RED CHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000400490011-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 22, 1998
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: July 30, 1965
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

RED CHINA
The Prize Defector,.
y rejoices over a repentant,
r ' sinner, .more than Rcd China's Premier
Chou En-1'ai-particularly if the sinner'
is a highly placed defector from the
West. To prove it, Chou ordered party
flacks to go all out last week on a re-
ception for 74-year-old Li Tsung-jen,
Nationalist China's acting President dur-
(: ing;.the' - final days of the Communist : ?
conquest, ,and Peking's biggest prize so.
far in the. East-West defection game..
r War lord of Kwangsi Ja~.rovince dur _y `,
ing the .1920s and '30s, - Li',early: -urged
', a united front of Nationalists and Com- ?
munists to fight the invading Japanese.!
,'war machine, gave the weary Chinese
their first major victory" at Taierh-,)
chwang in 1938. In 1948, as the civil,
war 'raged, Li fought China's first West-
ern-style political campaign and nosed
I out President Chiang's favorite for the'
vice-presidency; months later, Chiang..
stepped aside to let Li have a chance.!
'
at seeking peace with the Communists,
i then within sight of total victory. When,
Nationalist resistance collapsed, Li, a ` ' .
longtime critic of the Chiang regime,,
fled to the U.S., rather than Chiang's J
Formosa refuge.
Last month Li sold his house in En.
lewood N J t 1d f '
g
~ome. After long' y~ats '6f absence, I- N+
sire of an old man to return to the land
na's United Front Work Department, '
which has some of the same functions "
:
Li's defection apparently followed'i.
an an create a new united front-
this time against the "wolfish ambition" ?"
of the U.S.
"return to the embrace of the mother
1 d" d a
,operation. He went to Switzerland, all i
' right-then kept going east. At Peking..!
Airport, he renounced his "guilty past,"
urged his colleagues on Formosa to .
who was recovering from a cancer i
, . ., o rlends he was go-
ing to Switzerland to be with' his wife
Sanitized Ap -OQ149R40Q4.Q049Q011-6 ,