CHINA REGIONAL AND POLITICAL ANALYSIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T00912A001100010024-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: May 24, 1977
• Content Type: REPORT

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China
GIONAL AND
LITICAL ANALYSIS
Secret
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CHINA
24 May 1977
Mao's Legacy and China's Foreign Policy . . . . . . 1
Yu Chiu-li's Message to Taching . . . . . . . . . . 5
Military Debate Continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Cracking Down in China's Schools. . . . . . . . . . 11
This publication is prepared for regional specialists in the Washington community by
the East Asia/Pacific Division, Office of Regional and Political Analysis, with
occasional contributions from other offices within the Directorate of Intelligence.
Comments and queries are welcome. They should be directed to the authors of the
individual articles.
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Mao's Legacy and China's Foreign Policy
On April 15, 1977, China's new leadership released
Volume V of Mao Tse-tung's Selected Works to the public
with great fanfare and ceremony. Unlike the earlier
volumes of Mao's speeches and articles, this is the first
time Mao himself did not control the final selection and
annotation of articles. The conclusion drawn from this,
most succinctly stated by Ross Munro in the Christian
Science Monitor, is that "by analyzing how the works from
1949 to 1957 (the years covered in the new edition) are
compiled and annotated, it will perhaps be possible to
gain some clues for understanding in what direction the
post-Mao Chinese leaders plan to take the country." This
is not an unwarranted conclusion, but a few caveats must
be mentioned.
First of all, the preparatory work for the new edition
did not begin with Mao's death in September 1976. Accord-
ing to an article by Hua Kuo-feng, Mao himself expressed
interest in compiling a fifth volume of his works as early
as 1969, and delegated the task to Chou En-lai and Kang
Sheng. It should be assumed that at least a portion of
this work was completed by 1976, and that Mao was con-
sulted along the way. A second consideration is the po-
litical hazard involved in altering Mao's works, using
them too selectively or distorting them. The "gang of
four" attacked Teng Hsiao-ping for doing this, and the
Hua regime has accused the "gang" of exactly the same
crime. The present leadership would leave itself open
to later attack if it were to perform such surgery on
Mao's canons. In that regard, it is interesting to note
that, in comparison with earlier volumes, there are fewer
explanatory footnotes and annotations in Volume V. Mao's
words are allowed to stand by themselves, with little
exegesis.
The most important consideration in analyzing Volume
V is, of course, the selection of articles and speeches
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from the vast body of Mao's words over this eight-year
period. Mao, of course, is nothing if not a flexible
theoretician. His words have been used, with or without
his consent, to bolster lesser leaders at all points
along the Chinese political spectrum. It is beyond doubt,
then, that the new regime has selected those speeches
and articles which best support their policy intentions.
Certainly, Volume V would have been markedly different
if Chang Chun-chiao had been in charge of compiling it.
In the realm of foreign relations, Volume V does
not appear to signal any shifts from current policies.
This in itself is significant insofar as the 1949-57
period can be generally described as the period of the
greatest Sino-Soviet amity and greatest Sino-US hostility.
In other words, the Hua regime editors have used the
1949-57 Mao to support the 1960-76 Mao in the realm of
foreign policy, a piece of historical revision with which
Mao himself probably would have concurred. This is accom-
plished in two ways in Volume V. One is in the exclusion
of certain speeches or articles from this period
The other method is in the rat er
calm, detached, and generally bland discussion of the
Soviet Union and the US that is included in the new
volume.
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There is, not surprisingly, little in Volume V that
could be construed as even the faintest of praise for
the US or its allies. The discussion of the US, however,
could have been a great deal harsher than it is. Volume
IV, for instance, ends up with a series of articles per-
sonally denouncing various US leaders and their policies.
This theme does not continue in Volume V, nor are Volume
V readers treated to the kind of vitriolic condemnation
of American society that became such standard fare in
the Chinese press during the Korean war. Mao in Volume
V mentions "contradictions" within US society on several
occasions, but does not go into any detail. It is quite
possible that certain portions have been edited out of
this discussion. To be sure, the attitude toward the
US is consistently antipathetic and derogatory, but many
of the criticisms, even during the Korean war period,
seem somewhat unemotional and stereotyped. There are
many strong statements, of course, such as in "The Atomic
Bomb Cannot Frighten the Chinese People," and "US
Imperialism Is a Paper Tiger," but given the nature of
the US-Chinese relationship at that time, they seem rather
mild.
