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7
This could happen if the new pragmatism fails to produce quick benefits. Lastly, there could be a rejection of Marxism-Leninism. The Ming Pao Daily, a Hong Kong paper written by non-Communist intellectuals, published an editorial the other day which concluded "Under the principle of seeking truth from facts, Marxist dogmas will have to be abandoned sooner or later. The Chinese people will have rice to feed their mouths by depending on their wisdom, ability and experience; they do not have to bother with what the bearded Karl Marx once said: That may sound heresy today: but if modernisation in China gathers momentum it may release social forces which will not be easily confined within the ideological limits which Chinese leaders seek to set. China is no Czechoslovakia; there could scarcely be a Russian interest in marching in to restore orthodoxy when a China professing Marxism-Leninism has been more of a threat to them than a non-Communist China ever was. It would be presumptuous for any Westerner to predict what the outcome will be. But the odds are at least even that the China of the 1980s will show substantial differences from China as it was under Mao, and more than ever that it will show little resemblance to his vision of what China ought to be.
18. Copies sent to Her Majesty's Representatives at Hong Kong, Tokyo, Washington and Moscow.
I have, etc.,
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EDWARD YOUDE.