(00:00:00) Is a certain protocol to be followed when you visit a senior member of the Chinese government suppose. It happens to be Vice Premier Concha in economic Overlord and the fourth or fifth most powerful politician in the country. Well you arrive so that your up the steps and going through the doors the clock strikes vice-premier then appears at the far end of the hall with the tendon staff Fanny out behind like the Robes of the train informal photograph shaking hands then a formal group picture so that you can have a souvenir of your visit this a tea and polite talk your first visit to China No, in fact method was it cold up in the northern oil fields? Yes, but it was very funny. Then more cameras newspaper and television this time and then to the serious business of where China thinks it's (00:00:47) going there only were there to cut out the person is not Allah bless her being handled. (00:00:58) The Industrial Enterprises you have visited in action and the Machine building factories of how big and they are attaching all your field represent the industrial level of China at present. We think now we already have fairly big industrial foundation and very strong one at that. But in terms of Technology it is that of the 50s, you know Industries and the productivity in our factories is very low it is three times lower or sometimes five times or 10 times lower. Then the advanced capitalist countries the developed countries. So this is a very big gap. A modernizing our industry will first raised the technical level of the present industry Enterprises in China has to raise it to the level of the 70s in the world. This requires us to develop our own technology and import advanced technology from foreign countries will be able to modernize our country and our people will become rich rich. No doubt of the Americans the once despised capitalists. The Chinese are now going to have normal diplomatic relations with biotechnology and Coke from and in whose currency they plan to borrow money in this program will show you how the Chinese see themselves their obsession with modernizing it home and with containing the Russians abroad and the Very considerable political risk. They're taking to achieve both objectives. It is so far as we know the first time members of the present government of recorded off-the-cuff interviews as distinct from their usual prepared statements. Well, but one regretfully will be speaking through an interpreter, but then I don't know British Minister able to conduct an interview in Chinese. And as they talk I think you will see how the weekends agreement with President Carter means more than the mere ending of a deep and a bitter breach and why for example, China will prepare to promise even to keep its hands off to test a Taiwan in order to get it. But back to vice-premier can't Shen. A grizzled chain-smoking ash spill a man with silk socks and an amused face who 20 years before drove in a jeep through the roadless the alternately freezing and mosquito ridden grass land. That is now China's biggest oil field almost within spitting distance of Russian troops. Incidentally. (00:03:31) It is Imam Ahmad Shah Got Sushi custodian. Idiot, (00:03:43) for example in the early years of the founding of the People's Republic. We imported technology from the Soviet Union. We also got learned from the Soviet Union, but it's attached political streams on it in an attempt to control us. So we rejected it. That was why the Soviet Union tore up all the contracts with China in our exchanges with Japan and other European countries in terms of Technology. There are no conditions attached. And now of the evaluation of the US dollars. The American Goods have achieved great ability to compete with other Goods because now in the international market the American goods are cheaper than goods from other countries and with the revaluation of the Japanese Yen and Deutsche Mark. Where goods are relatively more expensive than the American Goods. So this really is the problem. Well, one of the easier ones China is normally an unhurried country where the ponies the mules the water buffaloes that still form the backbone of its Freight transport. They jog when they're pressed in the Amber when they aren't and where the knees are a myriad cyclists revolve like decorous it would Ian Pistons China's new leaders knew that is since 1976 have sprung into frenetic diplomatic and financial activity by the realization the country has somehow or other managed to lose ten years of its life 10 years of economic growth schooling science art. This weird decade began with Chairman Mao's cultural revolution in 1966, and it ended with his death and the disgrace of his wife and closest Associates famous gang of four. It's object may have been to make China a fairer more egalitarian society than it was obviously becoming by checking the growth of a high earning Elite that was based on skill and education but the consequences of the chaos that produced. Well, this is how it's summed up by manager of the bank of China's business department new each eye. The Renminbi is incidentally bank and official speak for the Chinese currency, which everybody else calls