ASSESSMENT OF DISSIDENCE LEVELS IN 1965 IN FIVE PROVINCES IN SOUTHERN CHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79T01018A000900100001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 31
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 27, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 1, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

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CONFIDENTIAL
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
25X1C GEOGRAPHIC SUPPORT PROJECT
ASSESSMENT OF DISSIDENCE LEVELS IN 1965
IN FIVE PROVINCES IN SOUTHERN CHINA
(Provisional Draft)
CIA/BI GS 66-22
March 1966
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Basic Intelligence
CONFIDENTIAL
GROUP 1
ol:cluded from automatic]
downgrading and
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WARNING
This material contains information affecting
the National Defense of the United States
within the meaning of the espionage laws,
Title 18, USG, Secs. 793 and 794, the trans-
mission or revelation of which in any manner
to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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CONTENTS
Summary
I. The Situation in Southern China
II. Problems of Assessment
Page
1
2
4
A.
Source M:hterial
4
B.
Terminology
4
C.
Analytical Pitfalls
5
III.
Selected Examples of Dissidence
7
A.
Overt Acts
7
B.
Illegal Activities
9
C.
Protests and Evasive Activity
10
IV.
Bases of Dissidence
11
A.
Popular Dissidence
11
1. Minorities
11
2. Youth
12
a. Students and EX-students
12
b. Youth of Poor Class Backgrounds
13
c. Overseas Youth
13
d. Peasant Youth
13
3. Overseas Chinese and Their Connections
14
B.
Intraparty Dissidence
15
C.
Regional Review
16
V.
Conclusions and Prospects
19
A.
The Downward Slide of Resistance Potential
19
B.
Conditions Inhibiting Active Dissidence
19
C.
Conditions Contributing to Active Dissidence
20
D.
Prospects for Future Dissidence
22
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ASSESSMENT OF DISSIDENCE LEVELS IN 1965
IN FIVE PROVINCES OF SOUTHERN CHINA
Summary
Though dissidence in southern China -- Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan,
Kwangsi, and Kwangtung -- is not declining, it is increasingly translated
into apathy and resignation, and significant indigenous resistance is not
known to exist.
An examination of selected examples of dissident activity in 1965,
ranging from overt acts of an operational nature to simple evasion of
militia responsibilities, shows that the regime is everywhere in full
control of the country. The disproportionate amount of resources being
poured into the control effort through consecutive campaigns of the inter-
minable Socialist Education Movement, however, may be an unfavorable
augury for the regime.
The coastal regions of Kwangtung, including Hainan Island, and Fukien
(outside the study area) are the most dissident. Inland, there is little
evidence of active dissidence either in the minority areas or in the ethnic
Chinese areas of the other four provinces. Reasonably adequate infor-
mation is available only from Kwangtung, but hypothetical levels of
dissidence elsewhere are judged not to exceed those of Kwangtung as
there is little qualitative difference in reports received.
Popular dissidence has less chance of significant flowering than has
intraparty dissidence, which can feed on provocative contradictions
already present in Kwangtung. The logic of the situation points to
evisntual loosening of the tight control system, as intraparty dissidence
increases, until some kind of semiovert political action becomes possible.
Such a process might well begin among the cadres and populace of the
Kwangtung coast, because the youthful population there is relatively
sophisticated and has extensive relationships with the Overseas Chinese.
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I. The Situation in Southern China
This study assesses present dissidence levels in five southern prov-
inces of Communist China and attempts to identify manifestations of
internal political weakness. The five provinces under examination --
Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan, Kwangsi, and Kwangtung -- are not an estab-
lished regional grouping, and for this reason, the indefinite appellation
"southern China" is used. All five provinces, however, have large
non-Mandarin-speaking or non-Chinese minority population groups and,
except for Kweichowl. are contiguous to areas that were either dissident
in the recent past (Tibet) or are under foreign control (Burma, Laos,
and North Vietnam). The most conspicuous geographical features they
share are (a) remoteness from seats of central control; (b) poor overland
communications with the rest of China and with each other; and (c) pro-
vincial economies which could sustain themselves in absence of assistance
from the rest of China or from the outside.
During 1965 southern China continued to labor under longstanding
problem of economic stagnation and popular weariness. Both problems
were rendered more burdensome by the regime's dogged determination to
achieve at almost any cost the reconditioning of the people and of the
cadres to draw them away from individualistic economic and political
incentives. This reconditioning effort had originated in the decisions
of the 10th Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee in September 1962.
It took form in the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) which began to
unfold in 1963. Since then, no area of southern China has entirely
escaped a seemingly interminable series of SEM campaigns to screen both
leadership and populace through rectification of abuses and errors and
cleansing of motives and records. (Some reports forecast a duration of
7 years for these plagues.) Large task forces of students and cadres
have descended on communes and other production units to carry out the
necessary exhaustive checks.
During 1965 the SEM thrust remained directed toward revitalization
of the ongoing "class struggle," which is still the most important
ideological objective. This was to be accomplished by organization of
Poor and Lower Middle Peasant Associations (PLMPA); by investigative
and punitive pressure on hidebound, weakly motivated, or corrupt cadres
through the Four Clearances campaign (concentrating on the past perform-
ances of people whose backgrounds had survived earlier scrutiny); and by
a new Three-Anti campaign in the eastern cities to strengthen internal
security and job performance.
These campaigns were supported by a variety of economic and social
measures, some apparently experimental, which were designed to improve
management practices. Commune accounting practices, agricultural credit
facilities, and arrangements for marketing consumer goods received much
attention. There were also efforts to begin to improve the morale of
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urban workers assigned to the countryside through a new system of rota-
tional work assignments to rural villages, a system that offered a chance
of ultimate return to the city. A vast new program to improve rural
literacy and education through new part-time schools was carried forward.
Meanwhile, resettlement policies were kept in motion to distribute un-
needed city dwellers, including unemployed youth, to state farms and to
home-village communes. The prevailing response was sluggish and per-
functory. Though the SEM cut deeply, the people of Chita have tolerated
it so far because they are habituated to such procedures and also because
daily necessities were distributed with reasonable fairness and in greater
quantity than in other years of greater distress.
As before, militia and People's Liberation Army (PLA) recruitment was
carried out late in the year but against a backdrop of war drums, which
was no help to recruitment. In 1965 there was a much heavier emphasis on
militia recruitment and on improvement of training and military effective-
ness. However attractive the conditions of military service were for
peasant young folk in many areas, enlistment in 1965 was unattractive to
city young folk, especially to those of "questionable" family backgrounds
who would encounter discrimination in the service. That the regime was
having trouble generally in making enlistment attractive is suggested by
continuation of the Lei Feng and similar hero-worshipping campaigns. The
nonmilitary nature of the accidental deaths for these new culture heroes
is not easily explained. Perhaps even peasant youth, though of pure class
background, needed both the stimulus of shining example and reassurance
that death in battle was unlikely. Even the dull could see the possibility
of surviving military service if, unlike these new heroes, he was careful
to stay out from under falling poles, to handle grenades with respect, and
not to plunge into holes while fighting forest fires. If the popular mood
had been one of ready support for foreign entanglements; surely more
red-blooded heroes with a good deal more eagerness to slay foreign devils
would have been found. Instead, propagandists belabored fading myths of
Communist-won victory in the Pacific War and of American defeat in the
Korean War.
