FROM ONE WHO FLED - A LOOK AT SCIENCE IN RED CHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00965R000200190010-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: November 7, 1958
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2010/05/27: CIA-RDP91-00965R000200190010-8
U'. S. News & World Report
From One Who Fled
A LOOK AT. SCIENCE IN RED CHINA
At TAIPEI, Formosa
Q Dr. Wang, why did you decide
to leave the United States and go to
Communist China?
A I had been planning it for a
long time. All Chinese want to help
their country. It's American-like-to
e a
ty to think?
want to help your country. A As I said before, you forget
Q What did the Communists do politics. You can be flexible in
first, interrogate you about your edu- science and rigid in politics and other
cation and abilities? fields.
A They knew that already. They Q Then you could still be a good
had complete lists of all students scientist under Communist control?
studying in the United States. The A I don't know, really-I've never
lists had been supplied by other stu- been a Communist. But my friends
dents who returned earlier. who have lived in Peiping for many
Q In what direction is Chinese years are still professionally intelligent
Communist science directed, in gen- and professionally proficient.
eral-toward military objectives, or Q What was your impression of
what? the level of technical and scientific
A Certainly the military. Every- knowledge in China?
thing they are doing now is aimed at A The Communists have collected
one thing-to beat the United States, the best Chinese brains there-most
in the end to destroy it. of them from America and England.
Q In what ways are they trying to Libraries are excellent-in some ways
do this now? better than those at Cal Tech. Lab-
A They have people, very smart oratories are very good, perhaps not
men, working on projects to put a as good as in the States but they are
satellite . into orbit. They have a building some new ones. Scientific
project set up to fire a rocket to the equipment comes from Russia, and
moon. they even have some smuggled in
They have atomic scientists. Most from the United States and England.
of these came from America. Three Q Is the primary stress on Soviet
of them are from Cal Tech.
science?
Q Were Soviet scientists helping A Well, most of the scientists can
the Chinese in these fields? read Russian, and it's better to know
A Oh, yes. There was close co-op- it since so many books come from
eration. My friends, nuclear scientists, Russia. I started studying Russian-
said everything they wanted was pro- I wasn't ordered to-but I continued
vided by Soviet Russia. Of course, for only two days. I've forgotten the
they couldn't get equipment any- few words I learned.
where else for this research. Q How high was the quality of
U. S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Nov. 7, 1958 Copyright 1958, U. S. News Publishing Corp.
Q Did your friends appear to be
happy in their work?
A Well, they were watched very
closely. They couldn't go anywhere.
But they were devoted workers. If a
scientist is given something to do he
will work on it-he forgets about
everything else.
Q Are the Chinese Communists
much interested in pure science?
A Yes, but they don't have enough
scientists to do it in a big way. Prob-
ably not more than one or two thou-
sand scientists in various institutes
are in pure science.
Q What happens to a scientist's
mind after several years of Commu-
nist indoctrination?
A They dare not think for them-
selves, and sooner or later they forget
how to think.
Q How can a scientist function if
he loses th
bili
Chinese technicians and scientists edu-
cated in the Soviet Union?
A Certainly the quality is not as
good as those educated in the United
States. Students who went to America
before the Communists got power
went on their own merits. Students
sent by the Communists to the Soviet
Union were selected on the basis of
their reliability rather than ability.
Q What made you decide to leave
China?
A Well, we had to conform to too
many things. When I protested, my
friends told me I was blind and
couldn't see good things inside. Then,
too, I had a feeling that something
DR. WANG, pictured on a mountain-
climbing trip in the United States.
At the time, he was a student here.
was going wrong with Chinese sci-
ence, that you couldn't introduce
Marxism into pure science.
Q When did you actually make up
your mind to leave?
A Early in April, about a week
after I arrived. It was obvious it was
stupid to stay if I could leave. But it
took time-50 days from the time I
applied for an exit permit. I said I
had to visit my father, who was dying
in Hong Kong. The Communists be-
lieved me.
Q How did you feel when you got
out?
A I didn't have much feeling. I
thought I was leaving my home-but it
was absolutely impossible to remain.
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(This page presents the opinion of the Editor. The news pages are written by other staff members independently of these editorial views.)
