As we all know only too well, the American student of Chinese Communist affairs must rely heavily on the recorded public utterances of representatives of the régime. The interpretation of such data is of course subject to a number of uncertainties. The ways in which public political statements can be used to deceive, to mislead, or to bargain are not always obvious. Even when a statement embodies a real calculation or the speaker's genuine perception of the world, the motive for making it may lie in the passing demands of small-scale tactics, or it may be of extreme subjective import to the speaker. One of the more favourable situations for analysis of this kind of material is found when linked propositions concerning a unitary topic are reiterated over a fairly long tune period, so that they occur in varying environmental contexts, with qualitative or quantitative variations in content, and with fluctuations of frequency or emphasis. The problem under examination here— the way the Chinese Communists have represented the significance for others of their experience in achieving power by revolutionary means— fits these last specifications.

On August 26 Tass announced that the Soviet Union had successfully tested “an intercontinental multistage ballistic rocket.” On October 4, Moscow announced the launching of the first earth satellite. On November 3, Moscow announced the launching of the second sputnik. Ironically, it was these dramatic indications of Soviet power that accelerated the Sino-Soviet conflict on strategy.

The prospects are growing that the United States will be dealing directly with ranking Chinese Communist leaders on a continuing basis. Such an encounter has occurred at the Geneva conference on Laos. Almost every article concerning disarmament and arms control mentions Peking, implying, of course, future face-to-face United States–Chinese Communist meetings. And, if Communist China were to enter the United Nations in 1961 or perhaps 1962 there would, of course, be vastly increased contacts.

A quarterof the human race resides hi Communist China, the largest population under a single authority in the world, and it has been growing. No one is likely to quarrel with that statement. But there are differences of opinion over just how large the population of China is and how rapid its rate of growth. This article will not attempt to review the technical aspects of these differences or to set one view against another, but will try to indicate what the range of opinion is, how the differences arise, why they cannot presently be resolved, and what they mean for those who wish to use Chinese population data.

Traditional China was often singled out in economic texts as an example of a country in which a large population and a backward economy had combined to create “underemployment” or “disguised unemployment” in agriculture. Although estimates varied, it was suggested that in countries such as China the rural labour force could be reduced by as much as 25 per cent, without diminishing the agricultural output. The problem was intensified during the winter months when seasonal unemployment forced minions of peasants to seek some form of work in the already overcrowded cities. Because of the relatively slow growth of China's cities and since no major efforts were made to expand the acreage under cultivation, the long-range trend was an increasing population pressure on already available arable land. Although, as a result of characteristically high death rates, the natural increase of the population in rural China was generally low (in periods of natural and man-made calamities the death rates even exceeded the birth rates), the population nevertheless continued to grow, with ever-increasing numbers seeking a livelihood.

Although based on fragmentary data, analysis of employment in the six years 1953 to 1958 is of great interest for what it reveals of the relationships between urban working age, population growth, increasing non-agricultural employment, and Chinese Communist economic policies. The sharp reversal in 1958 of past trends in the growth of the urban population and non-agricultural employment has no parallel in the history of China or probably any other country. In a single year the earlier phenomenon of urban population steadily growing at an average rate far higher than that of nonagricultural or urban employment disappeared. In 1958 both nonagricultural and urban employment grew so much that a migration from countryside to town of unprecedented magnitude occurred in order to meet the increased demands for urban labour. Most curious of all, the connection between growth of the urban population and growth of non-agricultural employment, implicit in programmes of expansion of the non-agricultural branches of the economy undertaken by the Chinese Communists, appears to have been largely outside the scope of Marxist-Leninist concepts and of Communist economic planning.

India has been perhaps the most favoured of non-Communist countries in its cultural relations with China. Yet the curve of Sino-Indian relations has been as affected by political considerations as the relations of China to any other country. The scant eleven years of the Communist regime have been marked by sharp ups and downs. In the first period, 1949–50, relations were cool and tentative, in spite of the presence as Ambassador of Sardar K. M. Panikkar, the distinguished historian, who was very friendly to the new régime, and in spite of India's sponsorship of Communist China for membership in the United Nations. This was the period, it will be remembered, when China was taking a very aggressive attitude towards the border problems between the two countries, and when China still considered India's independence not a “true” one and the replacement of the “bourgeois nationalist leadership” as the order of the day.

Founded in 1898 and made illustrious by the scholars who taught there in its early years—Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, Ch'en Tu-hsiu, Hu Shih, Lu Hsun— and as a result of the leading role of its students in the numerous patriotic and revolutionary movements that have shaken modern China, Peking University nevertheless by the time of its 50th anniversary had little to show for its past other than a glorious name. This name is something to conjure with in China today since Peking University was the cradle of the May 4 Movement and the place where Mao Tse-tung worked in his youth as a librarian and learned Marxism from professor Li Ta-chao.

According to Po I-p'o (Chairman of the State Economic Commission), mainland China's steel output in 1960 amounted to 18·45 million metric tons. This output level shows an increase of 245 per cent, over 1957, or an annual average increase of 51 per cent, for the three-year period 1958–60. This latter rate is considerably higher than that achieved hi the First Five-Year Plan period. The purpose of this paper is to examine the major changes hi the steel industry which have made possible a higher growth rate since 1958, and the problems with which the industry has been confronted hi the course of expanding its output.

Recently reports have filled the columns of the world Press suggesting that malnutrition or even starvation is widespread in the most populous country in the world. This is clearly a matter of far-reaching implications and no longer a subject for discussion only among scientists. The evidence available is scanty and far from conclusive. Reports remain conflicting, but they seem to indicate that malnutrition is not a general feature of the Chinese scene. Whereas Western observers have tended to conclude from sparse reports emanating from China that malnutrition may be widespread, the Chinese authorities have denied these reports and have rejected all offers of relief by voluntary organisations as based on misconceptions.

It would be only a mild exaggeration to say that China has been dominating the international conference on Laos. Certainly the weight of the Chinese presence has made itself felt in ways that were not true of the Far Eastern conference held in the same city—Geneva—in 1954. In various respects, indeed, the Chinese seem to have been determined from the start to make an impact on other participants commensurate with their own estimation of China's international stature. To this end, they sent the largest of all the sixteen delegations to Geneva and—though willing on occasion to display a proper co-existential courtesy towards carefully selected other delegations—they have consistently stuck to a line that is, in most respects, markedly more intransigent than the Soviet Union's.

The sixth congress of the Communist Party of India (CPI) met at Vijayawada, Andhra, from April 7 to April 16. Since it was the first such congress to be held since the beginning of the frontier disputes between India and China, it was clearly of some importance. The disputes have created bitter divisions within the party, and the ideological rift between the Soviet Union and China has intensified these divisons. For nearly two years the CPI has been unable to function effectively and the rift within it is openly acknowledged by members.