Word: hua
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Unrest among ordinary Chinese may prove harder for Hua to deal with. Mass dissatisfaction, held in check under Mao, was unleashed following his death. Workers are unhappy over low wages, effectively frozen since 1971. There is widespread resentment about intrusive authority, misuse of power by local officials and party demands for constant indoctrination sessions. Existing poverty has been exacerbated by the rising expectations that are encouraged by the Chinese leaders, who talk constantly about the splendid present and the glowing future. Young Chinese resent the practice of being sent from the cities to the countryside to learn the virtues...
...support Hua's picture of clear and present domestic dangers, official Chinese radio broadcasts reported "great chaos" in Paoting, an important railway and textile center only 90 miles south of Peking. Indeed, travelers returning from the Paoting area reported that armed rebels supporting Chiang Ch'ing's leftists had raped women, robbed banks, raided ammunition dumps, blown up factories, hijacked military vehicles and disrupted rail traffic. According to other reports, disturbances have also occurred in Hupei, Honan and Shansi provinces as well as in Fukien, where 12,000 troops had to be sent to quell followers of the Gang...
Against this background, Hua in his Peking address proclaimed that China's "central task for 1977" would be "to expose and repudiate" Mme. Mao's followers totally and "move toward the goal of the great order." Behind Hua's rhetoric lay an admission that few if any of the professed goals of China's new leadership can be realized until Hua establishes a Mao-like absolutist rule over the nation. To do this, analysts noted, the new Chairman needs the army: only the generals who supported Hua in his bid for power last autumn can keep him there...
...Indeed, Hua's Peking speech represented a victory for the army. Before it, Hua had appeared to want to style himself as a compromiser who would rule by deft negotiation among the factions within China's complex ruling bureaucracy. People's Daily, speaking for Hua the compromiser, had often advocated "treating the disease to save the patient," that is, allowing opponents a chance to correct their errors...
Drastic Measures. The military's chief mouthpiece, Liberation Army Daily, has consistently called for "beating the dog in the water," meaning showing the enemy no mercy. Some China watchers believe that Hua may have become persuaded that the disease of factionalism has failed to respond to treatment and so more drastic measures must be considered...