CHINA'S MOOD TODAY MODERATE LEADERSHIP UNDER ATTACK BY YOUNG RADICALS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33463, 19 February 1974, Page 12

CHINA'S MOOD TODAY MODERATE LEADERSHIP UNDER ATTACK BY YOUNG RADICALS

(From the "Economist.") (Reprinted by arrangement) Like a compass gone berserk. China's political indicators are nting all ways at once. There are clear signs that the moderates are i control: how else could an arch “capitalist-roader” and tried old party ureaucrat like Teng Hsiao-ping be restored to the Politburo? And there are equally clear signs that the radicals are on the rampage: who else could be inciting rebellion against parents, teachers, party officials. Confucius and Beethoven? Why indeed would all these contradictory things be happening if China were not working itself up for another round of cultural revolution?

The mood of China today is distinctly reminiscent of the spirit of '66. Now, as then, young people are in the vanguard of an assault against authority in universities and schools. A young man on a rural commune in Liaoning set the pace in July with a denunciation of university entrance examinations. His theme—that making revolution is more important than book-learn-ing—has since been given nationwide publicity and the stamp of approval from the! “People’s Daily.” A group of secondary school students in Shanghai applied similar arguments in their successful poster campaign in October to allow copying, or “exchanging i opinions”, during examinations. In the past month two other mode) rebels have emerged: a 12-year-old girl in Peking who appealed to the local newspaper against a teacher who “suppressed democracy ’; and a student at Nanking university who resigned his university place j because it had been obtained through the influence of his father, a party official. I All these acts of protest have been widely praised as examples of “the revolutionary spirit of going against the tide.” This phrase first appeared last August in a “People’s Daily” commentary on the hero of Liaoning, but it popped up again two weeks later at China’s 10th party congress, when it was attributed to Mao Tse-tung and written into the party constitution. Since then it has been the subject of a running controversy in the Chinese press as radicals and moderates have defined it and redefined it.

The radicals, who really own ‘’going against the tide,” interpret it as defiance of the majority by a minority which has somehow become the exclusive vehicle of Maoist truth. The phrase is used in a general way to sanction almost any challenge to the established authority. One newspaper went so far as to equate it with the famous slogan that launched the Red Guards in 1966—“ rebellion is justified”.

The moderates, who cannot openly disavow the words of Mao, have tried to water them down by insisting that the tides which can be opposed are only erroneous ones and that people who mistakenly attack a progressive tide are bound to be “defeated and defamed”. They have reinforced this line recently with the convoluted argument that “going against the tide” is actually just good party discipline. Battle of tide

The centra) issue in the battle of the tide is whether China’s present moderate leadership should be allowed to continue its present moderate policies or whether it and its policies should be challenged by a new mass movement. The groundwork

fo.- such a struggle seems i already to have been laid. A potential successor to the Red Guards has been set up in the form of an urban militia. Militiamen and soldiers have held revolutionary rallies and marches in Shanghai, And workers as well as students, again in Shanghai, have flexed their revolutionary muscles by conducting poster attacks against allegedly authoritarian leaders.

All this makes a convincing case for the imminence of another cultural revolution. Yet the evidence is ambiguous. Although the urban militia looks like a left-wing baby because it was born in Shanghai, the headquarters of the radicals, iit need not end up as a revolutionary force: moderates jin other cities may already lbe plotting to use' it, come I the revolution, as so many [workers’ groups were used jin 1967, to put down the rambunctious youth. And as [for those revolutionary rallies in Shanghai, what were I the militiamen singing but [“The Three Main Rules of I I Discipline”, a musical ver- ( sion of the military code; which is revived whenever party controls need tight- i ening (the last time it [ topped the hit parade was after the death of Lin Piao). i A much more telling argu-| ment against a showdown in I the near future is the re- j shuffle of regional military commanders that was announced last month. Reducing the power of the army is one thing moderates and radicals should be able to agree on. But Chou En-lai would hardly have allo'-, id the provincial commanders to be hobbled by being posted to unfamiliar territory if he expected to need the army’s help jn putting down a radical insurrection. And the army commanders would hardly have accepted their transfers if they had expected a radical faction to take command in Peking. The return of Teng Hsiaoping to the Politburo could even have been a surety for the commanders that the balance of power in the party would remain with the' moderates The propaganda battle of I

; recent months has confirmed l that the central government >is under attack from the > Left. The leaders of this Left- ■ wing faction have not been ; identified — although it ■ must be significant that the i radicals began to make ; themselves heard again soon after Wang Hung-wen, ■ China’s young new number three, moved to Peking. But ;it has pinpointed several Left-wing strongholds — Liaoning, where the first

-i hero arose, Shanghai, where -: a new magazine has con--1 sistently fed Left-wing e themes to the “People s » Daily”, and Peking itself i where the local party newst paper has just launched a » new campaign against west- , ern music. This revival of the anti--5 Beethoven drive, which last flared up in 1966. could be > just another instance of ■ knee-jerk radicalism, just a I nationalistic shot in the ? battle of the tide. But be--5 cause music has in fact been -the only form of western ■culture to penetrate China t since Mr Nixon’s visit in fili'72 (both the London Phil- - harmonic and the Philajjdelpl'ia Symphony played ■; Beethoven in China last year ■ land Peking’s own orchestra tj played it for Mr Kissinger), ; the campaign acquires a pari ticular importance. Could it ■ be meant as an attack on II contacts with the west and • i detente in general? One d straw in the wind is the - cancellation this week of the ■ long-standing proposal of a > China tour by the Orchestre 1 de Paris. > Whatever the radicals’ i aims, they have not yet I managed to change China’s ; foreign policy. That much is ■ clear from the events of the ' past two weeks: the Russian > spy incident, which was the occasion for a new outburst lof anti-Soviet propaganda I including labelling the Rus- ■ sian leaders as Con- • fucianists; and the quiet rei turn of the American caught . in the island war with South ■ Vietnam without so much as I a word about imperialist spies and aggressors. This : could be a good augury. But i it could also mean nothing imoie than that the radicals ! are still rolling up their [sleeves.