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the Party remains absolute.
Of more practical value to the
population is the attempt to lighten the burden of bureaucracy,
to make officials responsive to the views of those whom they administer and subject to sanctions for inefficiency or corruption, and of course the prospect of a civil and penal code.
9.
The section on foreign affairs in the report was
unremarkable. This was not Hua's major theme. As the Chinese see it, the Soviet Union remains the source of most evil in the world. Hua took an uncompromising line on the bilateral
negotiations which are soon to open in Moscow:
prospects would depend on whether the Soviet Government made a substantive change in its position. No ambiguity would be allowed on the question of hegemony. Hegemony was also said to be the root cause of strained Sino-Vietnamese relations; and, in saying that it was the fundamental issue to be addressed if Sino-Vietnamese relations were to be normalised, Hua made it clear that China was not prepared to acquiesce in Vietnamese control over Indo-china. the positive side, Hua could point to a year of intense Chinese diplomatic activity which had seen Chinese leaders visit more than fifty countries and to the two most important fruits of this activity, the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship and the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the United States. The section on the United States was warm.
10.
A long
On
Of ideology there was relatively little. disquisition on the nature of the class struggle reached the reassuring conclusion that it should not be "large-scale and turbulent" in future. There were ritual nods in the direction of Mao Zedong thought. But it was firmly stated that the central task of the nation, now and for a long time to come, would be the more constructive one of economic modernisation.
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5.
/11.
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