ASSESSMENT OF 1965 DISSIDENCE LEVELS IN FIVE PROVINCES OF SOUTHERN CHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 39
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 21, 2005
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 1, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2005/08/02 :CIA-RQP@,kPQ ppftO0780001-0
CIA/BI GR 66-1
April 1966
ASSESSMENT OF 1965 DISSIDENCE LEVELS
IN FIVE PROVINCES OF SOUTHERN CHINA
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
25X1 C
Approved For Release 2005/08/0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
This material contains information affecting
the National Defense of the United States
within the meaning of the espionage laws,
Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which in any manner
to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and declassification
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
This report, produced by the Office of Basic Intelligence,
is designed to provide evaluated information pertinent to
the assessment of local dissidence in Communist China.
Comments should be directed to the Geography Division,
Office of Basic Intelligence.
CONFIDENTIAL
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 25X1 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
ASSESSMENT OF 1965 DISSIDENCE LEVELS
IN FIVE PROVINCES OF SOUTHERN CHINA
25X1
Summary
Though dissidence in southern China -- Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan,
Kwangsi, and Kwangtung -- is not declining, it is increasingly translated
into apathy and resignation. No significant indigenous resitance is
known to exist.
An examination of selected examples of dissident activity in 1965,
ranging from overt acts of an operational nature to simple evasion of
militia responsibilities, shows that the regime is everywhere in full
control of the country. The disproportionate amount of resources being
poured into the control effort through consecutive campaigns of the inter-
minable 2 5X1
Socialist Education Movement, however, may be an unfavorable
augury for the regime.
Popular dissidence has less chance of significant flowering than has
intea art dissidence, n feed on provocative contradictions
The logic of the situation points to
e ua oosening of e tight control system, as intraparty dissidence
increases. until snmP kind n-P QPmi n(rPr-h r 1 i ti na1 an-Fi nn 'honnmoa r ncc; hl o
25X1
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
C-0-N-F-I-D-E-.N-T-I-A-L
I. The Situation in Southern China
This study assesses present dissidence levels in five southern prov-
inces of Communist China and attempts to identify manifestations of
internal political weakness. The five provinces under examination --
Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung .-- are not an estab-
lished regional grouping, and for this reason, the :indefinite appellation
"southern China" is used. All five provinces, however, have large
non-Mandarin--speaking or non-Chinese minority population groups and,
except for Kweichow, are contiguous to areas that were either dissident
in the recent past (Tibet) or are under foreign control (Burma, Laos,
and North Vietnam). The most conspicuous geographical features they
share are (a) remoteness from seats of central control; (b) poor overland
communications with the rest of China and with each other; and (c) pro-
vincial economies which could sustain themselves in absence of assistance
from the rest of China or from the outside.
During 1965 southern China continued to labor under longstanding
problems of economic weakness and popular weariness. Both problems were
rendered more burdensome by the regime's dogged determination to achieve
at almost any cost the reconditioning of the people and of the cadres to
draw them away from individualistic economic and political incentives.
This reconditioning effort had originated in the decisions of the 10th
Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1962. It took form
in the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) which began to unfold in 1963.
Since then, no area of southern China has entirely escaped a seemingly
interminable series of SEM campaigns to screen both leadership and pop-
ulace through rectification of abuses and errors and cleansing of motives
and records. (Some reports forecast a duration of 7 years for these
plagues.) Large task forces of students and cadres have descended on
communes and other production units to carry out the necessary exhaustive
checks.
During 1965 the SEM thrust remained directed tcward revitalization
of the ongoing "class struggle," which is still the most important
ideological objective. This was to be accomplished. by organization of
Poor and Lower Middle Peasant Associations (PLMPA); by investigative
and punitive pressure on hidebound, weakly motivated, or corrupt cadres
through the Four Clearances campaign (concentrating on the :past perform-
ances of people whose backgrounds had survived earlier scrutiny); and by
a new Three-Anti campaign in the eastern cities to strengthen internal
security and job performance.
These campaigns were supported by a variety of economic and social
measured, some apparently experimental, which were designed to improve
management practices. Commune accounting practices, agricultural credit
facilities, and arrangements for marketing consumer goods received much
attention. There were also efforts to begin to improve the morale of
c O-N-66i/-G D E-N-T-I-A-L
Approved For Release 28/02: CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
urban workers assigned to the countryside through a new system of rota-
tional work assignments to rural villages, a system that offered a chance
of ultimate return to the city. A vast new program to improve rural
literacy and education through new part-time schools was carried forward.
