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to have no knowledge of the present whereabouts of Chin Peng (leader of the Malayan CP). On Korean reunification they said that the USA should start by making friendly gestures to North Korea; parallel gestures by the Chinese towards South Korea could not be expected since they would merely confirm the South's obstreperousness. Asked about
the Chinese attitude to the holding of the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, they said that although it was a difficult question, it was seven years away and much could change in that time.
5. On another occasion Mr Ludwik Mysak of the Polish Press Agency
said that earlier in the year he had been a member of a party of journalists (presumably East European) which had visited Tibet. He was appalled by the poverty he saw there. He subsequently filed a story but the Chinese censor refused permission for it to be published.
Korea
6. Apart from its sheer size (estimated 8 million) and the density of its traffic flow, Seoul strikes the transient traveller by the modernity of its buildings and the rocky terrain on which it lies. Steep craggy hills are to be found in the very centre of the city. Other surprises were the curfew (since lifted) and the lack of street lighting. The great number of Christian churches (also of modern design) and the fact that there are two new concert halls indicates a great interest in Western culture. The Koreans are clearly proud of the fact that of all the countries in Asia (excluding the USSR)
only Japan and Korea have complete translations of Shakespeare.
7. North Korea occupies much of the thinking of people in the South by virtue of its secretiveness, its aggressive intransigence and the fact that it is armed to the teeth. "We first find out what any given third country thinks of North Korea" said Mr Joobong Kim of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee. China, too, looms
large in Seoul's calculations and several people pointed out that, whatever Peking's official attitude to South Korea, there had been quite a few academic and trading links via third countries in recent
years.
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