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The Foreign Ministry and Foreign Affairs during the Cultural Revolution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

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As other analysts have suggested in different ways, the Cultural Revolution involves differences of emphasis among Chinese leaders over basic directional choices for the society at large: whether Maoist-style politics (or ideology) can continue to “take command” or must yield at least equal place to the practical problems and limitations involved in fixing priorities and setting goals; whether radical Maoism befits a China in transition or must be modified if China is to realize its historically based claim to great power status; or whether China must inevitably “change colour” or can remain ideologically “pure red” even in the throes of modernization.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 40 , December 1969 , pp. 65 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1969

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References

* The research for this study was supported by the United States Air Force RAND project but the views expressed are those of the author not those of the Air Force or RAND Corporation.Google Scholar

1 See, for example, Dorrill, W. F., Power, Policy, and Ideology in China's “Cultural Revolution” (The RAND Corporation, RM-5731-PRG, 08 1968)Google Scholar; Philip, Bridgham, “Mao's ‘Cultural Revolution’; Origin and Development,” The China Quarterly, No. 29 (01–03 1967), pp. 1–35Google Scholar; Schwarz, H. G., “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” Orbis (Louvain), Vol. X, No. 3 (Autumn 1966), pp. 803–821.Google Scholar

2 The decision is published in Peking Review, No. 33 (12 08 1966), pp. 6–11.Google Scholar

3 The following account of the work teams relies on the analysis of Dorrill, Power, Policy, and Ideology in China's “Cultural Revolution,” pp. 123–136.Google Scholar

4 Talk by Ch'en Yi on 16 February 1967, in Ch'en Yi yen-lun hsüan (Selected Speeches of Ch'en Yi) (Tz'u-lien ch'u-pan-she: Hong Kong, 1967)Google Scholar. (That this is an anti-Ch'en collection is made abundantly clear on the cover, which consists of a photograph of the Foreign Minister asleep on a rostrum during an official ceremony.) See also “Bombard Ch'en Yi, Liberate Foreign Affairs Circles” (hereafter cited as “Bombard Ch'en Yi”), Hung-ch'i (Red Flag) (Peking), 4 04 1967, p. 2 (written by the Red Flag First Company of the Peking Aeronautical Institute).Google Scholar

5 In his self-criticism of 24 January 1967, Ch'en said: “At the inception of the Great Cultural Revolution movement, I did not comprehend this Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. At that time the impact of the mass movement was overwhelming, and I did not have the proper ideological preparation for it.… I was apprehensive about the impact of the mass movement, fearing that it might jeopardize order and affect foreign affairs work.” The self-criticism was first published in Hung-wei-pao (Red Guard Newspaper) (Peking), 8 02 1967Google Scholar; translated in “Ch'en Yi's Self-Criticism,” Chinese Law and Government, Vol. I, No. 1 (Spring 1968), p. 54.Google Scholar

6 Ibid. pp. 52–53. The article “Bombard Ch'en Yi,” cited in n. 4, recounts Ch'en's protection of the Institute's Party committee, as well as of other organs.

7 Lo Kuei-po and Liu Hsin-ch'üan reportedly headed two work teams (“Bombard Ch'en Yi,” loc. cit.).Google Scholar

8 The work teams' tactics are most fully treated in “Criticize Ch'en Yi's Reactionary Policy of ‘Attack a Large Part, Protect a Handful’,” Wai-shih hung-ch'i (Foreign Affairs Red Flag) (Peking), 8 05 1967 (written by the Revolutionary Rebel Committee of the Central Committee, Foreign Affairs Political Department).Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 “Ch'en Yi's Self-Criticism,” loc. cit. p. 55.Google Scholar

11 Ch'en Yi yen-lun hsüan, p. 21.Google Scholar

12 Statement of the Red Guard organization in the FLI, Wai-shih hung-ch'i, 8 05 1967Google Scholar, translated in Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) (Washington)Google Scholar, Translations on Communist China: Political and Sociological, No. 42,070 (3 08 1967), pp. 13–16.Google Scholar

13 Chu, Pu (pseud.), “An Analysis of Ch'en Yi's Confession, ‘I Am the Foreign Minister’” (hereafter cited as “Ch'en Yi's Confession”), Fei-ch'ing yen-chiu (Studies on Chinese Communism) (Taipei), Vol. II, No. 2 (29 02 1968), p. 33.Google Scholar