Adequate information on movements of people as labor levies is lacking,
but this only means that they went unreported. There was probably new and
unsettling urgency in the mobilization of labor for distant construction
projects, because strategic needs of overriding importance moved to the
fore. Removal of industry from eastern China to inland cities such as
Ch'eng-tu continued. In transportation, at long last and more in embar-
rassment than in triumph because of the years of previous delay, the
Kweichow - Szechwan railroad was finished and work continued on the still
unfinished Kweichow - Yunnan link, a route requiring much tunneling.
Economic stringency continued unabated in 1965, and support for North
Vietnam may have become more of an economic depressant than a stimulant.
Industrial managers carried on from minor crisis to minor crisis, and their
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working forces were subject to transfer and dismissal despite spot short-
ages of labor. The telltale national propaganda emphasis on economy at
all cost continued, implying that costly diseconomies in the industries
concerned still continued.
In sum, 1965 in southern China was not unlike the years that had
immediately preceded it. The economy was stagnant, the population was
dispirited, and factory dismissals and population dispersion to the
countryside were a continuing threat to worker morale. The year was
conspicuous for the absence of enough jobs even for trained youth, let
alone untrained. Political campaigns followed one another in steady
sequence, sifting local leadership down to an awesome depth without
introducing any new interest through fresh and vivid symbols. Incessant
propaganda for the continuing urgency of the class struggle hung over
the south like a pall -- unprogressive, unconvincing, uncompromising,
and totally unavoidable.
II. Problems of Assessment
A. Source Material
Little information pertaining to active dissidence is available
from Szechwan, Kweichow, Yunnan, Kwangsi, or even Kwangtung, although the
combined population of these five provinces is almost equal to that of the
United States. Kwangtung has more than 38,000,000 people, but only from
those parts that are in communication with communities of Overseas Chinese
is intelligence reporting reasonably adequate in volume. For the rest of
Kwangtung and for Kwangsi and Yunnan, some useful information is available;25X1C
25X1C but for Szechwan and Kweichow there is almost nothing.
Direct evidence of dissidence comes from ref ees
travelers,
Indirect evidence helping to identify areas of potential difficulty can
be gleaned from the propaganda output of the regime, because a great many
good and bad local examples and instructive case studies are publicized
for the guidance of cadre readers.
25X1C
B. Terminology
In this study "dissidence" is used to mean a state of mind involving
discontent or disaffection with the ruling regime, and "resistance" is
used to mean dissidence translated into action. Because the terminology
of the subject is difficult to control, certain qualifications of these
definitions need to be stated. Resistance, or action, does not always
follow from dissidence, and both terms can be so used as to arouse un-
justifiable exceptions by assumed implications. Popular resistance is
a phenomenon which the regime understands. However, many other aspects
of dissent -- ordinary stubbornness, intellectual and administrative
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"resistance," individual soul searching, dissatisfaction, disaffection,
rationalization, and alienation -- may limit or encourage suppressed
dissidence without pointing toward overt resistance. The train of in-
fluence from such manifestations is especially hard to follow when neg-
ative reactions are not directed squarely against the regime and its
agents but instead take an oblique course.
Allowance must also be made in describing or assessing actions that
are compulsive. At the popular level, when dissident manifestations are
compulsive, they may be conspicuous but still weakly directed and lacking
in purpose, and thus their significance is lowered. If such types of
protest and reaction are not suppressed and rationalized into apathy and
resignation or into a conditioned compliance with private reservations,
spectacular but pointless events may occur. A food riot is a good example.
The participants are unlikely to proceed toward political goals when
their first objectives are satisfied by corrective action that is simple
and immediate. Their "resistance" is of little long-term significance
except to further discredit local cadres, whose discomfiture and possible
demoralization may be the only significant consequence.
Within the CCP and its auxiliaries, dissident impulses even when
strong are likely to be suppressed under the pressure of personal respon-
sibility and self-concern and transformed into something other than
resistance. Such suppressed reactions hold in them the distant promise
of the liberalization that has begun to take place within the USSR.
Finally, in this study it is recognized that there is a level or
range of dissidence which is normal and tolerable in every political
system, even that of Communist China, and that dissidence falling within
that range does not usually constitute an appreciable control problem.
In healthy democratic countries, where dissent is respected and channeled
legitimately into the political process, the dissidence level is very high.
In totalitarian countries, where it is carefully watched, dissidence
levels still may range from very low to moderate without endangering the
stability of the state or of the Party. Even very small displays of overt
dissidence are vigorously suppressed in Communist China, and for this
reason actions which would be trifles in Western countries merit exami-
nation when reported from Communist China. Even appreciable amounts of
dissidence, however, though indicative of genuine trouble may be no
threat to the state or to Party control of the state. They are generally
ineffective as long as they are mostly transformed into apathy and res-
ignation at the popular level or into stylized compliance coupled with
conscientious suppression of reservations at the cadre level.
C. Analytical Pitfalls
Considering the magnitude of the field in southern China, the size
of the intelligence sample covering dissidence is unfinitesimal. Coverage
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is best for Kwangtung, and reports from the other provinces are not
qualitatively dissimilar. They stress events that are similar and, often,
of equal triviality. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that in
the four provinces other than Kwangtung dissidence levels are probably
no higher than those in Kwangtung. They are probably no lower than those
in the noncoastal parts of Kwangtung. Along the coast the people are
less timid, more sophisticated, and more aware of the world of the Over-
seas Chinese. Comparisons of the extent of dissidence also need to be
used cautiously. Apathy and resignation at the popular level are probably
widespread. The inference that ipso facto a great deal of potentially
active dissidence should exist throughout the five provinces, however,
is not necessarily true. In fact, the opposite may be true.
Comparisons between the two main types of dissidence -- intraparty
and popular -- are hazardous. The more insidious intraparty dissidence
is less conspicuous than the more tangible popular dissidence. Qualitative
tests are especially applicable to intraparty situations, whereas assess-
ment of popular dissidence comes down to the weighing of simple magnitudes.
Further, the two worlds of work and action are accessible from the outside
in entirely different degrees. The populace is almost entirely out of
reach in contrast to the cadres and Party members, who are better informed,
more alert, and more susceptible to outside stimuli.