There is a noticeable lack of material on Chinese
relations with the rest of the world. Although there
are various references to solidarity with the oppressed
peoples of the world, support for revolutions, and unity
with all who oppose imperialism, there is a lack of de-
tail. Mao, of course, left the majority of the detailed
work on foreign policy to Premier Chou En-lai, who was
quite active during this period seeking recognition and
normalized relations with the nonaligned world.
In sum, Volume V, as far as foreign policy is con-
cerned, is rather bland. Mao is not lavish in his praise
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of the Soviets before 1956, nor harsh in his criticism
of them thereafter. His discussion of the US is often
derogatory, but usually desultory. Mao's chief interests
during this period were not foreign policy related--that
came later. From 1949-1957, Mao was chiefly concerned
with economic recovery and development, party consolida-
tion, and suppression of opposition. He linked these
interests to China's relationship with the Soviet Union
only later, though some dissatisfaction is evident in
these writings.
It is interesting to note that the regime has thus
far done little to direct Chinese readers toward the
foreign policy articles in Volume V. The introductory
article by the compilation committee selects passages
which criticize both the US and USSR, and Hua Kuo-feng's
long People's Daily article of May 1, 1977 does like-
relations
with the US and USSR. "In the 1960s and 1970s,
a change took place in the world situation. The emer-
gence of Soviet social-imperialism provided the world
with another outstanding teacher by negative example.
Likethe other superpower, it became the common enemy
of the world's people.... The role which Soviet social-
imperialism is playing as a teacher by negative example
cannot be matched by anyone in the world today." It is
possible that such statements reflect the regime's con-
cern that even their careful selections of Mao's writings
not lead to any confusion concerning the main anti-Soviet
A May 7 People's Daily article seeks to correct the
impression that the Chinese are attempting to balance their
orientation of China's present foreign policy.
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Yu Chiu-li's Message to Taching
The national Taching industrial conference, which
reaffirmed, in general, the pragmatic developmental goals
usually associated with the late Chou En-lai, closed in
Peking on May 13 after a series of well-organized but
rather unspectacular meetings, speeches, and reports.
Although both Party Chairman Hua Kuo-feng and Minister of
National Defense Yeh-chien-ying spoke at the Taching con-
ference, it was State Planning Commission Chief Yu Chiu-li
who provided the most informative report.
In his report, Yu Chiu-li complained that despite the
serious damage done to China's industrial production--es-
pecially within the iron and steel industry--by the "gang
of four," most industries had made impressive gains since
the purge of the leading leftists. However, instead of
complementing the iron and steel industry, Yu merely as-
serted that it was now in a position to "end its stagna-
tion and advance steadily."
The overriding message of Yu's report was as straight-
forward as the famous "Taching spirit," itself: strict dis-
cipline and hard work are essential for China's immediate
economic recovery and future modernization. However, Yu
did make reference to the sensitive issue of wage reform,
an issue which has created many serious tensions between
the leadership and the workers in recent years. But Yu's
reference to the wage reform issue was both indirect and
noncommittal. He first condemned material incentives in
general as incorrect Soviet-style practices that had been
mistakenly applied to the Chinese economy in the early
1950s. Yu then dodged the issue completely by announcing
that a "special conference" would be held sometime in the
future to "tackle the problems involved in employment and
wage rates."
Yu Chiu-li's report was a remarkable combination of
Mao Tse-tung's "great leap forward" spirit and Chou En-lai's
reasoned pragmatism. At one point, Yu quoted from a Mao
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speech originally given to a meeting of leading party
cadres in advance of the eighth national party congress
in 1956, but first released only recently in Volume V of
the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. In this speech Mao
instructed the cadres that it was "an obligation" to over-
take the US economically "in 50 or 60 years." Yu then
referred to Chou En-lai's report to the fourth national
people's congress of 1975 where the late premier laid
down the pragmatic but ambitious program for modernizing
China before the turn of the century. Finally, in his
own words, Yu asserted that rapid industrial development
through hard work and strict discipline was "not only
absolutely necessary but entirely possible."
