Word: cantons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...celebrating the 18th anniversary this week of Mao Tse-tung's proclamation of a Chinese Communist state, Correspondent John Cantwell crossed into Mao's stricken land for TIME. An Australian who speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin, Cantwell spent several days in the big South China city of Canton, the scene of recent anti-Maoist riots and disorders. He found the city of 2,500,000 relatively quiet on the surface but seething underneath with barely repressed violence. His report...
...roam the city, shooting and pillaging. Ordinary Cantonese have formed vigilante committees to protect their neighborhoods, and pillboxes and gun emplacements are being built on street corners. In an attempt to quell the anarchy, Peking is reported to have sent 100,000 People's Liberation Army troops into Canton, but the story that comes out is that they soon were at war with anti-Mao local troops and blasting away with mortars, artillery and tanks. Last week one traveler reaching Hong Kong described how some 200 Maoists were wiped out in a single stroke when anti-Maoists blew...
Restraining Both Sides. Many of the Canton tales seem beyond belief-and they probably are. Reliable eyewitnesses are scarcer than dragon's teeth, and, unaccountably, no one has come out of China with a single picture documenting the mass scenes of violence, bodies hanging from trees and tanks firing in the streets. In fact, a Japanese journalist who recently spent a night or two in Canton neither saw violence nor heard shooting. The total number of deaths and the luridness of detail seem to grow as they are passed from traveler to traveler...
There is no doubt that a serious political struggle for control of Canton is going on, but probably not in the violent terms in which it has recently been depicted to the outside world. Undoubtedly there have been deaths in the past several months, but probably a few hundred rather than many thousands. Heavy weapons probably have been seen moving through the streets on occasion, but U.S. intelligence experts believe that they have rarely, if ever, been employed. Peking has sent several divisions of troops to Canton to keep order, but the best intelligence estimates are that they have carefully...
Last week the army units seemed to be succeeding in their task, and the purple reports of disorder gradually trailed off. The reason may well be that Canton's semiannual trade fair is due to begin in two weeks. Japanese China watchers are convinced that it will open to its foreign visitors more or less on schedule, showing them a fairly tranquil city...