The theoretical dissidence potential created by cloth rations that
are inadequate provides an example. This situation is a standing reproach
to the regime. It is essentially absurd that the populace should be
deprived of what it could either make for itself by cottage methods or
could secure from efficient factories in a properly working consumption
economy. The responsible cadre who controls cloth rationing operates in
a system of responsibility which is different from that of the peasant.
The peasant's desire is for clothing. If he is issued cloth, deprivation
is eliminated as a cause of dissidence, and there is no objective to
justify active dissidence. The senior cadre, however, has needs that
can hardly be met, short of overhaul of the national economy. Working
under pressure from both sides, he tries to satisfy the people, the Party,
and himself. When demands from below are importunate and demands from
above are unreasonable, his own obvious need is for a situation in which
he can perform both responsibly and effectively. Such a need may lead
him privately to try to change the system or to conduct himself as though
the system had indeed been changed. Put another -way, the peasant's prob-
lem, his need for cloth, is material, and his career does not hang on
the receipt of such cloth. The cadre's problem is organizational, and
his career in the system hangs on administering the situation he is handed
so as to avoid trouble for himself. Peasant dissidence has nowhere to
go, unless a riot can be called an achievement. Cadre dissidence, on the
other hand, conceivably has a great deal to gain through keeping the issue
alive in order to achieve far-reaching changes in the distribution system
without eliminating the cadre.
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III. Selected Examples of Dissidence
The accompanying map, Dissidence in Southern China: Selected Problem
Areas, 1965, identifies general areas from which reports reflective of
dissident acts or especially weak cadre performance during 1965 were
received. The greatest concentration of dissidence is close to the coast,
where a tough-minded population simmers in virtual silence. Dissidence
levels in the other two areas appear to be lower.
A. Overt Acts
The year 1965 was not as productive of reported overtly dissident
acts as was 1964. The most spectacular event definitely known to have
occurred in southern China took place on Hainan on 5 February or shortly
after. It included the burning of warehouses, destruction of some other
facilities, and killing of a number of Communist cadres. The exact
location is uncertain, although the press service report placed it in
Wen-chang Hsien. As if to corroborate this report, the Chinese Communists
later announced that, as of June 1965, the PLA was "actively assisting
the local militia in raising their political consciousness and improving
their military skills." This was in the Wu-chih Shan of central Hainan,
a guerrilla-base area of the past and the area in which GRC agents were
captured in 1963. The announcement implied that the local militia per-
formance was unsatisfactory until this PLA "assistance" brought a rise
in both enthusiasm and abilities.
Swatow and its environs experienced some terrorism beginning early in
the year and an augmentation of repressive activity later in the year.
Uncorroborated reports speak of two explosions in early April -- one in
the naval yard -- which were followed by some 300 arrests and also of
twin explosions in an automotive workshop and in a "chemical factory" on
11 November. Again, the best confirmatory evidence that such events
took place was provided by the regime, which in August began to subject
Swatow to an intensive anti-escape, anti-corruption, anti-rumor, and
anti-sabotage campaign. Although propagandists often use the word
"sabotage" metaphorically, a convincing scale of punishments was reported
for problems of malingering and "destruction" of equipment, ranging from
5 to 10 years for light offenses to death for serious offenses. Meanwhile,
transmission of rumors was also on the increase.
Food riots must have diminished in 1965. The only one which has been
reported apparently occurred in Jao-p'ing, 50 kilometers northeast of
Swatow on the Fukien border, during the Chinese New Year period. The
uncorroborated report states that 3,000 people took part and that it was
put down by troops. Canton also experienced terrorism during the Chinese
New Year period. Of several explosions reported, perhaps the most serious
was one in a textile plant on the day itself, when, reportedly, scores
were killed or injured. On 19 January an explosion in downtown Canton
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was accompanied by distribution of anti-regime pamphlets, although
possession of these pamphlets draws such vicious punishment that it is
hard to believe many are read. Later, in early May, a large factory
was "destroyed" by an explosion, which was followed by an explosion in
a local railroad station. Once again, the authorities gave some support
to these uncorroborated reports by initiating in September a campaign
against rumors, escapes, corruption, and discontent, during which ship-
yard workers learned that the Hsi-ts'un Cement Factory had been damaged
by a worker. The culprit was apprehended in August and sentenced --
rather lightly it seems, if the sabotage was tangible -- to 20 years
of hard labor.
Apparently these terroristic events were successful in their purpose.
Whether they were carried out by indigenous guerrillas or by trespassing
saboteurs is not known. It is possible that these deeds were successful
sabotage operations staged from outside and not the work of local in-
habitants. Nevertheless, they helped to reenforce a mood in which the
Canton population is habituated to hearing of such gestures and also to
avoiding involvement. Even a senseless railroad station bombing, although
it provides no gain in prestige for the perpetrator, contributes to
erosion of the regime's prestige by emphasizing the desirability of
noninvolvement as an individual goal.
There are too few reports from the restive Tung Chiang region east
of Canton to establish any pattern of resistance there. However, several
unconfirmed reports from Hai-feng and Lu-feng suggest a low state of
popular and cadre morale. This is consistent with conclusions suggested
by Four Clearances campaign reports that there was occasional trouble in
Hai-feng and Lu-feng. Two soldiers were reported killed in April in a
gunfight with two defecting cadres, while 10 out of 12 fishing boats
with 120 Shan-wei villagers aboard failed in an attempted escape to Hong
Kong.
Reports from elsewhere in Kwangtung are more vague and less credible.
It cannot be verified, for example, that there were 500 anti-Communist
guerrillas established in Lo-ting and Hsin-i counties of western Kwangtung
in spring 1965. A few reports of petty thievery and quasi-banditry
suggest that a little local roguery has begun to reappear and, speculatively,
that the militia in some remote areas may be unreliable.
No overt dissident activities were reported from KWangsi in 1965.
According to a vague 1964 report, a riot of troops (militia?) in Tung-nan
Shan (exact location not known) was followed by extra precautions for the
security of troops stationed there. The possibility is that PLA troops
encountered resistance in suppressing wayward militia. The only reported
overtly dissident events in Yunnan are easily attributable to agents from
outside. Nothing meriting reprisal or swift suppression apparently
occurred in Yunnan in 1965. The same can be said of Kweichow and of
Szechwan, outside of its Tibetan areas, as far as is now known.
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B. Illegal Activities
Petty crime continues and may be organized. Travelers continue
to lose their papers and ration tickets at about the same rate as in
earlier years. The regularity with which this happens raises the possi-
bility that escapees from labor reform camps, vagrants, disfranchised
persons, and others on the social fringe are able to secure redocumen-
tation through underworld sources and that there is a well-entrenched
market in ration coupons. Reports of peddling of documentation have
been received.