a one. (00:06:15) Change your YouTube kissing and chilly Electro tranquil you come here sometimes sometimes 1974 to 1976. The loss of our national economies was about 100 billion Renminbi the losses for the steel above twenty eight million times and the losses for fiscal Revenue about 40 building the national economy had come to the brick of disintegration (00:06:51) Bankers talk. I don't think so here is mr. Chong Ming of the Shanghai Planning Commission Now Shanghai is one of China's major industrial centers, but it also happens to be in the home base of the gang of four and it's an edge Ali uncomfortable place where nobody volunteers information about the Melissa after (00:07:09) the Searing pain. The war machine. Derek is efficient. You are like (00:07:16) Without their interference and Sabotage by the gang of four. We would have been developed our Industries very fast. The gap between our country and advanced countries in the world before the cultural revolution. There was not so big for instance that the in the year of 1965 the gap between our country and the foreign Advanced countries is about 10 years. But during the cultural revolution as sabotage interference by the Lindbergh click and gang of four there. We make a retreat of ten years all together. Now the big gap between our country and the advanced countries of the world is 20 years and that time our national economy as also the economy in Shanghai just at the edge of bankruptcy very dangerous at that time. It's worth remembering that gang of four phrases, very convenient casual to indicate that you know, the pre-1976 policy was Daft without actually blaming the late Chairman Mao for it. Anyway, you get the same story repeated up and down. The country blast furnace is allowed to cool and the metal solidify in them of rolling Mills losing 200,000 tons of output in three years of output figures faked if not by force entries and by turning out metal and pipes and components of quite unusually low quality. That however can and is being put right output is going up quality standards are going up even if most notably in Shanghai now the quality not in some cases discipline a back to 1960s levels. But the terrifying Gap is in skill in education, you know, it's hard to credit what actually happened to the schools and universities of China until you hear it at first hand in this case from the very tall very gentle flatly stooping vice president of Peking University the biochemist Professor Chung longsheng. The only man on this program confident enough of his English to speak without an interpreter. Peking is the prestigious University of China capable of holding 10,000 (00:09:37) students, we just stopped enrollment. Yes you for four years and the first batch of students we are enrolled is in 1970 at that time according to the teaching of Chairman Mao education. You should serve the politics of the proletariat and should be combined with productive labor. And the period of schooling should be shortened. Formerly. The university has five years for humanities and social science and six years for Natural Science, and that period of scoring has been shortened to three years the system of a romant was changed. Some of them are not up to the standard. somebody even primary school graduates therefore waiting for this year's we lost more than 10 years. As far as specialist training is concerned. Are you coming back to normal now? Yes beginning this year. We have a unified entrance examination sponsored by the Ministry of Education the culture background of the freshmen entering this University this year very evidently. The level has been raised do any of these new students belong to the Lost Generation? Yes, because some of them are already around 30 years old and they are senior middle school graduates say in the period of 1966 67 or 68. They were deprived of the opportunity of entering University. (00:11:27) That's four years of new University teaching whatsoever followed by six of truncated courses barely literate students many of whom refused to take exams. I know one man who actually was a student at Peking during that period and had as he admits the time of his life doing sweet. Oh, I met a next teacher who graduated in just the year when the trouble started and she said the teachers in schools up and down the country had quite a bit of fun too because you see since their children had caught the current anti-intellectual fashion and they didn't want to learn teachers didn't have to teach and they didn't have to go to all the bother of preparing lessons just write a few words on the board and draw your pay it hard to imagine. It could have been quite so bad. (00:12:10) Yes. I think she tears the truth. Of course the gang of four they're logged on intellectuals and during the this for years of suspension of University work practically every teacher went to the countryside to get what they call removed. See that the university making up for this big gap. How long will it take to oh in China we say it takes 10 years to bring up a generation of intellectuals probably 10 years. We need probably with five years to raise the standard of primary and middle school education and