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CONFIDENTIAL
A particular problem that will face the new Ministry will be
that of Chinese nationals trying to flee the country by hijacking
Chinese planes. The incident in May of a CAAC airliner being
hijacked to South Korea clearly shook the authorities.
Zhao was
particularly critical of this, stating that it revealed serious
loopholes and defects in the Chinese system of management and
that some departments (ie CAAC) "are intolerably apathetic, both
politically and ideologically, maintaining not the slightest
vigilance against enemies". Shen Tu, the Director-General of
CAAC, has not appeared for some weeks now.
The Military
24. The lot of the military at the Congress was to be told that
it must strive to regularise itself politically, that its
modernisation must proceed in step with the overall development
of the national economy and that China would continue to depend
mainly on its own efforts to upgrade weaponry. Its leaders
professed enthusiastic support but there must be many officers
who are far from enchanted with the subordinate position which
the PLA has to occupy these days. The appointment of Deng
Xiaoping as Chairman of the State Central Military Commission
(paragraph 36 below) indicated that the continuing problems of
leftism in the army still necessitate his clout.
.CONFIDENTIAL
/Foreign
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