14 “Bombard Ch'en Yi,” loc. cit.Google Scholar

15 “Ch'en Yi's Self-Criticism,” loc. cit. p. 56.Google Scholar

16 Fei-ch'ing yen-chiu, Vol. I, No. 6 (30 06 1967), pp. 105–106.Google Scholar

17 “The Advance of the Revolutionary Movement of the World's People is the Main Current of the Present Situation,” Shih-chieh chih-shih (Peking), Nos. 2–3 (10 02 1966), pp. 6–10. This publication, generally considered an authoritative foreign policy organ, turned completely to publishing documents on the Cultural Revolution beginning in May 1966. In June, the periodical ceased publication altogether.Google Scholar

18 Text of Ch'en's address is in Ch'ing-hua University Defend-the-East Corps, Shou-chang yen-lun chi (Collection of Speeches of the Leaders) (Peking), Vol. IV, 11 1966, pp. 12–16. (The collection is marked “For Internal Distribution Only.”)Google Scholar

19 Conceivably, the recall of ambassadors was also linked to a Mao instruction of 9 September 1966. According to a later Red Guard account (Wai-shih feng-lei (Foreign Affairs Wind and Thunder), 8 06 1967Google Scholar, published by the Red Flag Revolutionary Rebel Regiment, Peking Foreign Language Institute, Capital Red Guard Congress), Mao's instruction had been issued in response to reports that Chinese embassies were havens for bourgeois living. “Let us have a revolutionization,” the instruction read; “otherwise, it would be dangerous.” Perhaps Mao believed that high living by senior embassy officials flew in the face of the Cultural Revolution's proclaimed anti-capitalist emphasis, and hence that certain embassy personnel would have to be re-schooled in, if not permanently reduced to, simpler living. See JPRS, No. 42,359 (28 08 1967), pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

20 Philip Bridgham, “Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1967: The Struggle to Seize Power,” The China Quarterly, No. 34 (04–06 1968), p. 8.Google Scholar

21 I-yüeh feng-pao (January Storm) (Canton), 05 1968Google Scholar, as translated and appended by the editors of Chinese Communist Affairs: Facts and Features (Taipei), Vol. I, No. 22 (21 08 1968), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

22 For example, Ch'en Po-ta, head of the Central Committee Cultural Revolution Group, in a speech of 24 January 1967, to a meeting of representatives of Peking University, deplored factionalism in revolutionary groups. Ch'en said that whereas the “spear-head” of the struggle was supposed to have been directed at na Liu Shao-ch'i and Teng Hsiao-p'ing, “some people have nevertheless directed the spearhead of their attack at the revolutionaries, at the Cultural Revolution Group of the Party Central Committee, at Premier Chou, Comrades K'ang Sheng, Chiang Ch'ing, Wang Li, Kuan Feng, and Ch'i Pen-yü.” Huo-ch'e-t'ou (Locomotive), No. 7 (02 1967)Google Scholar, in Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 3898 (14 03 1967), p. 4. See also the comments of Bridgham, “Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1967: The Struggle to Seize Power,” loc. cit. pp. 8–11.Google Scholar

23 “Ch'en Yi's Confession,” loc. cit. p. 36. See also “Bombard Ch'en Yi,” loc. cit.Google Scholar

24 “Bombard Ch'en Yi,” loc. cit. See also Hung-wei-pao, No. 24 (23 05 1967), p. 3, an article by the Red Flag Struggle Corps of the FLI, in which Ch'en is called “an irredeemable monarchist” for having sought to protect himself and his followers from reform by the masses since 1963.Google Scholar

25 See “Ch'en Yi's Confession,” loc. cit. pp. 34–35.Google Scholar

26 “Ch'en Yi's Self-Criticism,” loc. cit. pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

27 “Criticize Ch'en Yi's Reactionary Policy …,” Wai-shih hung-ch'i, in JPRS, No. 42,070, pp. 13–16.Google Scholar

28 Speaking to Red Guards at the airport on 12 February, Ch'en said: “The facts prove that what I said last year was not wrong, not all wrong. Look at things now, we must still do things my way. If things had all along been done my way, we wouldn't have come to this state. At present look at what has happened to the Ministry: no order, no organization, foreign affairs secrets have been taken away.” Hung-wei chan-pao (Red Guard Combat Newspaper), 8 04 1967Google Scholar, and Hung-ch'i, 4 04 1967, cited in Ch'en Yi yen-lun hsüan, p. 20.Google Scholar