Corruption exists, especially among cadres, and no doubt the regime
chooses to call any collusive activity between cadres and populace
"corruption." Four Clearances campaign disclosures led to large-scale
prosecutions of cadres and numerous suicides. Tan-suil about 30 kilo-
meters south of Hui-yang and only 40 kilometers from the New Territories,
was hit hard, as was Mei Hsien. In Hai-feng and Lu-feng some 40 percent
of the cadres were reportedly purged in late 1964. In the wake of the
Four Clearances, most punitive assessments on cadres were for sums in
the hundreds of dollars, which they conceivably can work off in time.
At the bottom of the scale, very small sums were involved. Bribery at
the 5-yuan (about $2.00) level to achieve cadre collusion in helping
inmates escape from a forced-labor mining camp was reported in Hua Hsien.
Such a sum -- about 2 weekst pay for an inmate -- was hard to secure
either in money or goods, because inmates were paid only in scrip.
Two unverified reports of illegal political activity have come from
Canton. In September 1965 a small "counter-revolutionary" organization
of students called the Youth-Save-the-Country Party, was uncovered in
the literature department of Chung-shan University. The ringleader
received a 15-year sentence, and his associates 5-to-10-year sentences.
The lightness of these sentences suggests that, if the report is true
and the ring actually existed, something is still unexplained. Another
group, the anti-Communist "Dragon Republic of China," reportedly saw its
founder executed on 27 November 1965 after the organization had accom-
plished "sabotage" in various places. The founder began his organization
during 1962 while a foreign language student at Sun-Yat-sen University,
recruiting other youths as fellow "dragons." In late 1965 he himself
supposedly had participated in a dynamiting of a Canton "shipyard and
steel mill." Some 85 of his associates had been picked up in southeast
China and incarcerated for long terms. The significant common denom-
inator in these two reports is the attribution of anti-regime organiza-
tional activity to students and ex-students. Only students, probably,
would attempt such organization at present. If the accounts are true,
a social atmosphere of unconcern and noninvolvement must have existed
at the outset.
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An example of illegal peasant activity comes from Chung-shan Hsien.
Here villagers who had been deprived of their private plots of land in
September 1965 tried later to open up new private plots secretly in
remote areas, only to have the new plots discovered and confiscated.
The small private plot, by its periodic elimination and almost predictable
reappearance, is almost a sort of indicator of the state of local morale.
In southern China the Communists have handled the right to have a private
plot as a concession. Ironically, in Shensi in North China an old sec-
retary once stated that "we have never given up the principle of having
private plots" and that they kept cadre plots besides.
Provinces other than Kwangtung provide little information of similar
interest. However, a Kweiyang (Kweichow Province) report stated that,
as of mid-1963, about 35 percent of Kweiyang's farmers had not joined
communes, though they gave part of their crops to the communes. They
were considered backward and were thought to be handling illegal business.
This is somewhat indicative of the state of socialism in rural areas
that are off the beaten path.
Finally, an example of the thoroughness of Four Clearances sifting
and the apparent pettiness of that campaign comes from a county-owned
small collective farm in Chung-shan Hsien, perhaps a fairly average
local situation, in which 13 percent of those investigated were punished.
Of 83 persons on the farm, 9 were punished under the "Five Investigations"
of personal backgrounds which ran from April through September. Two of
the nine cases were serious -- one had an "unclear background" and one
was a "reactionary thinker." In the FOUT Clearances investigation that
followed, two cadres were punished and were sent to labor reform camps.
Then the farm workers were at last ready to get busy on preparations for
the "Third Five-Year Plan."
C. Protests and EVasive Activity
Protest in Kwangtung took the form of evasiveness and of escape
from the province. Suicides and threats of suicide appeared, not only
among cadres, but also among family members of youthful conscriptees.
Suicide, though a terminal form of protest, gets publicity and clearly
shames the person whose deed caused it. Conscription and militia man-
agement were the main points of friction in inland areas, and around the
coastal cities youthful discontent over labor assignments to distant
farms, villages, and construction sites was prevalent. Stubbornness and
evasiveness in the teeth of the Four Clearances campaign were reported
from at least two places. In Lu-feng in late 1965 the "class struggle"
reportedly became "tense and complicated," thus implying that outside
cadres in their cross-country sweep had not found confessions and denun-
ciations readily forthcoming. In Huai-chi Hsien of western Kwangtung,
also, there was Four Clearances difficulty with stubborn local cadres.
The press later revealed that preferential work-point (credits in lieu
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of remuneration) distribution to dependents, disabled veterans, and other
military-related elements of the population had been a problem and that
the regime had partially relented to permit adjudication of the inequities
case by case.
Early in 1965 there was already such apprehension over intensified
conscription for military and labor needs that mail correspondents in
the Canton area falsely prophesied another mass exodus to Hong Kong.
Youthful discontent was especially prevalent in the Tung Chiang area
between Canton and Hui-yang, where besides the many youth who wished to
leave China, many thousands (reportedly 600,000!), including cadres;
were in various stages of disillusionment. This was also reported from
Hsin-hui Hsien (near Kongmoon), where the authorities were hunting the
unregistered residents who were nonnatives and were actively conscripting
youth for labor assignments, thus causing them to seek escape to Hong
Kong and Macao.
Evasion of militia responsibility was apparently still easy in Yunnan,
but getting harder. In May about 800 out of 2,000 Ching-p'o (Kachin)
inductees deserted in Ying-chiang Hsien. At the end of the year it was
announced that the Kunming Military Command had organized selected cadres
and soldiers into 27 teams to circulate in various minority areas to sell
the "people's war" concept and to establish militia organizations and
training arrangements. Other press items also put a finger on 'basic
-
level militia cadres" and identified remaining problems as those of
"ideological consciousness" and "feudal superstitious activities." Vil-
lagers in one western county had the courage in early 1965 to protest
certain unjust labor reform sentences and shout down unfounded accusations.
Press reports from Kwangsi attest to militia sluggishness there;
also, and report at least one commune party branch, in YU-lin, that got
busy and reformed itself. Comparable information from Kweichow and
Szechwan is not sufficient to characterize the local situations there.
IV. Bases of Dissidence
A. Popular Dissidence
1. Minorities
The dissidence potential among minorities (other than the
Tibetans, who are not considered here) in southern China is greatly
outweighed by that of ethnic Chinese. Chinese Muslims are a submerged
group, and although the Chuang of KWangsi are numerous, they are not
important as a minority group. The Chinese Communists have an added
advantage in imposing security measures on the local non-Chinese minor-
ities in that they can often offer genuine improvements in the quality
of village life. They are skillful in using public health and education
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measures, control of jobs and advancement, administration of supplemental
rations, and postponement of unpopular socialization measures to keep
tribal communities politically divided and to alienate the young.
