The argument presented here is that Hong Kong was sometimes, but not always, an exception to the overall pattern of Chinese foreign policy in the second half of the 1950s. This discrepancy existed because to China, Hong Kong was so many things – a British colony and as such an extension of the West, an Asian neighbour, and a territory to be someday reunited with the mainland. By reacting to Hong Kong in different ways the Chinese were using more discrimination than simply applying their grand strategy to each specific case.

What makes Manchuria a most promising industrial field … is the fact that coal and labour are obtainable at an extraordinarily low cost. … Although Manchuria possesses a population of forty millions, not a single piece of clothing worn by the inhabitants is manufactured in the province. All textiles required by the people are imported either from south China or from Japan. The starting of a spinning and weaving industry in Manchuria will be fraught with great possibilities. [Shirani Takeshi, Kwantung Civil Governor (1909).]

The analytical approaches so far devoted to the contemporary People's Liberation Army (PLA) have been of three general types. First, biographical studies which explain events in terms of the individual military leaders and their inter-relationships. Second, some students of the PLA have devised analytical models of informal power structures. The behaviour of the PLA in the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” has been interpreted by some as determined by personal loyalties, latent regionalism, and cliques formed around common service in military units prior to 1949. Others have viewed the PLA as split between “professional” commanders and the political cadres in the armed forces – sometimes dubbed a “Red versus expert” analysis. These categories of studies have one thing in common; they treat PLA institutions as being manipulated by informal and extra-legal forces. The third type of study emphasizes organizational and institutional frameworks. This paper falls into the third category. It asks the question: to what extent were the military institutions the subject or object of developments in the Cultural Revolution? It concludes that the organizational structures of the PLA and the missions assigned them heavily influenced the political behaviour of military leaders in the provinces.

When, in late 1924, the Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, arrived in Canton as an interpreter to the Comintern mission to the Kuomintang led by Michael Borodin, Vietnamese nationalism was at a watershed. Since the beginning of the century, armed resistance to French colonial rule had been led by the famous scholar-revolutionary Phan Boi Chau. For over two decades he and a small band of determined followers had been the only organized force in Vietnam opposed to French rule. By the mid 1920s, however, it became apparent that Phan's movement was nearing a dead end. More the activist than the theoretician, more impetuous than patient, he had given little thought to organization, ideology, and long-term planning, and after a series of serious setbacks, he was forced to watch his movement begin to disintegrate. His arrest by French authorities in Shanghai in 1925 was only symbolic of the waning influence of his movement in Vietnam.

As opposed to the practice of the early 1960s of expressing dissent through plays, short stories and literary forums, by 1962 and 1963 dissidence was expressed through discussions on Chinese history. Like the literati of old, Chinese intellectuals used their interpretations of history as criticisms of the regime, and the regime used contrary interpretations as rebuttals. While these debates were in actuality a subtle struggle over policy, they touched on some fundamental questions as to the dynamics of the historical process, the role of traditional values and the nature of man. They were conducted with a degree of sophistication and balance that had not been exhibited since the Communists had come to power.

China shares with the developing countries of the third world the broad objective of economic growth, starting from a condition the Chinese themselves describe as “poor and blank” relative to the material resources of the developed countries. Yet “self-reliance” has been the keynote of Chinese policies for ten years, and the Chinese now urge the rest of the third world countries to adopt the same principle for their own development. In broad terms, “development” refers to the improvement of a society's material welfare, resulting from economic growth and from appropriate measures of income distribution. In Chinese and, increasingly, in general usage, such economic growth is identified with the use of production processes and the production of goods new to the developing economy. “Self-reliance” does not necessarily preclude transfer of foreign technologies into the developing country, but specifies technological change which occurs in response to demands arising within the developing economy itself, rather than imposed on it from outside. In any country, demand for technological change and distribution of the fruits of technological advance are dependent on its political and social structure, as well as on economic factors, and on the country's international economic and political bargaining power. China, whose leaders have a particular perception of the implications of these relationships for their development objectives, is an especially significant “case study” of the use of science and technology for national development.

Ying Wei-chen, the narrator of the following account, is the chairman of the Revolutionary committee of the Huang Tu Kang People's Commune in the southern suburbs of Peking, and secretary of its Party committee. In 1952 he organized the first agricultural co-operative in the Peking area, and he was a deputy to the 9th Party Congress in April 1969. He is an agile stocky man of 48, and widely respected.