29 “Ch'en Yi's Confession,” loc. cit.Google Scholar p. 36, citing the newspapers Hung-wei chan-pao, 8 04, 1967Google Scholar, and Hung-ch'i, 4 04. In a talk of 8 February, reported by these newspapers, Ch'en said: “They [the Red Guards] wanted to put all the department heads and vice-ministers off in a corner; they don't have the right. Even Chairman Mao needs to have people to talk to.” Ch'en also reportedly said: “The greatest weakness of the rebel group is that it speaks only of the weaknesses of others. Are you all so in line with the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung? They [the Ministry's cadres] have 90, 92, 99 per cent, of the responsibility; you should also have a little.…” (Quoted from the same newspapers in “Ch'en Yi's Confession,” loc. cit. p. 41.)Google Scholar

30 “Bombard Ch'en Yi,” loc. cit.Google Scholar

31 There were apparently two groups fighting for control of the Commission: the Ch'en-backed “United Power-Seizure Committee,” and the rebel-backed revolutionary Left organizations led by the “Tungfanghung (East-is-Red) Commune of Returned Overseas Chinese.” Wu Chi-sheng, head of the First Department of the OCAC and a member of its Party committee, teamed with one of the Commission's Vice-Chairmen, Lin Hsiu-teh, to carry out the Ch'en Yi-Liao Ch'eng-chih line of buying time for the outnumbered conservatives by merging the two hostile groups. As shall be seen shortly, the radicals, considering that any merger was really meant to destroy “the struggle for seizure of power in the Commission,” became increasingly boisterous during March and April, directing demonstrations against Ch'en, Liao and the Commission's Party committee under Fang Fang. See Ke-ming ch'iao-pao (Revolutionary Overseas Chinese Affairs Bulletin), 9 04 1967Google Scholar, in SCMP, No. 3939, pp. 9–11; the article was written by the Red Guided Missile Fighting Team of “Returned Overseas Chinese Tungfanghung Commune in the Capital.”Google Scholar

32 Ch'en Yi yen-lun hsüan, pp. 14, 15.Google Scholar

33 Ibid. p. 16.

34 Ibid. pp. 16, 19. See also the quotations in “What Poison this Ch'en Yi Is,” Hung-wei chan-pao, 13 04 1967, p. 4, written by the Capital Congress of Red Representatives, People's University Three-Red Seize Ch'en Yi Regiment.Google Scholar

35 Decision of the Central Committee of the CCP, the Military Affairs Committee of the Central Committee, and the Cultural Revolution Small Group, in Hsing-huo liao-yuan (A Single Spark May Start a Prairie Fire) (Peking), 27 01 1967.Google Scholar

36 Bridgham, “Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1967: The Struggle to Seize Power,” loc. cit. pp. 11–14.Google Scholar

37 Ibid. pp. 15–16.

38 Ke-ming ch'iao-pao, in SCMP, No. 3939, p. 5.Google Scholar

39 See Ibid. p. 21 and n. 31.

40 Ke-ming ch'iao-pao, in SCMP, No. 3939, p. 7.Google Scholar

41 “Ch'en Yi's Confession,” loc. cit. p. 35.Google Scholar

42 I-yüeh feng-pao, loc. cit. p. 26.Google Scholar

43 Ibid. p. 22.

44 Ibid. p. 23.

45 Ibid. p. 23.

46 Reported in P'i-Ch'en chan-pao (Criticize Ch'en Combat Newspaper) (Peking), No. 1 (28 05 1967), p. 1, published by the Criticize Ch'en Liaison Station.Google Scholar

47 Ch'en's defenders asserted: “The more the central authorities expressed their unwillingness to overthrow Ch'en Yi, the louder their [the Red Guards'] clamor and the higher the pitch of their language.… They disobeyed the orders of the Central Committee and oppressed the masses.” Quoted in I-yüeh feng-pao, loc. cit. p. 26.Google Scholar

48 Chou's meeting with the Red Guards is reported in full in P'i-Ch'en chan-pao, 28 05 1967. Similar information may be found in a Red Guard poster of 12 May signed by revolutionary rebels of the Foreign Language Institute.Google Scholar

49 The invasion of the Foreign Ministry on 13 May was reported by Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo), 1 06 1967.Google Scholar