Yu's skillful use of the "legacies" of both Mao
Tse-tung and Chou En-lai appears to be a deliberate attempt
to create the memory of a competent but faithful Chou led
by a visionary but rational Mao. This image of Chou,
apparently created by a man with close connections in the
past to Chou and Teng Hsiao-ping, may, however, be the
creation of Hua Kuo-feng, who would stand to gain the
most by "keeping Chou in his place."
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Military Debate Continues
The debate over how much stress to place on modern-
izing the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has surfaced
again. This time, it appeared most clearly at the re-
cently concluded Taching conference in the issue of
whether the danger of war should be featured as an im-
portant reason for speeding up industrialization.
Chairman Hua, in his major address on May 9, stated
two reasons for accelerating industrial development:
time is rapidly running out if China is to achieve Mao's
and Chou's goal of modernizing China by the year 2000;
and, since war is inevitable, China should be made
"strong and prosperous as soon as possible." Hua did
not dwell on the danger of war, however, and he reminded
his audience that the PLA had overcome its stronger
enemies with "millet plus rifles" in the 1940s, suggest-
ing that the military should be content for the time
being with the weapons it already has.
Defense Minister Yeh Chien-ying's speech at the
Tachinng conference, although emphatically stating that
modern industry must be developed as a basis for mili-
tary modernization, laid considerably more stress on the
war preparations theme than Hua's. Yeh expanded the
Maoist dictum that industry should support national de-
fense as well as agriculture. Furthermore, he noted
that "we must ceaselessly strengthen national defense
capabilities." Elsewhere, Yeh predicted that "a big
war will break out at an early date (emphasis added).
Finally, Yeh referred to Mao's 1956 speech on the "Ten
Major Relationships" only in the context of geographical
redistribution of industry. Yeh made no reference to
another section of Mao's speech that directed reductions
in military spending in order to spur industrial develop-
ment. Earlier this year, Mao's speech formed the con-
text for sharp differences over the relative priority
that should be assigned to "economic" construction and
defense industry.
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Civilian Politburo member Chi Teng-Kuei's closing
speech of the Taching conference was also noteworthy in
th
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at
t completely ignored the war preparation theme as
a rationale for speeding industrial development. Also,
on the same day, People's Daily published a highly po-
lemical article on nuclear weapons which emphatically
restated the traditional line that men were more im-
portant than weapons and featured a quote from vnl?mm 17
ILLEGIB
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Cracking Down in China's Schools
Since the purge of the gang of four in October 1976,
the Chinese government has made a number of efforts to
improve the quality of China's educational system. One
of the most important of these has been an attempt to re-
store discipline in the schools, many of which have been
torn by factional struggles and undermined by lax educa-
tional policies since the Cultural Revolution.
Plans to tighten educational standards and restore
discipline were formulated as early as 1973 by the archi-
tects of China's "four modernizations," including Chou
En-lai and Teng Hsiao-ping. These, however, were scuttled
as a result of strong opposition from an alliance of top
leaders-led by the "gang of four." The campaign that led
to the purge of Teng Hsiao-ping in April 1976, in fact,
began when leftists attacked reform measures proposed by
Teng and the late minister of education, Chou ,Jung-hsin.
The purge of the gang of four has led to renewed efforts
to reform educational policy.
One of these efforts is the attempt to restore dis-
cipYine in the schools. It first became apparent in
early 1977 in a number of news articles attacking the
gang of four for undermining the authority of teachers
and encouraging students to revolt. An article in Peo-
pZe's DaiZy on February 23, for instance, denounced the
gang for wanting to "make revolution without teachers"
and for encouraging students to believe that their job
was only to transform other people's attitudes, not their
own. A piece in Kuangming Daily on March 28, was even
harsher, charging that the gang had "upset the regular
order of schools," abolished school discipline and "ra-
tional rules and regulations," and "tried by every means
to create chaos in schools." This was contrary to Mao
Tse-tung's principles. "Revolutionary school discipline
and rational rules and regulations," the article said,
"are a guarantee for carrying out Chairman Mao's prole-
tarian revolutionary line in education and fulfilling the
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education and teaching tasks more satisfactorily." Order
and discipline, according to the article, are as essential
to schools as to the state.
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