President Chiang Kai-shek's death on 16 April and President Gerald Ford's announcement that he would visit Peking in the autumn of 1975 once again direct attention to the political future of the Republic of China and the 16 million inhabitants of Taiwan. Progress towards diplomatic normalization between the United States and the People's Republic of China has been slower than many would have expected following President Nixon's visit to the mainland in February 1972. For the island's inhabitants any dramatic change in their political status may spell a permanent alteration in their life style, which has become substantially different from that of the mainland. Precisely because of this, one needs to look closely at their political aspirations and the socio-political changes that have occurred. Any political solution for Taiwan's future should be analysed with respect to its impact on these vital human interests.

The Cultural Revolution was a large-scale self-examination by the Chinese of their political system, involving all the ruling groups as well as the whole population. Not only specific policy issues but also social. economic and political institutions and their value premises were subjected to this examination. Hoping to reverse the trend towards social restratification based on Party bureaucratism, Mao sought to build a mass consensus on the future direction of the revolution. However, in the process of “freely mobilizing the masses,” some social groups found that their interests called for a radical restructuring of the Chinese political system, while those of others lay in the status quo. As the Cultural Revolution (CR) unfolded, the masses and the elite further divided among themselves over the various issues: elite groupings took conservative or radical positions, and formed coalitions with corresponding sections of the masses. Consequently, the division between the radicals and the conservatives cut through both the elite and the masses and set in motion forces that gave the Cultural Revolution its distinctive character.

Vague and often somewhat contradictory impressions of equality and inequality in China abound. Some recent visitors to China have reported that income differentials there have been reduced to nominal levels. At the same time the recurring themes of the class struggle and the dangers of revisionism alert us to the continuing conflict within China over the inequalities that still exist. In this paper I try to draw together the scattered pieces of information already available in order to examine, first, the kinds of inequalities that do continue to exist in China, and then the policies designed to affect the transmission of these inequalities over time and from generation to generation, or, in other words, stratification. Although the available information is not precise enough to permit any systematic comparisons with other countries, I hope to be able to arrive at some rough impressions of the extent to which the Chinese elite has been successful in producing a society with more equality and less stratification than is generally the case elsewhere.

The production of chemical fertilizers has been one of the most successful industries in China in the past two decades. It has not only manifested a remarkable long-term growth rate but also avoided shortterm fluctuations. During the crisis years of the early 1960s when virtually all industries suffered set-backs, the production of fertilizers managed to progress steadily. Its success is attributed to a number of favourable factors. First of all the importance of chemical fertilizers in developing China's agriculture was fully recognized by all leaders in the Party after their early policy of reliance on the mobilization of natural fertilizers had failed. Consequently, in spite of the frequent power struggles, the chemical fertilizer industry has received uninterrupted emphasis and support. Secondly, the technological problems in producing fertilizers are less formidable than in some other industries so that in a relatively short period the Chinese have learned the basic methods of producing fertilizers and of manufacturing new equipment for this industry. Thus, production has been able to expand whether under the foreign embargo or under the self-imposed policy of self-reliance. Finally, there is no serious resource barrier in the provision of key materials for the production of fertilizers.

Wu Kuei-hsien is a miracle of the modern age. She, like millions of her generation and generations before her, was born to poverty. Childhood she survived by gathering cinders to sell. Work evolved, and Liberation brought rewards. By the age of 25 she was received by Chairman Mao at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Peking and graced there with the title, “labour heroine.” In her early 30s she was promoted to the Central Committee, an inner circle of Party leadership. By her late 30s she became China's first woman vice-premier.

I visited China for 46 days in the months of July and August 1974, almost exactly two years after my first visit in 1972. The interval between my two visits coincided very closely with the growth of the campaign to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius, which reached an intense level at the time of my most recent visit. In my own view, the campaign was the second wave of the Cultural Revolution in succession to the first wave formed by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In both, the educational movement or revolution has played and is playing a very prominent role and has in turn produced very visible effects on China's science and technology.