50 Asahi Shimbun, 1 06 1967Google Scholar, based on a mimeographed wall-poster put up on 31 May. Criticism of Chou was reported in one Red Guard newspaper to have been the work of the “Independent Battalion of the Red Guard 616th Regiment in the Peking Foreign Language Institute.” Wai-shih hung-ch'i, No. 5 (26 05 1967), p. 3, article by “Observer.”Google Scholar

51 From wall-posters and slogans dated 14 May outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to Ch'en's defenders, writing in I-yüeh feng-pao, loc. cit. p. 26, the Red Guard invasions of 13 and 29 May were in defiance of the express orders of the Central Committee “that power of diplomacy should not be seized and top secrets should not be captured, administration and personnel records should not be used, and the political department established by Chairman Mao should not be destroyed. But a handful of class enemies and extreme Left elements openly disobeyed the directives, closed the office of the Party committee in the Ministry and destroyed the political department, usurped the Bureau of Top Secrets, impeded the archive system and disclosed many top secrets. Their actions greatly damaged the power of diplomacy and personnel.”Google Scholar

52 Their arrival was reported by the New China News Agency (NCNA), 30 April 1967, in SCMP, No. 3932 (4 05 1967), pp. 31–33.Google Scholar

53 P'i-ch'en chan-pao, 28 05 1967.Google Scholar

54 NCNA broadcast of 19 May 1967.Google Scholar

55 P'Liao chan-pao (Criticize Liao Combat Newspaper) (Peking) 18 06 1967Google Scholar, written by the “Long Cord in Hand” Combat Team and the “Rebel to the End” Combat Team of the Red Banner Corps of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. Translated in JPRS, Communist China Digest, No. 42,977 (16 10 1967), pp. 74–77.Google Scholar

56 Upon returning to China in December 1966, 41 students were dubbed “the heroic fighting collective” and were reported (in late April 1967) to have “settled down on the overseas Chinese farm in Ninghua hsien, Fukien Province” (NCNA, 29 April 1967, in SCMP, No. 3931 (3 05 1967), p. 27). Actually, these students not only participated in several mass rallies against Indonesia and in welcomes for groups of Chinese arriving from Indonesia; they also seem to have been at the forefront of the Tung-fanghung Commune which had been leading the struggle against the conservative United Power-Seizure Committee in the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission.Google Scholar

57 “Thoroughly Smash the Privileged Stratum in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Wai-shih hung-ch'i, 14 06 1967Google Scholar, written by the Red Guards Service Centre of Returned Students of the Capital Red Guard Congress, in JPRS, Communist China Digest, No. 42,997 (16 10), 1967, pp. 112–117.Google Scholar

58 Wai-shih fen-lei, 8 06 1967Google Scholar, Ibid.

59 “What Poison this Ch'en Yi Is,” loc. cit.Google Scholar

60 For further detail and documentation on foreign affairs in this period, see the author's The Foreign Ministry and Foreign Affairs in China's “Cultural Revolution” (The RAND Corporation, RM-5934-PR, 03 1969), pp. 37–52.Google Scholar

61 See issues of La Nouvelle Dépêche (Phnom Penh) for those dates.Google Scholar

62 One additional source of disturbance to Peking may have been the Soviet Union's decision in June to recognize and respect Cambodia's existing frontiers, a move that forced Peking, Hanoi and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam to follow suit against their wishes.Google Scholar

63 I-yüeh feng-pao, 05 1968, cited in Chinese Communist Affairs: Facts and Features, loc. cit. p. 23.Google Scholar

64 Yeh-chan-pao (Field Combat), 03 1968Google Scholar, in Ibid. Vol. I, No. 17 (12 June 1968), p. 23. According to the editors of Chinese Communist Affairs, the 7 August speech contained an attack by Wang on the military commanders of the Nanking and Foochow military regions, linking them to the alleged anti-Party elements Ho Lung and Hsü Hsiang-ch'ien See Ibid. Vol. I, No. 3 (29 November 1967), p. 24.

