CONFIDENTIAL
restricted, more unhappy and the society is more backward than
ever."
14.
Of course this could not go on. The Farty reasserted control. The rally organisers put an end to their meetings, and only a few defiant writers ignored the call to restrain their language and take the debate back to their places of work (where Party control is easy). But in the brief period of free speech the activists gave very impressive evidence of courage, idealism and intellectual self-confidence; some of them also displayed considerable knowledge of, and respect for, the political structures of the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom. There is now clearly a literature of fundamental political criticism within China of the kind we can understand and sympathise with in the West. Red Guard criticism of ten years ago was of an entirely
different kind. There is also clearly a body of young activists, most of them intellectuals, who are prepared openly to express and agitate for these views, now that it is no longer suicidal for them
to do so.
so. As modernisation proceeds and foreign contacts multiply this stratum will increasingly have to be taken into account by the leaders. Teng is right in thinking that only by harnessing the efforts of these young people, particularly the young intellectuals, who have always had a special role in China, but who have been long alienated, can his policies be carried forward.
The Outlook
15.
How is the situation likely to develop? Preceded by even more than the usual caveats and provisos, here are a series of summary predictions.
COMNI DENTIAL
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