast frontier with Russia explain Peking’s bid to end the revolt and win the Army completely over to Maoism.

In the meantime there has been an odd development, on the propaganda side, in the bitter war of words between Peking and Moscow. Russian diplomacy, according to report, is now suggesting that the Government in Peking is anxious to come to some sort of working understanding with the United States. This must sound very like fantasy, especially in the light of Chinese charges, persistently made over the last two years, that Moscow had become “an American stooge ”. After Mr Kosygin’s recent visit to London, Peking in fact referred to him and the British Prime Minister, Mr Wilson, as “ the two chief accomplices of United States “ imperialism ”. It is far from clear what the Russians would hope to gain by alleging collusion between China and America; one theory is that the Chinese are planning hostile action on Russia’s borders and are anxious to protect themselves against the possibility of American attack. No doubt Washington will know how to deal with propaganda of this nature, should the Russians be spreading it—as they are currently said to be doing—through the busy lobbies of United Nations headquarters.

More engaging theories have lately been advanced in the United States on the several divisions of the power struggle within China itself. A special correspondent of the “ Economist ” has lately attempted the task of defining these divisions, revealed, he says, during two years of acrimonious debate in Peking on foreign policy. One of the main factions, led by the now dismissed Army chief of staff, Lo Jui-ching, had argued that China should counter the threat of attack by the United States by seeking to restore relations with Russia. A second group, led by the Mayor and Communist Party secretary in Peking, Peng Chen, put forward the possibility of compromise with the Americans, and submitted that Vietnam was not important to China. He was also purged: but according to sources quoted by the “Economist’s” correspondent, his views were supported by Chairman Mao’s chief of staff and trusted “ comrade ”, Lin Piao, who argued that a direct confrontation with the United States was not inevitable. Lo Jui-ching challenged this theory publicly. It was his last speech before his dismissal and disappearance. His fatal error, according to the correspondent, was “to reject two of “ Mao’s cardinal principles in military policy: that the “ party must control the Army, and that men were “ more important than weapons, even in modern “ war ”.

These references to divisions, reports, and theories merely serve to emphasise that confusion over what is happening in China continues to deepen. As for the Chinese-Soviet “ cold war ”, the presump-

tion is that the Maoists have decided that a rapprochement with Russia is not necessary, and that Soviet “ revisionism ” must still be resisted. But the mystery of Mao’s Prime Minister, Chou En-lai, remains. He has opposed Mao—but stays in office. Does he, the “Economist’s” writer asks, “fit the “image of China’s ‘revisionist’, more interested in “ economic development than in spreading revolu“tion? . . . Mao has good reason to distrust Chou “as much as the leaders he has already purged. But “ if Chou can manage to prove his indispensability “ long enough to outlast Mao, then the wishful “ thinkers may have their good guy in China after “all”.