No reports were received in 1965 of trouble in the once-dissident
Yao areas of northern Kwangtung. The Li and Miao on Hainan, with their
record of support to the Communist-led island resistance during World
War II, probably are as sensitive to the grievances of their old Communist
leaders as they are to specific minority problems. There remains, however,
the possibility of some friction with ethnic Chinese newcomers to the
island. In Yunnan the Yi and the Ching-pio are probably the most restless
of the large non-Chinese groups. The Yi tend to resist Communist intru-
sion into their highly inbred, traditional way of life. Perhaps the
political sequestration of 48,900 Yi in the new Nan-chien Yi Autonomous
Hsien in November 1965 is indirect evidence that the CCP has taken another
decisive step in the direction of more effective control over them. The
Ching-p'o, conscious of their affinities with the Kachins of Burma,
react against hindrances to free movement. Elsewhere small groups such
as the Wa, who were once hard to manage, seem to be coming under pac-
ification. The local Tai in the extreme south are not, and never have
been, troublesome except in regard to their Buddhism, which they are
permitted to retain.
2. Youth
About 30,000,000 young people, men and women in the 15-24
age range, live in the five provinces. Mao Tse-tung's blanket indictment
of youth as a problem group "with strong revisionist tendencies" suggests
that some of their particular subgroups in southern China should be
examined briefly.
a. Students and Ex-students
Students in midcourse have in recent years experienced
much interruption of studies by labor assignments or by grueling field
assignments as Four Clearances task forces. Even after graduation, many
have found that they could not be used in their fields of specialization,
and they have been sent down to the countryside to work at inferior
occupations. The 7,000 college graduates in Kwangtung in 1965 were all
sent to the countryside to work. In recent years, concurrently with
steady elimination of unneeded city jobs, efforts have been made to weed
out in advance more of those for whom there will be no job after graduation.
This, however, does not remove the shock of elimination. The weedouts,
called "social and intellectual" youth, are those who have failed to pass
examinations, matriculate for higher schools, or find employment and
have fast become a growing fringe group of alienated youth in the cities
where they live or to which they have drifted.
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The process of removal of student weedouts from the cities is nec-
essarily slow. To move them out permanently the regime has to ship them
far away. Before it can do this the authorities must bring them as
individuals to the point of readiness to enlist for labor and then screen
them for reliability. Otherwiselmany find a way to return from ordinary
conscript labor assignments close at hand. Youth have been sent from
Canton and Swatow as far as Sinkiang and Hainan and from Szechwan to
state farms in southern Yunnan. On the state farms they have little to
anticipate except endless menial work.
In practice, these youth who do not graduate and thereby fail to
qualify to receive the select professional assignments will in the future
become part of a subintelligentsia that the regime now flatters in its
propaganda but actually views only as the means for proletarianizing the
countryside. This group has provided the youthful defectors who have
reached the Free World. Their potential for protest in the cities is
not great, but in the state-farm network it is conceivable that they
might have a potential for organization.
b. Youth of Poor Class Backgrounds
The most unfortunate of China's unemployed and unusable
youth are those whose "class background" condemns them permanently to
inferior status. Even those who willingly turn on their own families
may find that this unnatural deed does not gain them full Party acceptance.
A relatively large proportion of such youth live in the coastal areas of
southern China, where past KNT affiliations of family members, as well as
suspect Overseas Chinese connections, tend to frustrate their careers in
the eyes of the CCP. Theirs is a formidable plight, and this group has
readymade objectives to justify possible future dissidence.
c. Overseas Youth
The regime has had only qualified success with Overseas
Chinese youth who have returned to China for education and careers. They
are often highly disappointed in what they encounter, frequently resist
work or study assignments, claim special privileges and rights, and "seek
the main chance" -- even to the point of escape. Southern China has
received its share of these youth; some have families in southern China.
Wherever they go they are a leavening element, and as a highly mobile
group destined to be mostly rootless, they merit close watching.
d. Peasant Youth
The origins of country youth who seek industrial employ-
ment have never been studied. Some rural communities probably send few
youth to the cities, but other villages have for generations seen their
youth go to the cities. With this avenue now closing to them, rural
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youth have fewer opportunities, despite their having the same aspirations
as city youth. The lackluster China Youth League (CYL), now refurbished
under strong regime pressure, provides the means for youth work, cadre
training, and selection of Party membership candidates; but the CYL
recruitment task is an uphill one because of the joylessness of its
Party mission. For such youth, if they avoid military service, militia
service has some attractive privileges. The long-term prospect for
peasant youth is one of increasing exposure to the same influences and
pressures that motivate city youth, with the likelihood that their so-
phistication will increase to the point that political dissidence may
finally become possible for them.
3. Overseas Chinese and Their Connections
The largest number of Overseas Chinese originated in a
relatively few counties in the Pearl River Delta and surrounding Swatow
(and the Fukien ports), while lesser numbers came from much broader
areas of Kwangsi and Kwangtung, including Hainan. Yunnanese have emi-
grated in sizable numbers only to Burma.
Through the Overseas Chinese communities, including that of Hong Kong,
a large proportion of the population of Kwangtung retains a special
awareness of the outside world and is partially dependent on it as well.
One village, noted at random) had 70 percent of its population dependent
on overseas remittances in some degree. This' supplemental source of
income and information perpetuates tensions between the regime and the
people, because they are exploitable for foreign exchange and at the same
time are vulnerable to questioning of their "class status." This popu-
lation of returnees and their relatives is unique in China for having an
independent basis by which to discount regime propaganda (such as war-
scare talk) and also for having dissidence asets such as a high degree
of resourcefulness to pursue their own ends. Their situations vary from
those of managers, cadres, and working peasants to those of political
undesirables (labeled as landlords, rightists, counter-revolutionaries,
rich peasants, and common criminals), unnecessary city residents, un-
authorized returnees from country assignments, intended refugees, mate-
rialistic city dwellers, and unregistered elements of the population.
The people of the coastal regions seem to share a growing sentiment
of individual detachment from CCP goals while masking it by an increasing
sophistication in making motions of conformity. In the future this trend
will provide an increasingly suitable environment for slow nurture of
forms of political dissidence that may in time secure from the local
authorities the privilege of partially tolerated existence.
One important subgroup of the Overseas Chinese includes the 100,000
returnees from Indonesia, some 70,000 of whom were relocated on state
farms which were established for them in the southern provinces. Many
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of these were poor people who apparently had no ancestral villages to
receive them. They probably have a dissidence potential, even if they
have not yet achieved the level of anti-Communist organization which one
optimistic report suggests.
B. Intraparty Dissidence
At the national level there are various indications that morale
within the CCP is soft in spots. One symptom has been the regime's
readiness to push the unfinished SEM to almost any length and at almost
any cost in political fatigue and perpetuation of economic stagnation.
Another recent symptom has been excessive reliance on Mao as the un-
answerable symbol of consensus, which may conceal impending exhaustion
of the Party's own ideological ability to persuade. There is also in-
direct evidence that all is not well between the Party and the PLA.
