This article offers a preliminary estimate of what has happened to Buddhists and Buddhist organisations in mainland China during the eleven years since the Chinese People's Republic was founded. Much of the data belongs to the year 1958 when the most rapid changes occurred. Early in 1959, the China mainland press, from which nearly all the data comes, began to give less news on Buddhism. In November 1959 the most important single source, Modern Buddhism, was withdrawn from general circulation abroad. Several sentences in the October number, suggest that Peking had become increasingly sensitive to stories of a persecution of Buddhism, and had resolved that the mainland press, at least, would not supply any more evidence of it. The picture is fairly complete, however, with the evidence already in hand.

Victimised by its strategic location throughout history, North Korea appears once again to be the scene of competition for dominant influence between its powerful neighbours. As the recent statement by Chairman Kim Il-sung quoted above suggests, the Communist régime in North Korea was apprehensive about the mounting crisis in Sino-Soviet relations in the summer and autumn of 1960. What it did not reveal is that the issues involved in the Sino-Soviet dispute had already exercised a profound effect on the domestic and foreign policies of this Asian satellite for a period of several years.

If one were to imagine what occupation one might like to follow in a Communist state, it is unlikely that one would choose that of Westerntrained political scientist. The intellectual apparatus associated with social science alone makes such an occupation untenable in the face of Communist ideology. Social science, as practised in the democracies, may be said to be non-existent in the Communist world. However, this does not eliminate the practical problem that faces the newly established Communist régime of what to do with those social scientists, and certain other types of intellectuals, who are already present. The problem becomes doubly complicated if the professors, journalists, and authors welcomed the advent of the new government and regarded themselves as “progressives”—as many of them did in China. One of the most striking ironies of ssu-hsiang kai-tsao (thought reform) in 1951–52 and of the rectification movement of 1957 was that the accused had, to varying degrees, all supported the régime when it came to power and had tried sincerely to work within its frame of reference.

After the turbulence of the anti-rightist movement of 1957 which silenced those who held different views from the Communist Party line, Ma Yin-ch'u, then Dean of Peking University, refusing to yield to pressure, continued to express his “unorthodox” views and accepted a challenge to defend them against some two hundred critics. He stated in November 1959, “Although I am nearly eighty years old and outnumbered, I shall accept this challenge [to defend my position] and fight single-handed till I die. I shall not yield to those critics who resort to force rather than reason.” Professor Ma's integrity and courage in defending his beliefs command our respect and would justify the following biographical account even if he were not one of China's leading intellectuals.

Communist China is entering yet another year of calamities of major proportions. They stem chiefly from its unbalanced fanning industry and affect every sector of its economy.

Chinese and Western analysts have come full circle in their assessment within the last three years. In China the exuberance of the Great Leap Forward has given way to the gloom of austerity programmes and emergency regulations. Abroad, the voices praising the miracles of 1958 have been displaced by those reporting disaster and starvation. Those advising caution and moderation in the face of obvious Chinese exaggerations tend to be dismissed now as they were then.

Throughout China's history widespread famine has been a frequent occurrence. While natural calamities have been primarily responsible for its appearance, there is no doubt that consistent lack of communications has always been a serious obstacle to the relief of famine areas. During, for example, the great drought famine of 1877–78, which affected Shensi, Shansi, Honan and Hopei, efforts to get food into the Shansi plateau foundered because of the difficulty in sending supplies up the only direct track from the eastern ports, where food was arriving in abundance. As a consequence of these conditions up to thirteen million people may have lost their uves. Since then there have been a number of other severe droughts and floods, but with the introduction of railways and gradual improvement of the existing system of communications, distribution of relief has undoubtedly become more effective and loss of life less widespread. This brief survey will accordingly examine China's present transportation system and its ability to alleviate the hardship caused by last year's natural calamities.

