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CONFIDENTIAL
The Right Honourable Dr David Owen MP Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs
Etc., etc., etc.
BRITISH EMBASSY,
PEKING.
18 December 1978
Sir
THE FOLITBURO AND "DEMOCRACY ALL". THE CHINESE INBERNAL SITUATION
1.
In recent weeks the posters have blossomed again in Feking and the internal political situation has at times seened disturbingly volatile. A number of things have happened. First, the demythification of Mao, begun in a quiet way much earlier in the year, has gathered momentum. The official press can now say that he erred; the poster writers go much further and condemn his later activities, particularly the Cultural Revolution, asking how Lin Fiao and the Gang of Four could flourish except under his favour. Secondly, a number of Mao's major victims, going as far back as the mid-50s, are being rehabilitated, and large tracts of history will have to be re-written in consequence. Thirdly, certain senior members of the current leadership have come under criticism in posters, particularly for their activities in April 1976 when the people of Peking demonstrated in the Tien An Men Square in memory of Chou En-lai and in protest against the Gang of Four. The Tien An Men incident, suppressed at the time, is now officially a revolutionary movement and is a weapon being wielded by Teng Hsiao-ping in order to widen his power and ensure the prosecution of his modernisation plans. Finally, and it is this
CONFIDENTIAL
/aspect