65 Hung-wei-pao, 18 10 1967.Google Scholar

66 Hung-wei-pao, 15 09 1967.Google Scholar

67 Tokyo Shimbun, 7 08 1967. Other reports from correspondents in Peking at this time, however, noted on the basis of wall posters that in fact Ch'en Yi had been favourably passed on by the Central Committee and, in essence, accepted as one of the Party's hierarchy.Google Scholar

68 Yomiuri Shimbun (Tokyo), 14 08 1967. In a speech of 6 March 1968, Ch'en mentioned that between August and September 1967, seven different criticism meetings of varying size were held, and that at the larger ones certain people (presumably including Yao Teng-shan) sought to “make me a springboard for their personal aims.” I-yüeh feng-pao, loc. cit. p. 2.Google Scholar

69 Specifically, the rally took issue with Ch'en's alleged sympathy with Liu Shao-ch'i's supposed foreign policy line of san-hsiang i-mieh (three surrenders, one extinction): surrendering to U.S. imperialism, Soviet modern revisionism and reactionaries, and extinguishing the flames of revolutionary warfare throughout the world. Ch'en is said to have made various “capitulationist” statements over the years—e.g., saying in 1963 that the United States may withdraw from Vietnam, but adding in 1964 that in any case the United States will not arbitrarily expand the war to China—but the “evidence” cited reveals not “capitulationism” but a rather level-headed perception of the United States. Of course, Ch'en, like Liu Shao-ch'i and others attacked during the Cultural Revolution, had to suffer through the typical distortions that accompany purges and attempted purges.Google Scholar

70 Pei-wai hung-ch'i (Foreign Language Institute Red Flag) (Peking), undated.Google Scholar

71 Speech of 12 September 1967, in Les Paroles de Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, 1967 (Ministry of Information: Phnom Penh, 1968), p. 695.Google Scholar

72 For documentation and Sihanouk's interpretation of these events, see Ibid. pp. 649–656, 675–680, 694–696, 707, 711–715 and 754–755. See also Smith, R. M., “Cambodia: Between Scylla and Charybdis,” Asian Survey (Berkeley, Calif.), Vol. III, No. 1 (01 1968), pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

73 Hsing-tao jih-pao (Hong Kong), 23 10 1967, p. 1.Google Scholar

74 The Chinese ultimatum demanded that the United Kingdom cancel a ban on three local pro-Communist newspapers and gave the Hong Kong authorities 48 hours to drop lawsuits against arrested newspapermen.Google Scholar

75 Asahi Evening News (Tokyo), 5 09 1967.Google Scholar

76 The resolution also condemned the “May 16 Corps,” one of the leading extremist groups, as “counter-revolutionary,” perhaps a warning to other ultra-Left organizations that the regime's support could be withdrawn as easily as it had been tendered. NCNA broadcast of 10 September 1967.Google Scholar

77 SCMP, No. 4069 (29 11 1967), pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

78 Ibid.No. 4026 (22 September 1967), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

79 K'ang did not exclude the possibility of criticizing Ch'en (“If Ch'en Yi has [committed] errors, he can make a self-examination”); but the tone of his statement suggests that he was defending the Foreign Minister no less than the Ministry from a repetition of the events that had led to the disruption in August. Hung-wei-pao, 15 09 1967.Google Scholar

80 Wai-shih hung-ch'i and Ke-ming ch'iao-pao, 12 09 1967 (joint issue).Google Scholar

81 Chinese Communist Affairs: Facts and Features, Vol. I, No. 3 (29 11 1967), pp. 24–25. In the instruction, Mao assertedly declared: “All foreign affairs units should be merged into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the minister of which is Ch'en Yi. If Ch'en is not the minister, who is the minister?” Insisting that “Foreign policy is formulated by me and implemented by Premier Chou,” Mao directly attacked Wang Li, Kuan Feng (another former member of the Cultural Revolution Group) and Yao Teng-shan for having gone beyond acceptable bounds in their opposition to Ch'en. “Now whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can strike down Wang Li and Yao Teng-shan or not is a question of revolution or no revolution.” Mao also said: “Wang Li was a bad fellow from the beginning. Chiang Ch'ing long ago talked to me about the problem of Wang Li and Kuan Feng.”Google Scholar

82 A Red Guard newspaper of 26 November quotes Mao as having said of his Foreign Minister: “How can Ch'en be struck down? He has been with us 40 years and has so many achievements. He has lost 27 lbs. in weight. I cannot show him to foreign guests in this condition.”Google Scholar

83 Daniel, Tretiak, “Disappearing Act,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 02, 1968, p. 216.Google Scholar

