Word: chou
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...recent months has been undergoing a mini-Cultural Revolution. While less violent and public than the convulsion of radicalism that ravaged the country between 1966 and 1969, the current drift leftward could affect the composition and course of the leadership. One big mystery has been the position of Premier Chou Enlai. Last week China watchers had new evidence that Chou may be under increasing attack from ideological hard-liners for his pragmatic policies, especially China's developing rapprochement with the capitalist world...
...Chou's attack on the U.S. and his pointed ridicule of two of Nixon's favorite phrases were not isolated incidents. Two days later, Wang Hung-wen, party vice-chairman and No. 3 man in Peking's Politburo, accused the U.S. of having directly "engineered the reactionary coup d'état" of 1970, which toppled Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk. Wang described "U.S. imperialism" as "armed to the teeth"-a highly belligerent image in Chinese...
China watchers differed over how to interpret this ultramilitant rhetoric. State Department experts denied that Chou's remarks prefaced a new freeze in Sino-American relations. Some Washington experts speculated that the Chinese were angry about the recent appointment of Leonard Unger, a senior career diplomat, as U.S. Ambassador to Taiwan. The Chinese may be disappointed that détente has not yet brought about any discernible progress in resolving the Taiwan problem in Peking's favor...
...Life-and-Death." Other American observers believe that Chou is being pushed into a more militant stance by his radical opponents within the Peking leadership. Those who subscribe to this theory note that the ideological attack on the "counterrevolutionary" opera Three Ascents Up Peach Mountain (TIME, March 1 8) has turned into a well-coordinated, nationwide campaign. Provincial radio broadcasts have elevated the attack on the opera to the dignity of a "life-and-death class struggle." Party spokesmen have called for nothing less than a "people's war" to combat the offending opera's "approvers, supporters...
...Chou En-lai the ultimate (if still unnamed) target of these ideological onslaughts? There is no question that the campaign against the Peach Mountain opera was launched by Chou's leftist enemies - notably Chiang Ching, wife of Mao Tse-tung - and that by making it a national issue, his radical adversaries have proved their strength. Still, this does not mean that the pliable, politically skillful Premier Chou is in any immediate danger of being isolated in the emerging struggle over who will succeed the aging...