Against this national backdrop, the southern provincial parties, and
especially the exposed Kwangtung party, retain their own historical
problems.
The Kwangtung Provincial CCP faces a resourceful population with
shallow loyalties to the regime. It harbors remnants of an older party
machine whose chief failure was unwillingness to admit that local inter-
ests are always secondary. Its cadres are inclined to come to terms
with local interests. As a Canton editorial said in 1963: "... many
rural cadres now tend to sympathize with those under their supervision
and no longer unquestioningly accept orders from higher authority."
Its cadres have endured the interminable and merciless SEM campaigns of
1963-65 with many casualties from their ranks. A secret reregistration
of Party members as part of a weeding-out process aimed at followers of
former leaders was reported from Canton in early 1964. There seems to
have been little Party progress since 1963 except at great cost, and the
possibility for persistence of significant intraparty dissidence seems
real. If it were to lead to growth of common cause between remnants of
the old party and embattled cadres of the new party, the basis of a
conservative, traditionalist, and ideologically tolerant intraparty
movement could conceivably materialize.
The accompanying map entitled Rural Kwangtung: Responsiveness to
CCP Provincial Committee, April 1963 providesindication of the
relative strength of the local Kwangtung CCP in 1963 against local
inertia at the outset of the SEM. It depicts the results of a single
inquiry into local response to a new project of the provincial Central
Committee -- the "rural edition" of the Nan-fang Jih-pao. The case
study was published for the guidance of local cadres, showing where
cadres had taken prompt action to make the paper generally available
and where they had been dilatory. It appears to have been a reasonable
test of relative cadre responsiveness before application of followup
pressures. Therefore, it may be considered a measure of the degree to
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which the provincial committee writ was being heeded or ignored in
early 1963 when the SEM was being launched.
Results of the survey suggest two types of local situations. In
some places blue-ribbon cadre forces held firm control on behalf of
provincial authorities. In others presumably second-string cadre forces
were either left to their own devices or else conservative party elements
may have been in the saddle. Spotted within the areas most sluggish to
respond, some key points performed well, as though the Party had con-
centrated good leadership resources there. Examination of the data
suggests that they may have been "corrected" or "reestimated" before
publication, but without necessarily altering the general impression
presented.
Part of the background of the unimpressive Party position in 1963
is found in the Party history. Ironically those areas of eastern Kwangtung
and Hainan where the potential for intraparty dissidence now seems
relatively high are places where Chinese Communist activity had its
beginnings 40 and more years ago. By now the local population may in-
clude many second and third generation Communists, with perhaps even a
few of the fourth generation to support the greybeards. It was during
1958 that the older generation of cadres endured a purge similar to that
which the present generation endured in 1964 and 1965. During 1958 the
provincial committee achieved a fully national orientation by finally
turning away from its aging local heroes of the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's.
The scars of this overhaul still remain to aggravate present difficulties.
In May 1958 two old Party chieftains were removed from the Kwangtung
CCP Central Committee. This signaled the end of an era for so-called
parochialist local party machines in some places, especially on Hainan
and in Ho-piu and Shao-kuan Hsiens. It probably extended also to the
entire eastern Kwangtung triangle between Canton, Shao-kuan, and Swatow.
Ku Ta-ts'un? formerly the boss of eastern Kwangtung, was removed from
the central committee though he still lingers on as a powerless deputy
governor. Feng Pai-chli? the old baron of Hainan, was also dropped from
the central committee and in 1963 was removed from the province altogether
and given a vice-governorship in Chekiang. The amount of residual bitter-
ness is not known, but Some low-ranking Hainan cadres were still rebelliously
disgruntled in 1962. It would be surprising if the old Communists of
Hainan and the eastern Kwangtung cohorts were reconciled even yet to the
elimination of their old leaders from positions of influence.
C. Regional Review
In southern China the CCP faces a continuing task of improving
its controls in distant provinces. Each province has its strong key
points and areas of weaker control, and with security as with dissidence
the cities lead and the countryside follows. Away from the vulnerable
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coastal areas the inland regions divide simply into those areas, more
intensely cultivated and more densely populated, where ethnic Chinese
predominate, and the more sparsely populated and less productive areas
where non-Chinese minority peoples live intermixed with ethnic Chinese
settlers. In the minority areas, despite greater indulgence of delays
in "socialization" and "political reconstruction," the authorities are
steadily extending their effective reach and the PLA is deeply involved
in tutelage of the population. In the predominantly Chinese areas the
CCP does not operate differently from elsewhere.
Canton and Swatow are the centers of mainland Kwangtung dissidence.
The important delta counties are under very firm control, possibly because
this was originally an area of KMT strength where the CCP did not wait on
ceremony to eliminate conservatism.
Elsewhere in Kwangtung, and especially in the Tung Chiang region and
on Hainan, there may remain widespread vestiges of a brand of local Com-
munism more conservative than that of the radical top leadership. The
scope of the present SEM indirectly suggests that the present generation
of cadres is probably coming quietly to terms with local interests in
many places. This trend could only have suited the conservative paro-
chialists and sectionalists of the old Kwangtung party. Along the coasts
and on Hainan, a population with far-ranging overseas connections and a
background of KNT affiliation is now subject to indefinite prolongation
of privation, disagreeable urban evacuation and rural resettlement drives,
and conscription with discriminatory overtones based on class consider-
ations. Economic stagnation and lack of economic incentives nurture poor
cadre morale and disgruntlement of old cadres and uninfluential Party
members; and among the populace such conditions encourage personal de-
featism or self-serving private scheming and attempts to escape.
Away from the coasts the CCP contends with local stubbornness. The
border counties probably have special problems which make them hard to
manage, but enough information is not at hand to permit their description.
Southwest of Canton between the Kwangsi border and the coast, a report
of "guerrillas" lying low is typical of dissidence reports that are
impossible to corroborate. Such a report may be discounted as probably
meaning that a disaffected population exists in many villages and that
any resistance organization there has identified most but not all of the
penetration agents within its ranks.
Kwangsi is related to Kwangtung geographically and historically but
is far more remote from outside attention. In 1965 no real difficulties
were reported from Kwangsi. The newly reattached coastal region of the
Ch'in-chou Special District is a depressed area with very modest resources;
but it still has an historic claim to dissidence, since one of its central
counties, Ho-p'u, was identified as a seat of parochialism in 1958. The
counties along the Kwangtung border and especially around Wu-chou were a
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focus of attention in 1965, just as in 1960. This region may be somewhat
soft because it is a gateway. Elsewhere in Kwangsi, the points of con-
cern in 1965 were distributed virtually at random.
In Yunnan the efficiency of the provincial government at least and
possibly its entire security posture was called into question by the
appointment of a Peiping "hatchet man" to the governorship early in 1965.