Meanwhile, resettlement policies were kept in motion to distribute un-
needed city dwellers, including unemployed youth, to state farms and to
home-village communes. The prevailing response was sluggish and per-
functory. Though the SEM cut deeply, the people of China have tolerated
it so far because they are habituated to such procedures and also because
daily necessities were distributed with reasonable fairness and in greater
quantity than in other years of greater distress.
As before, militia and People's Liberation Army (PLA) recruitment was
carried out late in the year but against a backdrop of war drums. In 1965
there was a much heavier emphasis on militia recruitment and on improve-
ment of militia training and military effectiveness. However attractive
the conditions of military service were for the majority of peasant young
folk in many areas, enlistment in 1965 was unattractive to city young
folk, especially to those of "questionable" family backgrounds who would
encounter discrimination in the service.
Adequate information on movements of people as labor levies is lacking,
but this only means that they went unreported. There was probably new and
unsettling urgency in the mobilization of labor for distant construction
projects, because strategic needs of overriding importance moved to the
fore. In transportation, at long last and more in embarrassment than in
triumph because of the years of previous delay, the Kweichow - Szechwan
railroad was finished and work continued on the still unfinished Kweichow
- Yunnan link, a route requiring much tunneling.
Economic stringency continued unabated in 1965, and support for North
Vietnam may have become more of an economic depressant than a stimulant.
Industrial managers carried on from minor crisis to minor crisis, and their
working forces were subject to transfer and dismissal despite spot short-
ages of labor. The telltale national propaganda emphasis on economy at
all cost continued, implying that costly diseconomies in the industries
concerned still continued.
In sum, except for more use of frightening war talk by the authorities
to prod the people, 1965 in southern China was not unlike the two preceding
years. The economic upturn continued, but the rate of recovery remained
slow. The people were dispirited, and factory dismissals and dispersion
of the population to the countryside were a continuing threat to worker
morale. There were not even enough jobs for the graduates of colleges
and middle schools, let alone jobs for the more poorly trained academic
weedouts. Political campaigns followed one another in steady sequence,
sifting local leadership down to an awesome depth without introducing any
new interest through fresh and vivid symbols. Incessant propaganda for
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 25X1 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
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 C(& b t' Qe
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CIA/BI GR 66-1
April 1966
ASSESSMENT OF 1965 DISSIDENCE LEVELS
IN FIVE PROVINCES OF SOUTHERN CHINA
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
25X1
25X1 C
Approved For Release 2005/0
/02 . -0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
This material contains information affecting
the National Defense of the United States
within the meaning of the espionage laws,
Title 18, USC, Secs. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which in any manner
to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and declassification
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
CONFIDENTIAL
This report, produced by the Office of Basic Intelligence,
is designed to provide evaluated information pertinent to
the assessment of local dissidence in Communist China.
Comments should be directed to the Geography Division,
Office of Basic Intelligence.
CONFIDENTIAL
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 25X1 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
ASSESSMENT OF 1965 DISSIDENCE LEVELS
IN FIVE PROVINCES OF SOUTHERN CHINA
Summary
Though dissidence in southern China -- Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan,
Kwangsi, and Kwangtung -- is not declining, it is increasingly translated
into apathy and resignation. No significant indigenous resitance is
known to exist.
An examination of selected examples of dissident activity in 1965,
ranging from overt acts of an operational nature to simple evasion of
militia responsibilities, shows that the regime is everywhere in full
control of the country. The disproportionate amount of resources being
poured into the control effort through consecutive campaigns of the inter-
minable Socialist Education Movement, however, may be an unfavorable
augury for the regime.
Popular dissidence has less chance of significant flowering than has
intea art dissidence, which can feed on provocative contradictions
25X1 The logic of the situation points to
eventual loosening of the tight control system, as intraparty dissidence
increases, until some kind of semiovert political action becomes possible.
25X1
25X1
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
This study assesses present dissidence levels in five southern prov-
inces of Communist China and attempts to identify manifestations of
internal political weakness. The five provinces under examination --
Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung -- are not an estab-
lished regional grouping, and for this reason, the indefinite appellation
"southern China" is used. All five provinces, however, have large
non-Mandarin-speaking or non-Chinese minority population groups and,
except for Kweichow, are contiguous to areas that were either dissident
in the recent past (Tibet) or are under foreign control (Burma, Laos,
and North Vietnam). The most conspicuous geographical features they
share are (a) remoteness from seats of central control; (b) poor overland
communications with the rest of China and with each other; and (c) pro-
vincial economies which could sustain. themselves in absence of assistance
from the rest of China or from the outside.