The overall picture of Tibet today is one of complete Chinese control—not in the pre-revolt sense of control through the Dalai Lama, Tibetan officials and institutions, but direct control by Chinese personnel over Chinese institutions reorganized on the Chinese pattern through Chinese heads of departments and Chinese cadres as in China itself.* There is no Tibetan in any position of influence and trust, and all pretence that there is has been dropped, except for photographs with visiting dignitaries. Only one gesture in this connection has been made by the Chinese authorities in the past year and that was to invite the Panchen Lama, Cabinet Minister Ngabu Ngawang Jigme, chief collaborator since the signing of the 1951 Seventeen Point Agreement, and Pangdatshang Topgyay, Chairman of the East Tibetan Autonomous Government and Khamba leader, to Peking. Since they returned to Lhasa, they have not attended any major function. One luncheon party to be given to the “officials of the Panchen Erdeni Conference Committee” in the Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama's former summer palace, was suddenly cancelled for the rather specious reason “due to a bad weather forecast from the meteorological department.” Since then persistent rumours have arrived in India that the Panchen Lama has “disappeared” or is dead.

Among the minority of Communist Parties supporting China at the Moscow Conference last November was the Australian party. The feuds that have riven that Party since then illustrate the most damaging result for the Communist movement of the Sino-Soviet dispute—the end of the era of unique ideological authority.

The AAAS Symposium on the Sciences in Communist China covered pretty thoroughly all of the scientific literature from that isolated land that is available in the Western world. The amount of such literature turns out to be substantial, but the scientists analysing it are faced with the problem of sorting out facts from propaganda, real achievements from grandiose claims. That there has been a great deal of real achievement in the ten years of Communist rule emerges beyond doubt. China, for years torn with external war and internal revolution, began the decade of the fifties with no systematic programme in science, no schools capable of training scientists and technicians at an advanced level, and only a handful of scientists—mostly Western trained—capable of doing the research, planning and building needed to get industrialisation under way, while at the same time taking on the enormous task of educating the new generations of scientists and technical specialists required to operate an industrialised economy.

When China's Communists came to power in 1949, they began to outline ambitious plans to thrust China into the company of modern, industrial and scientifically advanced countries. They were not prepared with blueprints for the task which fell to them, for national responsibilities came sooner than they had anticipated. Their appraisal of what steps were required, what priorities to assign, the best allocation of resources at hand and to be developed, and the national goals which might be realistically achieved, took time to determine. After an initial period of consolidation and consideration, they set their course of development in the First and Second Five-Year Plans. These were intended to bring about the modernisation of the world's most populous nation at the fastest possible pace in ways which would not jeopardise the state's political control and ideological commitments.

China is a vast country, varying widely in its land, its climate, its agriculture and its people. Extending across some 35 degrees of latitude, and with extreme ranges in elevation and in precipitation, it has many types of agricultural production. At one extreme are the intensively cultivated rice fields of the south. On some of these, two crops of rice are grown per year; some are drained after the rice harvest for the production of a crop of winter vegetables. At the other extreme are the grassland areas of the northern Manchurian provinces, Inner Mongolia, Kansu, Chinghai, west Szechwan, Tibet and Sinkiang, with their herds of sheep, goats, cattle, yaks and camels. In between is the so-called wheat area, north of the Chingling Mountains and extending to the edge of the grasslands.

Genetics is the science of heredity. In the Western world modern genetics has a history of nearly a hundred years, beginning with the discovery of laws of heredity established by Mendel in 1866. Then, early in the 1930s, a Soviet genetics emerged. The foremost proponent of this new science is the Soviet Academician and agriculturist Lysenko. Let me sum up briefly the differences between Western and Soviet genetics. Modern genetics has established that hereditary material is located in the chromosomes of the nucleus of reproductive cells (sperms and eggs). This material is organised into functionally separate units called “genes.” Hence, it is known as the gene theory or the chromosome theory of heredity. On the other hand, Lysenko and his followers believe that every particle of an organism plays a part in heredity; the particles assimilate the influence of environment and pass it on to the next generation. Thus, if an organism can be forced or trained to assimilate certain environmental elements, there will be hereditary changes in their offspring. Lysenko borrows the prestige of Michurin, a skilful and successful Soviet horticulturist by calling this doctrine Michurinism, while we refer to it as Lysenkoism.

In order to cope with the demands of national industrialisation and reconstruction, much attention has been paid in Communist China to public health and medicine in an effort to prevent disease and promote health and thus increase productivity. Since public health practice is closely related to the political system and governmental structure, in addition to indicating actual achievements it serves as an indirect reflection of political and socio-economic conditions in present-day China.