for University and maybe another five years. Therefore. I really if we want to have our University graduates up to the world standard, maybe 10 years. (00:13:15) to try and Telescope the process workers are being released for part-time training and for something very like sandwich courses to bring them up to University standard and you are bombarded on radio and television with this sort of Crash Course foreign language teaching not for fun and foreign holidays, but because English in particular is the international language of Science and Technology and the Americans now, please open your books at page (00:13:41) 84 page 84 (00:13:45) keys King Bach has shu-fen daddy passed yet. exercise (00:13:52) 2 Can you talk in Chrome? Please listen first. one (00:14:01) there are (00:14:02) three people in the picture. their (00:14:07) workers (00:14:10) how many people are there in the picture? There are three. They soldiers (00:14:19) no they aren't. Oh, yes, they are soldiers Russian soldiers thousands of them all along the border of the Chinese equivalent of Reds under the bed. Currently. The latest Chinese spy film on the villains will be Russians wearing English Tweeds and drinking American Beer. It's great stuff go and talk to the Chinese equivalent of a junior foreign minister slight silky and silvery vice-minister. You cha and ask him. What's the biggest threat in his mind World Peace The Interpreter incidentally is the same senior United Nations girl who translated for vice-premier come (00:14:55) the issue just (00:15:02) in my opinion the biggest threat to world peace now is so that hegemony is mmm. It is seeking hegemony everywhere. It is engaged in the question expansion everywhere in the world why the United States is trying to protect its vested interests. The continued rivalry between the two will lead inevitably to a new world war. So I think a present in this world the biggest threat to the independence and security of all countries and the world peace. Is this the stove at hegemony is mm. I think an increasing number of people have come to realize the threat of the Soviet Union and they're working hard to cope with such a threat but some people have failed to see this danger or rather. Some people do not want to see this danger. Some people may think that China is bellicose warlike. Actually we are not bellicose at all. We only say that some people are bent on launching a wall and we must be vigilant against this danger so long as we maintain vigilance and strengthen our struggle and preparation will be able to postpone the outbreak of the war and wherever that will be fought the focal point of service strategy lies in Europe. But in the circumstances when there is confront ation of the two forces in Europe, the Soviet Union will take actions first in peripheral areas such as the Middle East Africa and Asia to these actions of on the part of the Soviet Union are by no means isolated. They're part of his world strategy. They're aimed at grabbing strategic positions and strategic corridors said to encircle Europe. The Soviet Union also wants to cut off the connection between Western Europe and the United States. So as to occupy Western Europe in the end. America again, you see but supposing you go outside Peking and you go north towards the border with Russia across the interminably flat plane that contains the industrial Heartland of northern China and uncomfortably near the border the big oil field of dutching which has made China not only self-sufficient in oil but a net exporter. The board of Mark by rivers and the rivers are dotted with hundreds of mainly uninhabited islands and full of fish and Russian gun Birds. Reports of what they're up to go back to the provincial capital of Harbin a town that's redolent of a generation of white russian refugees, and they end on the desk of provincial deputy director Foreign Affairs Chung chato a Burly big man with a pugnacious lower lip understandable as person the circumstances, (00:18:02) whatever you need to go. Sweet girl of Fundy for instance. So wait kantos often stops the Chinese fishermen from going about their (00:18:18) work and even beat and (00:18:20) kidnap them. The so it's too frequently cross onto the Chinese side and unto the Chinese Island at mining. The Chinese Fisherman's work. For instance. Every September. There are about four or five hundred bills fishing for Mandarin fish along the river. The fishing area is about 100 kilometers. Within this area the Soviets always concentrate about 70 to 100 various kinds of gumballs to interfere with and prevent the normal work of the fishermen. They damage the bowls (00:19:03) and less even turn the hose (00:19:05) pipes on the Chinese fishermen in the face of the Soviet provocation the Chinese side of those self-restraint, but this does not stop the suicide from provoking or armed clashes and (00:19:20) even beating to (00:19:21) death the troops and civilians of the (00:19:24) Chinese. Back in the 60s when the cultural revolution started the Russian sent in small raiding parties to see how the Chinese would react and there was then a certain amount of shooting but that was a decade ago at present time (00:19:41) the situation along the border is basically required. There have been no armed clashes. But of course there is some friction for instance. So with tubes sometimes intrude on the Chinese territory making trouble for the farmers Russian aircraft sometimes fly into Chinese airspace. So you of their Armed Forces they often carry out Military Maneuvers taking China as their target. (00:20:16) And now you begin to see the attraction for China of a few squadrons of British areas and why defense ranks as one of the famous in quotes four modernizations to which China has now committed the three others being agriculture industry science when the Russians are that close you do wish that they would turn their attention more toward Europe in order to keep China over third world war. And anyway, what sort of world would it be in Peking Vice foreign minister uture. (00:20:48) even with your laptop you into that will make sure that we don't want to (00:20:56) walk. But we place no hopes all your Illusions as to whether we may not be involved in the Third World War. Of course. Nobody in the world can say for sure that the Soviet Union will not use nuclear weapons, but I think the greater possibility is a conventional Warfare. The purpose of launching War by the social imperialists is to grab properties and enslave more people if in the war they should kill all the people including the scientists and workers and destroy all the properties. What can you stand to gain in the world? The Soviets are certain that they have possess such great nuclear strength that it will destroy the world several times. If that is the case then where will they find themselves on this globe? We consider it simply nuclear blackmail even ten years ago. We would have said it was inconceivable for countries with systems as different as China and the United States to develop at the working arrangement that obviously is starting to evolve now can capitalism and communism cooperate and the lion lie down with the tiger. I think such things happened in the past during the second world war the Soviet Union cooperated with the United States Britain France to fight against the aggression of Hitler. And now if a country is seeking Global hegemony like Hitler did to establish a worldwide Empire. And if a country is engaged in aggression. And if such a war of aggression really breaks out. Why won't it be possible for all the countries subjected to such an equation to get United but the strange side of all I think is to see the problem with which China has begun to make friends with the capitalist countries around it in Southeast Asia while it's energetically suckering the Communist party's inside them that are intent on capitalism's overthrow. The truth is that capitalism has something the present Chinese government has decided it wanted very badly and that is material wealth. Vice Premier account said bluntly and unambiguously at the start of this program that it was his ambition to see the people Rich. The Chinese are growing disenchanted with do-it-yourself industrialization is it take the touching oil field which has become such a legend that school choirs all over the country sing about it. This is fairly typical. No touching present Vice chairman Lee. Hewko it's a professional Oil Man to his fingertips who within at the start translating incidentally is the half Swedish production manager (00:24:14) out here with that says when we eat Union Casa de bouncing woman's age Frank was so you she told me she's Ona and maths battle for oil or the mass movement for to Equitable of the oil field began in 1960. We mobilized people and material from all over the country to come to that King in the beginning of the battle for oil. The conditions were very hard there weren't any houses here. So the people lived in tents and on the grassland the climate is the weather is very cold from the end of October to the next year. Following year doing the following year. It's below zero and the lowest temperature will get to 40 degrees below zero centigrade in developing oil field. We mainly used the materials and technique of China. So in developing the oil field we learned or we we studied or we learned to experiences of other countries, too. The how this and our constructions was by our own staff and workers. It wasn't by professional building building (00:25:48) company. Actually. It wasn't intended to be quite such a solo effort only the Russians pulled out leaving the Chinese with substandard pipes and no lifting equipment. They had to hold edx into place with ropes and to ease plant into position with crowbars, but now compare that Grim self-sufficiency with the expansion plan for the refineries petrochemical plant (00:26:10) in the oil field. You have already imported a 300,000 tonne synthetic ammonia plant oberg. Insulation this installation has been put into production for two years already. Now. We are going to import the 300,000 excellent works this excellent Works has many units. Some of the units will be important from England some from West Germany some from Japan (00:26:44) The Siege economy principles on which China has been run since the Communists came to power