During 1965 southern China continued to labor under longstanding
problems of economic weakness and popular weariness. Both problems were
rendered more burdensome by the regime's dogged determination to achieve
at almost any cost the reconditioning of the people and of the cadres to
draw them away from individualistic economic and political incentives.
This reconditioning effort had originated in the decisions of the 10th
Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1962. It took form
in the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) which began to unfold in 1963.
Since then, no area of southern China. has entirely escaped a seemingly
interminable series of SEM campaigns to screen both leadership and pop-
ulace through rectification of abuses and errors and cleansing of motives
and records. (Some reports forecast a duration of 7 years for these
plagues.) Large task forces of students and cadres have descended on
communes and other production units to carry out the necessary exhaustive
checks.
During 1965 the SEM thrust remained directed toward revitalization
of the ongoing "class struggle," which is still the most important
ideological objective. This was to be accomplished by organization of
Poor and Lower Middle Peasant Associations (PLMPA); by investigative
and punitive pressure on hidebound, weakly motivated, or corrupt cadres
through the Four Clearances campaign (concentrating on the past perform-
ances of people whose backgrounds had, survived eyarlier scrutiny); and by
a new Three-Anti campaign in the eastern cities to strengthen internal
security and job performance.
These campaigns were supported by a variety of economic and social
measures, some apparently experimental, which were designed to improve
management practices. Commune accounting practices, agricultural credit
facilities, and arrangements for marketing consumer goods received much
attention. There were also efforts to begin to improve the morale of
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
urban workers assigned to the countryside through a new system of rota-
tional work assignments to rural villages, a system that offered a chance
of ultimate return to the city. A vast new program to improve rural
literacy and education through new part-time schools was carried forward.
Meanwhile, resettlement policies were kept in motion to distribute un-
needed city dwellers, including unemployed youth, to state farms and to
home-village communes. The prevailing response was sluggish and per-
functory. Though the SEM cut deeply, the people of China have tolerated
it so far because they are habituated to such procedures and also because
daily necessities were distributed with reasonable fairness and in greater
quantity than in other years of greater distress.
As before, militia and People's Liberation Army (PLA) recruitment was
carried out late in the year but against a backdrop of war drums. In 1965
there was a much heavier emphasis on militia recruitment and on improve-
ment of militia training and military effectiveness. However attractive
the conditions of military service were for the majority of peasant young
folk in many areas, enlistment in 1965 was unattractive to city young
folk, especially to those of "questionable" family backgrounds who would
encounter discrimination in the service.
Adequate information on movements of people as labor levies is lacking,
but this only means that they went unreported. There was probably new and
unsettling urgency in the mobilization of labor for distant construction
projects, because strategic needs of overriding importance moved to the
fore. In transportation, at long last and more in embarrassment than in
triumph because of the years of previous delay, the Kweichow - Szechwan
railroad was finished and work continued on the still unfinished Kweichow
- Yunnan link, a route requiring much tunneling.
Economic stringency continued unabated in 1965, and support for North
Vietnam may have become more of an economic depressant than a stimulant.
Industrial managers carried on from minor crisis to minor crisis, and their
working forces were subject to transfer and dismissal despite spot short-
ages of labor. The telltale national propaganda emphasis on economy at
all cost continued, implying that costly diseconomies in the industries
concerned still continued.
In sum, except for more use of frightening war talk by the authorities
to prod the people, 1965 in southern China was not unlike the two preceding
years. The economic upturn continued, but the rate of recovery remained
slow. The people were dispirited, and factory dismissals and dispersion
of the population to the countryside were a continuing threat to worker
morale. There were not even enough jobs for the graduates of colleges
and middle schools, let alone jobs for the more poorly trained academic
weedouts. Political campaigns followed one another in steady sequence,
sifting local leadership down to an awesome depth without introducing any
new interest through fresh and vivid symbols. Incessant propaganda for
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
 25X1 Approved For Release 2005/08/02 : CIA-RDP84-00825R000100780001-0
Next 20 Page(s) In Document Exempt
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