TNAG-1039-FCO40-1289-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 71

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Senator Hamer recalled that during the war, China, and especially its economy, had suffered greatly. It was not surprising therefore that China's leaders faced such a major task of economic development. He said that the delegation was very interested in China's current policy on economic recon- struction and in particular the readjustment of its economy. The delegation was also interested in this in the context of what prospects lay ahead for Australia/China trade.

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Vice Chairman Li said that at the Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP two main issues had been concluded: First, consideration of the reassessment of the 60 years of the CCP and in particular of the 32 years since the PRC was founded. In the course of that review China had made a very fair assessment of China's "great leader" Mao Zedong. Comparing this assessment of Mao with that done by Khruschev of Staldri, Li said that there was considerable differences. In the first place the Soviet Union was no longer a socialist country and was just a country pursuing hegemonism. Khruschev had totally. negated Stalin's role in Soviet history. China had not under- estimated the fact that Stalin made a great many serious mistakes but believed objectively that he had played an important role in World War II, and they still regarded him as a great Marxist. That was why China still displayed Stalin's picture from time to time. In the same way Mão should be looked at objectively in the light of his overall experience. He made very considerable contributions to China's revolution despite his many mistakes, He certainly should not be discounted because of his mistakes; his contributions were more important. He said that in Chairman Hu Yaobang's report and in Document on the "resolution on certain historical questions" reference was also made to the important t contributions by Mao and by other important leaders such as Zhou Enlai.. Li said, "we believe that Chairman Mao's mistakes should be pointed out but not all the mistakes that occurred in the Party's history were his." Since 1957 there were many errors but many decisions were made collectively. Naturally, as Chairman of the Party he should shoulder responsibility for many mistakes. In particular in the Cultural Revolution it was Mao who made most of the mistakes. In short the Cultural Revolution was wrong. it should not have happened. It delayed China's revolution and ⚫ economic development for 10 years. If Mao had had his way there

would have been more cultural revolutions in the future, this would have been disastrous. One was enough, China could not

bear any more such chaos in the future.

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Vice Chairman Li said that the question of summing the experiences of the past 60 years could only be done by the people of his own generation who had worked with Mao. Such a task could not be left to the younger leaders and for that reason the older generation of leaders who still remained had had repeated discussions on it over the last year or more. Li said that each of them was a "living dictionary" and had had many personal experiences together with Mao in that period, Li said it was Mɛo who had saved the Party perishing in the brink of several cris28. Therefore it was often said that, but for Chairman Mao, China would still be groping in the dark. Li said this was not an exaggeration of his contribution but