Communist China is not an “Asiatic” (“hydraulic”) society; nor is Mao's government a replica of the power system called “Oriental despotism.” Comparative analysis reveals basic similarities as well as important dissimilarities between Communist totalitarianism and the absolutist régimes that prevailed in traditional Asia, North Africa and certain parts of pre-Columbian America.

The reasons for the visit to Russia, Eastern Europe, and China last summer of a DRV (Democratic Republic of [North] Vietnam) mission led by Prime Minister Pham Van Dong and Chairman of the National Planning Board Le Thanh Nghi gave rise to some speculation in the West. The inclusion of Le Thanh Nghi suggested that it was connected with economic aid to the DRV, more particularly with aid for the carrying out of the extremely ambitious five-year plan, which was first announced during the third Congress of the Lao Dong (Communist) Party in September, 1960.

Within her first decade under Communist leadership, China has been transformed from a virtual nonentity into a major world Power. International decisions which ignore her interests are unenforceable against her. Her status as one of the Big Five can in practice no longer be challenged, and must be taken into account even by countries that refrain from acknowledging the changed situation diplomatically.

Until the Chinese “volunteers” crossed the Yalu in November 1950, the Chinese involvement in North Korean politics seems to have been minimal. And yet, when the North Korean régime's very life and the Chinese border were threatened by the massive assault of the United Nations forces, the Chinese quickly came to the aid of the North Koreans. What is Chinese policy toward Korea? What are the prospects for Sino-Korean relations? Such questions will concern us for a long time. This article details part of the historical background to them.

The cultural level of North Vietnam is undoubtedly one of the lowest imaginable. Eighty per cent, of the population is illiterate, ignorant to an incredible degree and subject to the most extraordinary superstitions. Apart from the masses there remains the élite—and the hopes that one should be able to place in the youth. But here, also, we find the same deep division that was created in the population as a whole by the war—on the one hand the members of the Resistance and on the other those who remained outside it.

Recent years have seen a flurry of debate about China's ability to feed itself. In his article “Who will feed China?” and his book of the same title, Lester Brown predicted that China would need grain imports of 200 million tonnes by the year 2030 – an amount that would severely tax the world grain market. Scholars and journalists, both in China and abroad, have weighed in with contradictory analyses and predictions.

A young girl was walking along the road to Hung-wu-chen, the road which led to market. You would say she was about seventeen or eighteen, and clasped in her arms she carried a white hen. Trotting by her side was a little girl of seven or eight who had come along to buy some little cakes and see what was going on. They were sisters, and their names were Kai-kai and Eh-eh. The sisters talked as they went.

If one were to choose a single adjective to apply to the pattern of Communist China's foreign relations since the Moscow declaration of 1960, “reactive” would be as nearly accurate a choice as any other. China's circumstances during 1961 and 1962 provide ample reasons for a reactive posture. The crisis in the economy, though not exactly measurable, has been evident. The course of internal politics has been less clear. The dominant trend has been a controlled retreat from the organisational methods of the Great Leap Forward. In the course of this manoeuvre, the role of the Party and its relation to non-Communist elements hi the population, organised or unorganised, has had to be redefined. What may be more diagnostic of this period, however, is a serious decline of public morale and of confidence in the régime.

Communist literature on “Contemporary (post-May 4) History” in which China begins a “bourgeois democratic reVolution” is more than an ideological exercise; it is autobiographical. The leading character is none other than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself. The emotional inVolvement of mainland scribes is comparable to that of a public figure writing his biography. Every event from 1919 to the present is regarded in the light of the CCP's role. Communist leadership is even attributed to the May 4 Movement, which antedated the Party's formation by two years.

In 1980 when I took over the editorship of The China Quarterly from Dick Wilson, I was conscious of two main challenges. One was the administrative and managerial challenge of editing the journal with the degree of efficiency that would be required; the other was the editorially strategic challenge posed by the unfolding of events in China as reform and opening to the world gained pace.

Since the change of political régime on the Chinese mainland in 1949, new values and attitudes have been consciously introduced by the Communist Party. The family institution has undergone a rather drastic alteration not only in form but also in composition, structure, roles of its members and especially in values and patterns of mate selection and marital adjustment. According to traditional Chinese social values, one should marry a person of relatively similar social background consistent with the concept of homogamy discussed by Burgess and his associates. The traditional Chinese sentiment often referred to the marriage of two individuals whose family front doors faced each other as a good match, implying that they had matched family backgrounds in residence, social class, occupations, education, economic status and other values held important in pre-Communist China. The strong emphasis laid by the Communist Party on indoctrinating every citizen in the political ideology of socialism and communism in true totalitarian form covers every phase of his life, including that of marriage. In the course of Communist rule, slightly more than a decade, this political emphasis has often come in direct conflict with the traditional value of social homogamy in mate selection and marriage.