Little amplifying information has appeared since, but press comments
leave no doubt that the provincial militia was in far from satisfactory
condition during 1965. .
The geographical distribution of places of security interest in 1960,
compared to that of 1965, shows a predominant distribution along the
axis of the east-west highway in 1960 and a province-wide scattering in
1965. The inference is that in 1960 the consolidation of CCP local con-
trol was most important along the east-west route, whereas in 1965 CCP
standards of control had been raised to include the entire province.
Occasional reports of difficulties among YUnnan's minorities over
intermarriage with Han Chinese or over recent intrusion of migrants from
other provinces, such as Hunan, into tribal areas are reminders that
ethnic conflicts remain. Political tools, such as development of Party
"work" within the framework of new "autonomous" units ? however, seem to
suffice to control the anti-Chinese sentiments that may develop.
The Chinese in Yunnan probably harbor more dissidence than do the
non-Chinese, but this is not known to pose any control problem. Some
reports suggest that levels of well-being in Yunnan are sometimes higher
than in other provinces. Frictions probably exist between Overseas Chinese
and local Chinese youth but are not conspicuously important.
The most substantial information regarding Kweichow in 1965 was the
unexplained removal in January or February, of Chou Lin, the Party First
Secretary and Provincial Governor -- a change that was followed by re-
organization of the provincial committee. Later in the year improvement
of political controls over agriculture was publicized as a serious pro-
blem in the province. Whatever else it meant, the shakeup in Kweichow
and the April appointment of Chou Hsing to the Yunnan governorship
strengthened the influence of northerners in the southwestern province.
In Szechwan the Chinese population is reported indirectly by East
European sources to be widely disaffected toward the regime because of
its exploitive grip on the provincial agricultural surplus. While there
is no information on present dissidence levels, two current construction
programs may have some effect. The first is relocation of factories to
Szechwan from eastern locations, introducing more outsiders as well as
more industry to the Chieng-tu area. The second encompasses the con-
struction needs for this industry and for railroad construction on the
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Yunnan line. Most reporting from Szechwan deals with its Tibetan fringes
and is similar to reporting of other years -- minor administrative pro-
blems, the woes of travelers, and robbery.
V. Conclusions and Prospects
A. The Downward Slide ofResistance Potential
Dissidence in southern China is not declining but increasingly
translates into apathy and resignation, with attendant individual eva-
siveness. There is no known indigenous resistance movement now active.
More information probably will be available later in the year, but as of
March 1966 the incidence of overt acts of protest seems to be declining,
despite the fact that preexisting levels of dissidence were apparently
maintained during 1965.
There is no effective anti-Communist leadership in any part of the
study area. Popular apathy and resignation rule out both enthusiastic
support of regime programs and energetic dissent from regime programs.
As this mood sinks deeper, overt protest is slight but can take such
drastic traditional form as suicide.
Both rural and urban inhabitants have learned to avoid translation
of economic dissatisfactions into political dissidence and can endure a
high degree of deprivation so long as distribution is reasonably equitable
without a break in morale. Minorities are mostly uninvolved in active
dissidence. Within the study area the coastal regions of Kwangtung,
including Hainan, have the largest potentially dissident population.
Along the coast there is a greater awareness of the outside world because
of the pattern of Overseas Chinese relationships beginning at Hong Kong
and Macao and extending throughout the world.
Despite the apparent strength of its control system, the regime is
devoting an increasingly disproportionate amount of effort to "class
warfare" and ideological campaigns. If this is a necessity merely to
maintain existing levels of internal security, it is an unhealthy sign
Dor the regime. As an attritive factor, however, it is balanced by the
corresponding dissipation of potentially dissident leadership, especially
among the youth and disaffected cadres.
B. Conditions Inhibiting Active Dissidence
In the last analysis, the ability of the regime to contain dis-
sidence rests on its ability to maintain pressure on the people. This
awesomely sophisticated ability of the Chinese Communist regime is still
unchallenged. It inhibits any formulation of dissident objectives by
disaffected elements.
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The use of large task forces of students, other youths, and outside
cadres to carry out the Four Clearances campaign illustrates the ease
with which the citizenry of Communist China can be manipulated. The
task force members -- themselves either under training or under an
ideological cloud of some sort and knowing it is in their own interest
to do a good job -- have had no reason to make common cause with any
stubborn local leaders whom they might encounter. The local people, for
their part, reportedly often have taken out their resentments with gusto
on the local cadres under Four Clearances encouragement. One side was
played off against the other without any hint of mutual dismay being
reported.
The current economic stagnation also seems to be, on balance, a
factor inhibiting dissidence. The regime manipulates even slight rewards,
such as preferential cloth rationing, more effectively than any potential
dissidents can exploit the lack of a satisfactory cloth ration. Food
shortages, also, seem to have been accepted as facts of life so long as
a measure of equity prevails in distribution. The most keenly felt
irritants are those that involve inequities or discriminatory treatment.
Insofar as the Four Clearances campaign has attached inequities and
punished those to blame, it probably has entrenched the regime still
further with the peasantry.
It is probable that in the past the percentage of population in
Kwangtung living under punitive detention has been large. In 1962,
Hui-yang Hsien had a reported Public Security Bureau prison capacity of
about 100,000 for a hsien population of possibly 1,500,000. In addition
to such facilities, which presumably existed in every hsien, some pro-
vincial labor-reform camps such as that at the Lo Chia Tu mines had a
population of almost 50,000. Without a separate study of labor-reform
camps and local prisons, it can only be estimated that 5 to 10 percent
of the provincial population may still be living under some form of
detention.
C. Conditions Contributing to Active Dissidence
Location close to the coast or to a large city is perhaps the
most important single factor favoring effective dissidence in southern
China. In such locations the regime must keep dissidence at a lower level
than in more remote places. For a dissident in such areas, even though
living under tight restraint, it is an asset to be part of the world of
the Overseas Chinese. He is conscious of and occasionally shares some
of the expectations, earnings, experience, and resourcefulness of the
Overseas Chinese. The proximity of Hong Kong and Macao is also an in-
fluence. Individuals with overseas connections are more likely to be
capable of formulating practical short-run plans with materialistic
objectives and of attaining some of them. At the very least, such indi-
vidualistic activity -- which seems to go on now, ramifying along the
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transportation routes away from the coast and the big cities -- contributes
to a spreading climate of unconcern for the activity of other people. At
most, it could become part of a slowly rising tide of "individualism" and
so increase existing strains throughout the control structure that could
lead to a loosening of the Chinese Communist system and to the building
of a base for future tolerance of dissent, student political activity,
and other currently prohibited practices.