historians might argue on which it has always been run. These are being quietly torn up by Vice Premier Concha, and (00:26:57) now they want me to go here going at the quarries are XX General result (00:27:05) we lack experience in industrial management. One of the problems facing the existing factories in China is that most of the factories are big and comprehensive or small and comprehensive. There's no specialization in those factories. And even in some Small industry Enterprises. They have the whole process from raw material to the processing of component parts everything. So this is one of the reasons for productivity. We're working to change such a situation. I'm Shannon steel and iron company, which you have visited is what we call and complete and comprehensive Enterprise. This is another steel and iron company about 40 to 50 kilometers away from ancient steel and iron company. It is called pink sheet steel and iron company, which is more but comprehensive. For instance in ancient steel and iron company. There's a very large machine repair implant, but being the Banshee steel and iron company, there's also a fairly large Plant like that the industrialists of Japan as well as Engineers of British steel corporations have visited those companies. They simply couldn't understand why China was doing so they said is it that China is too rich and they consider it the biggest waste I agree with them under his Direction. The Bank of China is preparing to borrow a broad as much and as often as the occasion demands try putting some of the guests is floating around to business manager new such as a few billion dollars for starters (00:29:01) your whom young lady you twice again Sonia you cannot put the Turkish, or maybe I think the long period Maybe I think this figure is not enough because of the fluctuation of the international currency. We prefer soft currency in borrow this money outside. Maybe the interest rate is high. But the exchange risk is as I think it's is less and when I say the soft currency, I mean that the currencies which are continuous to decline for instance US dollar and French friend. (00:29:49) I'm not sure the Americans will be flattered to hear their dollar described as a soft currency likely to be in continued decline meaning that the eventual repayments will be less than the original son borrowed. But the Chinese have always been expert Bankers that part of the program will go without a hitch, but the rest well massive modernization of Industry between now 1985 based on 14 main industrial centers, including Shanghai involving a hundred and twenty major complexes, including 20 new oil fields, and assuming an annual 10 percent growth rate in industrial output and the target of catching up with the west by the turn of the century. There's a school song about that, too. Now the Chinese except that the West is skeptical about the chances of pulling industry up as fast as this but the first priority anyways farming vice-premier come (00:30:40) laser male, but I knew your father so you had the we're seeing it again. (00:30:47) Why are we giving first priority to the development of Agriculture? I believe, you know, the reason China has a big population and food problem is a big one neural population in China. That is those people engaged in agricultural production count for 700 million. Most of the agriculture production is not that modernized and some is done by hand besides the crops are often affected by the (00:31:21) climate. (00:31:24) The way to develop our agriculture will naturally be different from the way to develop your agriculture in Europe because we have a large population and our arable land is very small on the best Chinese communes the Farms look like vast Market Garden straight out of a Seed Catalog in probably neat fertile and weed-free notice. I said the best communes it's a hard slog to bring China sulky soil up to this standard and there must be a lot of wretchedly parched and poor marginal land still around. Now if that cultivation is going to be modernized. It means a huge shift of population of the land the rural population accounts for 70% of the total population of China and I believe perhaps China is the country which has the largest rural population in the world. When we have modernized our agriculture, there will be a surplus of Labor power. But we do not intend to move part of the rural population into cities. If every people's communes can develop its own processing industries by making use of the local raw materials. The Peasants will become rich and the number of people going to the cities will be reduced. We want to avoid the imbalance between the cities and the countryside as is the problem with many countries in the world. Don't we all but setting that aside for the Moment The Peasants do know how to grow food how to level fields and irrigate crops by hand. They can't get the machines do it for them industry is not so adaptable and anyone who goes to China at the turn of the Year sees the evidence all too plainly. But first you need to know something about the new wage system that's been coming into most factories this Autumn it doesn't apply yet to office workers who