TNAG-0752-FCO40-956-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 201

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CONFIDENTIAL

Meanwhile the imperatives of an increasing population and a rising tide of consumer demand make a surge in economic development essential. They can see no prospect of this being brought about through the radicalism of Mao's later years. National discipline, science and technology and material incentives are their answer.

14. The momentum behind the new movement is great and the prime mover behind it is the twice rehabilitated Teng Hsiao-p'ing. The programme now adopted derives from what he wrote in 1975 in documents which led to his downfall; but he cannot be alone. No one man could shift the national direction so profoundly and the new course was taken well before his rehabilitation was agreed upon by the Politburo. The weight behind the new policies is therefore great. There will be others who must feel less enthusiastic about what is happening if only because a year or two ago they were publicly and enthusiastically marching in the opposite direction. So far at least they have not given expression to their doubts and have felt it wise to go along with what is evidently the national mood.

15. The rejection of Mao's vision and the victory of men who are essentially pragmatic nationalists with a strong colouring of puritan Socialism, is not just a matter of words. In China more than in many countries, deeds flow from words as much as vice versa, and I have given examples of how the new orthodoxy is being translated into action. Nor is this change just a doctrinal struggle within a Communist Party. It is the latest stage in China's search for national self- strengthening which has been going on since the industrialised West began to have a traumatic impact on China in the mid-19th century. Moreover, the march to Communism-pressed hard by Mao-has been tacitly abandoned; and who can now with confidence predict its resumption? Non-Chinese "Maoists

Maoists" have recognised this to their dismay.

16. Certainly, not everything has changed. No one has yet challenged the basic structure of the State. Communes continue to make economic sense as a form of rural organisation. Major industry remains State-owned and no one has suggested that any individual entrepreneur should be allowed to try his luck. The supremacy of the Communist Party is upheld. No one here talks to the French, Italian or Spanish Communists about political pluralism. Priority is still given to agriculture over heavy industry and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. No open debate is under way on how to strengthen China: the new prescription, like the old, is laid down from on high. Conformity and a certain puritanism are still in style. It is not only Mao's portrait which still survives: Stalin too is there in Tien An Men Square, to astonish President Tito and other visitors.

17. The Teng generation of leaders have the authority to set the limits to debate and insist on conformity. But already they share power to some extent with younger men and they cannot hope to dominate the scene for more than five years. What will happen then? We know little of the character and inner thoughts of most of the younger men but there are a number of possibilities. There may be a drift towards a Soviet-style society, with State capitalism, run by and for the benefit of a bureaucratic-military-party élite. This would avoid hard political choices, but the Chinese profess a distaste for what they see as the brutality and cynicism of Soviet society. There could be greater decentralisation of authority with, for example, the adoption of some aspects of Yugoslav worker self-management. (The Yugoslavs are almost embarrassed by the degree of Chinese interest in their country.) This would have the attraction of reducing bureaucratic control and avoiding some of the risks of political pluralism. In the other direction there could be a return to Maoist egalitarianism and isolationism.

CONFIDENTIAL

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