84 NCNA broadcast of 30 May 1968; Yomiuri Shimbun, 26 10 1968; NCNA broadcast of 5 August 1968.Google Scholar

85 Since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs then had 15 heads of department (szu-chang), the vast majority of the signers were obviously ambassadors.Google Scholar

The poster, entitled “Expose the Enemy, Fight and Overcome Him: In Criticism of the Reactionary Slogan, ‘Criticize Ch'en Yi’,” was published in I-yüeh feng-pao, 05 1968, loc. cit. p. 3.Google Scholar

86 The letter, along with Chou's warning, is contained in Chung-ta hung-ch'i (Chung-shan University Red Flag), 4 04 1968Google Scholar, p. 2 (published by the Canton Congress of Red Representatives), and Kuang-chou hung-ta-hui (Canton Red Congress), 3 04 1968.Google Scholar

87 Ch'en went on to say, in a strange conclusion on this point, that because such persons remained at their posts, “an extremely serious question [arose] which became more and more serious, opposing fighting people's wars. [This was] an extreme rightist tendence; there was no precedent for it, and what history lacked, I opposed.” Ch'en offered no other words of explanation.Google Scholar

88 Text of the speech is in I-yüeh feng-pao, 05 1968, loc. cit. p. 2.Google Scholar

89 In his letter to Chou, Ch'en wrote: “The minority of bad people have already been exposed by the masses and moreover are continuing to be exposed; this is a good thing.…”Google Scholar

90 Of the 10 Vice-Ministers, it appears that in toto five were criticized, of whom one was purged (Chang Han-fu), and at least two were restored to their posts; the fate of the remainder is still unclear. Four Vice-Ministers do not appear to have been affected by the Cultural Revolution (Lo Kuei-po, Han Nien-lung, Hsü I-hsin and Ch'en Chia-k'ang).Google Scholar

The author is indebted to Donald Klein of Columbia University for information on the Vice-Ministers.Google Scholar

91 The most complete listing of Ch'en's “crimes” may be found in “One Hundred Examples of Speeches by Ch'en Yi Opposing Mao Tse-tung's Thought: Highest Directive,” Tung-fang-hung chan-pao (East-is-Red Combat Newspaper) (Peking), 15 06 1967, written by the Criticize Ch'en Liaison Station.Google Scholar

92 From the letter of the 91, in I-yüeh feng-pao, 05 1968, loc. cit.Google Scholar

93 The personal relationship of Chou and Ch'en dates back to the post-World War 1 period when both were students in France. Ch'en joined the Communist Youth League there which Chou helped establish. Little is known about their relations during the early years of the CCP, the Yenan period, or the war years. Since 1954, Ch'en has been a Vice-Premier under Chou; and he succeeded Chou as Foreign Minister in 1958. Ch'en has frequently accompanied Chou on official state visits and as part of C.P.R. delegations to important conferences (e.g., to Bandung in 1955).Google Scholar

94 In view of the limited Party Central Committee representation at the highest levels of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ch'en Yi is a full member; Chang Han-fu and Lo Kuei-po were alternate members), it is possible that Mao wished to keep Ch'en Yi at his post not only to maintain in office a long-time bureaucrat who commanded the loyalty of experienced subordinates, but also to assure that the Central Committee's views would continue to be adequately represented in the Ministry. “Indeed,” Donald, Klein has pointed out, “Ch'en Yi may have been selected to succeed Chou En-lai [as Foreign Minister] (February 1958) in order to serve as the continuing voice of the Central Committee—and more particularly the Politburo—within the M.F.A.” (“Peking's Evolving Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” The China Quarterly, No. 4 (10–12 1960), p. 30). This consideration may have been equally valid in 1966 and 1967.Google Scholar

95 The first indication of Ch'en's decline came in the summer of 1967, when he was referred to in the Peking news media only as Vice-Premier. Ch'en's lengthy absence from public view ended when he was reported in attendance at the Ninth Party Congress in April 1969. But the published lists of Politburo and Central Committee members made plain Ch'en's sharp drop in position in the Party; and his continuing absence from foreign affairs functions may mean that his replacement is imminent.Google Scholar

96 Between May and July 1969, 18 heads of mission returned or were appointed to diplomatic posts. All were men with previous diplomatic experience. But inasmuch as 27 ambassadorial posts have yet to be filled, it is still too early to tell whether and to what extent a purge of former envoys has taken place.Google Scholar