ranked low in the Chinese order of Merit, you know ours is a socialist system which adheres to the principle of from each according to his ability to each according to his work it is impossible to realize the principal now of from each according to his ability to each according to his need originally our wage system is composed of two aspects The one is basic wages and the other is bonuses. The gang of four claimed the bonus system would stimulate the people to take the capitalist road. So they ordered the abolishment of the bonus system and this caused a great confusion in the wage system and the egalitarian Trend appeared in the absence of the high development of Industrious. I need the absence of the abundance of goods such egalitarian wage system runs counter to the Socialist principles and the feds have proved that this method is not workable. In the last few years in the factories people whether they worked or not and no matter how much they had produced and no matter whether the products they have produced were good or not. They would get the same wages. So have restored the original wage system, there's the basic wages and then there's the bonus system. If an Enterprise has done very good work and gained a lot of profit. to give to the stage and the workers in that Enterprise will get more bonuses. Otherwise, they will get less or even an you'll be too limited to 20% of basic wages. That is not the whole story. There are extra cash goodies for good time keeping hot and dirty working conditions economic use of raw materials. Low accident rate good maintenance low rate of rejects. The list is long enough for some workers to up their basic by a good 90% Now if three or four members of a family are working and they're almost doubling their pay then it seems to me that as night follows day. That is going to be a sharp rise in the amount of money in circulation. What's it going to be spent on the Chinese know what they want television sets and top quality bicycles. Now the shops are full of radius cameras and average quality bicycles. And none of these are rationed incidentally basic food and cotton are rationed but not wulin synthetics and the food ration in particular is more than most people can eat. Then there is Swiss watches selling for the equivalent of seven or eight months wages, but there are only 1 million Telly's in the entire country and waiting list for the best bicycles. Planners have boobed again. Do I hear Free Enterprise near it's more complicated than that. Is it factories get allocated materials according to what they're expected to produce during the year? But if productivity goes up so that the plants beat their target then they run out of materials early in December and stop. The compounds have been shut in Peking since the beginning of the month the main plant in Shanghai making computer-controlled grinding machines has barely taking over the lottery plants are somnolent but it's not easy to increase the output of steel or special castings and so on when even a Chinese rates of building a steel plant takes four or five years to lay down. And Shanghai Doc is Awash with unwanted coils of wire shipped in by Japan as part of a package deal the Chinese head to accept if they would get the bar on the pipe that they did one. Anyway, that's what they say around the docks. I said that the start of this program that you would hear the Chinese describing their country as they thought. Well here is vice Premier can volunteering an opinion of his own bat about the recent rash of new wall posters that are part of the nightly entertainment in Peking and to a lesser extent in Shanghai (00:38:03) think of nothing (00:38:07) more than 99 percent of the total population of China desire unity and stability and one to attain the goal of four modernizations. I believe you understand it because perhaps I you have seen the big character posters in Tiananmen Square and he see done I think from those posters you can see that the majority of the people Kini desire unity and stability and the four modernizations and this is the main current of course. There are few individuals who may have the opinions of this sort of and that's what but they don't constitute the main current. Which seems to indicate tolerance of if not actual complicity in the rather. Naughty things that are said that about some of the party luminaries living and dead. So I wouldn't quite call this wall posters the sudden outbreak Eve democracy best. Guess is that the most provocative are put up by what passes in China for the jet-set children of important men, but now several thousand of China's best and brightest 20 and 30 year olds. They're about to be sent abroad for several years to study Western technology really is fast as the West can take them and that is going to swell the number of young iconoclasts when they return home even if they don't return home with young capitalist of some of the old hands fear. We can't keep China and quarantine that vice-premier come and in the meantime Millions will slog away at their English (00:39:41) lessons, huh? This is the card you found our side young should die. You cook. That's all for today. Goodbye comrades.