The effective potential for active dissidence and resistance in inland
areas (except perhaps in the Tibetan area of Szechwan, not considered here)
is slight. Levels of dissidence tolerable to the regime may be quite high,
physical control by the regime is virtually complete, and peasant objectives
are usually limited. Further, peasant hostility to the regime may rise
and fall -- depending on fluctuating degrees of deprivation and on changing
pressures for labor levies, grain deliveries, and other forms of sacrifice
-- without implying that the peasants would necessarily tolerate anti-
regime activity. This is especially true if the peasants are protected,
as they now are, from neoptism and brigandage. However, even in remote
areas any local climate of dissatisfaction and incipient hostility will
nourish a growing weight of youthful aspiration and career expectations.
The regime's determination to reduce city populations through permanent
distribution of surplus individuals throughout the countryside will only
aggravate this trend.
In the rural areas there has been no more prolific source of dis-
satisfaction than the preferential allotment of work points to cadres or
to other favored persons and families. Work points have a variable local
value, depending on the harvest. They are a sort of phantom currency
that farmers, workers, and cadres use to build up balances against which
to draw for necessities. Unlike money or scrip, work points are not a
private medium of exchange. All arrangements and transactions are
recorded and hence must be justifiable. People who deserve than, or
think they deserve them, frequently are awarded modest work-point bonuses.
Though exceptional arrangements are often reasonable, the system is readily
abused. It has encouraged indefensible cadre-peasant collaboration to
bypass onerous regulations and has brought on some of the corruption that
the Four-Clearances campaign exposed. If the new PLMP associations work
effectively, the means of righting work-point inequities will be available
to some of the peasants. As other forms of discrimination in favor of
selected groups of peasants are being encouraged under the scrutiny of
the PLMPA's, however, similar inequities are destined to continue.
Undesirable work assignments are another source of dissatisfaction.
Even Party members resist unwanted transfers, thus further burdening the
honest, hard-working administrative cadres whose disaffection would be a
genuine loss to the regime. The amount of dissatisfaction with, and
evasion of, mass labor assignments is unclear, but there is reason to
believe that much effort goes into keeping such dissatisfaction under
control.
- 21-
ID7fE4-1Approved For Release 2000/059dt-kD:M58A000900100001-4
Approved For Release 2000/05/12 : CIA-RDP79T01018A000900100001-4
C-0-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
Finally, conscription for the PLA and for militia service has been
far from popular and is even less so now under the cloud of popular
apprehension aroused by recent war propaganda.
D. Prospects for Future Dissidence
The possibilities for widespread development of popular resistance
are remote at present. The populace is tightly controlled in the densely
populated areas. In the rural and hinterland areas, public security
divisions and militia forces augment the PLA in physically controlling
the territory of southern China so that resistance groups have no safe
sanctuary. The most likely cause of dissidence that could lead to popular
resistance, under changed circumstances, would be the force of sheer
hunger or other types of suffering. Effective armed resistance, however,
would require leadership of the sort that could only come from labor
reform camps, from the military or civil cadre force, or from the ranks
of ex-servicemen.
In the inland areas dissidence is likely to continue to be rationalized
into resignation and apathy. Along the coasts, where tangible objectives
for dissidence are easier to formulate, it could erupt into protest, which
in turn could lead to political action. China's next revolution is likely
to be a revolution in expectations (following the pattern of the rest of
the world). Under any conditions that might loosen the security and
control system, such as an increase in material well-being, sentiments
typical of a consumer economy could easily start among the more sophis-
ticated populations of Canton, Swatow, and other southern cities and
spread swiftly to other major cities of China long before it had pene-
trated the countryside. The effect on the cadre force would probably be
such as to require more tolerance of dissent than the regime presently
anticipates, with correspondingly drastic consequences for its system of
thought control.
Intraparty dissidence, unlike popular dissidence, is likely to grow
out of the very principles of personal responsibility that the regime
earnestly inculcates into its cadres. On the national scene intraparty
resistance to the radicals who have been in command since 1955 could
conceivably crystallize under impact of unanticipated events. In the
special situation of southern China and especially Kwangtung, Party
stalwarts know that the old "parochialist" element spoke for legitimate
local interests. They see southern influence as weak in the national
CCP, and they know the limitations on their own career prospects. However,
they may not yet be conscious of the degree to which the southern regions
have been slighted through the self-defeating biases of the regime in
economic planning. They may not yet realize the degree to which the
southern provinces are seemingly destined to fall still further behind
the rest of the world in economic construction as time wears on. Needless
to say, this process of disillusionment has some time yet to run its
course and some distance to go before political consequences will be
visible.
-22 -
Approved For Release 2000/05/12 : CIA-RDP79T01018A000900100001-4
Approved For Release 2000/05/12 : CIA-RDP79T01018A000900100001-4
CONFIDENTIAL
DISSIDENCE* IN SOUTHERN CHINA: Selected Problem Areas, 1965
TIBETAN
A.R.
?Ch'eng-tu
SZECHWAN
Chungking
CHEKIANG
KWANGSI CI-WANG
AUTONOMOUS REGION
Wuchow
Swatow
SOUTHWESTERN YUNNAN:
Pressure to improve militia in minority
areas; resettlement of Szechwan youths to
strengthen control in border localities.
han-chiang
COASTAL KWANGTUNG:
Sabotage, escapes, possible arson and gunplay; sui-
cides from heavy pressure on cadre force; rising dis-
illusionment among unemployed youth; unpopular-
ity of urban resettlement and conscription policies;
two dissident organizations reportedly exposed; one
possible food riot reported.
KINANGTUNG-KWANGSI BORDER AREA:
Unconfirmed report of 500 inactive guerrillas present
in south; issue of preferential treatment for mili-
tary-related inhabitants publicized (Huai-chi Hsien);
Kwangsi militia and cadre problems publicized.
Wissidence--a state of mind involving discontent
or disaffection with the ruling regime.
53316 2-66 CIA
HAINAN:
Low popular morale (due to poverty, war
scares); successful guerrilla-type raid in
February; pressure to improve militia cap-
ability for local control.
Approved For Release 2000m5SPEFRWIAlr01018A000900100001-4
Kwangtung
RESPONSIVENESS TO CCP PROVINCIAL COMMITTEE
APRIL 1963
HSIEN RESPONSIVENESS* CIRCULATION COVERAGE HSIEN-LEVEL UNITS
Most 89% or more 28
Less 62% - 88% 30
Least 61% or less 51
A
*Analysis is based on a circulation survey of the rural edition of the Nan-fang
Jih-pao (Canton), the official Communist Party organ. It compares actual
circulation on April 10, 1963 with the number of units (communes, brigades,
production teams, and rural primary schools) which should have had the
paper. Circulation coverage was found to range from negligible (8%) to almost
double (197%), with the median 66%.
100
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Approved For Release 2000/MNI4M7rEttl8A000900100001-4
NO FOREIGN DISSEM
25X1C
CONFIDENTIAL
25X1C NO FOREIGN DISSEM
Approved For Release 2001018A000900100001-4