WHAT MANDATE?
BY DAVID LAWRENCE
W HAT IS THE MANDATE of the people in the con-
gressional elections held this week?
Can anyone be sure what the Democratic gains in
the House or Senate really signify? Do we have two
major parties, each with a recognized obligation to
advocate certain policies of government in the field of
national and international affairs?
In Britain they still believe in party responsibility.
Each party goes before the people with a specific plat-
form, adhered to by all its candidates for parliament.
When the incumbent party, moreover, loses the parlia-
mentary election, a new prime minister takes office.
But in the United States we have divided govern-
ment. For four years now we have had the Democratic
Party in control of both houses of Congress. Knowing
that we shall continue to have a Republican Presi-
dent in control of the executive branch of the govern-
ment for another two years, millions of voters this
week expressed their desire to continue control of
Congress in the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, the peoples of the rest of the world
who are familiar with the ways of parliamentary gov-
ernment will be tempted to assume that the Demo-
cratic Party's victories in various States in the elec-
tion this week of Representatives and Senators to
our national legislative body means a repudiation of
the policies of the President and the Secretary of State.
Having read dispatches quoting the campaign utter-
ances of leading Democrats, the people in Europe,
Asia and Africa will be told by Soviet-controlled radio
broadcasts that a triumph of the Democrats means
the President must stop supporting the Nationalist
Chinese and must surrender our strategic position in
the Far East.
The American people, despite the claims of
some Democrats, did not intend by the election to be
put in the position of repudiating the foreign policy
of the present Administration. It would be a mistake
for Moscow to proceed on any such assumption.
But, even while refuting such a possible misinter-
pretation of the election results as bearing on foreign
policy, it is evident that the ambiguities in domestic
policy are not so readily dismissed.
Do the gains of the Democrats mean that we are in
for an era of public spending irrespective of deficits?
Are we now to increase taxes on corporations and
on individual incomes so as to balance the budget?
Are we to ignore the fact that the inflationary move-
ment may reduce the purchasing power of the dollar?
The "pocketbook issue" has been useful in winning
votes for the Democrats in areas where unemployment
has occurred. But if all the unemployed do not get
jobs in the next two years, will the Democratic Party
in Congress be held responsible for this in the 1960
congressional and presidential elections?
The answer is that the electorate will be urged again
to hold only the President responsible for economic
adversity even though a partisan-minded Congress
may have blocked sound measures proposed by the
Administration to insure economic stability.
The truth is there is no clear mandate to be derived
from the 1958 elections. There is today no party re-
sponsibility on either side of the aisle in the Senate
or in the House. Each side has been betting apparent-
ly on the capacity of its orators to take advantage of
the ignorance of an uninformed electorate.
But, while we know there was no general
mandate given by the people as a whole, we must
face realistically the fact that the new Congress is to
be controlled not by the Democratic Party as such but
by a clique of union bosses. The labor unions through
their political auxiliaries have spent in several in-
stances more money to elect this week the candidates
of their choice-almost all of them Democrats-than
have the organizations of the nominees themselves.
The mandate to be given by the labor unions to
their henchmen in Congress will become clear enough
next January. They must try to amend the labor-man-
agement laws so as to give more advantages to the
labor unions. They must try to repeal the law permit-
ting the States to pass "right to work" laws. They must
be ready to defeat any further legislation that might
effectively deal with labor racketeering.
To achieve a majority in the Congress, labor unions
have spent time and money in electioneering. Business-
men have not risen to the challenge.
Now the question is whether the economic power
of labor unions will be curbed. Higher and higher
wages will be extorted from management under the
penalty of costly strikes. Eventually, as prices must
be raised to meet increased wage costs, the result
could be a buyers' strike and finally a depression
which certainly would bear the union label.
The 1958 election, instead of bringing an era of
prosperity, may in time prove to have been the turn-
ing point in favor of those forces which really seek
a breakdown in the private-enterprise system. Was
this the intended mandate of the voters?
U. S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT ? NOVEMBER 7, 1958=
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'niteb 'tatec 'enate
MEMORANDUM
November 4, 1958
FROM: Ben Mandel
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