PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION

Wherever we visited there were impressive examples of the renewal of China's pride in its past and its faith in the future. The People's Republic is locating and restoring relics and artifacts of China's rich history, a small sample of which is now on exhibition in the United States. Each province I visited had a provincial museum, with collections consisting primarily of items found or excavated since the inception of the People's Republic. The displays are often politically oriented to stress the exploitation of the peasants in old China.

Everywhere, historic treasures, such as the Ming Tombs, the Lungmen caves in Lo-yang and sections of the Great Wall have been restored and elaborated for public use. This emphasis on traditional cultural excellence complements the national theme of self-reliance looking to the strength, resilience, and ingenuity of the Chinese people for the wherewithal to develop the new China.

As for the future, there is obviously not yet a great deal being done to curb air pollution. Factories throughout China belch much black smoke and the rivers carry an increasing burden of industrial effluents. On the other hand, the absence of automobile transportation in China makes the problem of air pollution less pressing. Everywhere there are projects to preserve China's natural resources. Mass plantings of trees, for example, have been carried out in cities and the countryside to the extent, it is said, that the climate has been changed for the better in some areas. Every place I visited had conservation projects which local officials pointed to with pride. In the Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region, for example, where the beautiful scenery and pure air and water of the environs of the city of Kuei-lin have been held in high esteem for centuries by the Chinese, there is an awareness of the need to preserve these assets. However, the area now contains 260 factories and efforts are just beginning to be made to curb the adverse effects of these new additions to the landscape. A paper-making plant, for example, which once discharged caustic soda is initiating a process to reclaim the soda. A coal-fired thermal power plant which discharged dregs into the Li River now makes bricks out of this refuse.

The imprint of the new China on nature is perhaps best seen in Honan province, which lies in the basin of the Yellow River, the cradle of Chinese civilization. What has been done in harnessing the Yellow River epitomizes China's emphasis on conserving resources and making the best out of its natural assets. The Yellow River is critical to China's well-being, but it is fickle, having changed its course 26 times in recorded history, always with devastating consequences. In past decades and centuries, the river was better known as China's sorrow. It was said that before the beginning of the massive control projects there were droughts in the upper river plateau area nine out of every ten years, while in the lower reaches there were recurrent floods.

The river is named Yellow because of the vast amounts of silt it carries from the uplands, 81.4 pounds of silt per cubic meter of water compared with the 2.2 pounds per meter carried by the Nile. For many centuries there have been protective dikes along the lower reaches of the river. But the constant siltation and diking has resulted in building the bed of the river from 9 to 21 feet higher than the adjacent

land. Some areas farther removed are as much as 60 feet below the river bed. Hence, the Yellow is sometimes called "The river in the air."

Before 1949, there were, on the average, two floods every three years due to breaks in the dikes, bringing misery and death to millions. There have been no breaks in the dikes since that time. Inhabitants remember with special bitterness that in 1938 the dikes were deliberately breached on orders of a Nationalist Chinese military commander to halt the advancing Japanese Army. It is said that the resulting flood killed 890,000 Chinese.

Massive control work has been carried out over the last 25 years. Five major dam projects have been built on the Yellow River and 78 more on tributaries. Some 140 diversion projects have been constructed in the lower reaches. Extensive projects to prevent soil erosion have been completed or are underway upstream and vast irrigation works have been constructed downstream. Ten million people in Honan Province alone are engaged in water conservation work. The flood prevention work has been so successful that one commune leader told me, “Our fear is no longer of the river flooding, but of not having enough water for irrigation."

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Since 1949, I was told, average grain production has increased proximately tenfold in this area. Much new land has been brought into cultivation by building up the level of the land through deliberate and controlled flooding and siltation. The process will be continued until the land nearest the levees is at the highest flood level.

Another impressive example of rural development was seen in Huihsien County in Honan Province where thousands were at work creating new land out of seemingly impossible terrain and building massive irrigation works. I was told that there were no figures on the amount of new farm land created in this way but it was obviously vast. The new land, terraced by hand-cut rock walls, marches steadily up the hillsides, ending only where there is solid, barren rock. These projects, all irrigated, are initiated and carried out by production teams whose members receive the primary benefits therefrom. Thus, economic as well as patriotic incentives are provided..

Huihsien County is considered a national leader in irrigation works and in creating productive land out of non-productive areas. In the district in which the county is situated only 5,000 acres of land were irrigated before 1949. Now, 833,000 acres are irrigated and there are plans to irrigate 350,000 more. Water comes from a variety of sources to supplement an inadequate rainfall, tributaries of the Yellow River, the ingenious tapping of underground streams, natural springs, and wells. 1974, notwithstanding a bad drought, it was said that production was still above last year's.

I inspected an irrigation system which brings water by an underground canal which is covered over so that grain can be planted on top. The water is carried through a series of five pumping stations and vast stone and concrete aqueducts which lift the water a total of 280 feet. It is then dispersed through 32 miles of smaller canals to irrigate 5,350 acres of land. The project was paid for and constructed in three years by fourteen brigades from two communes. Grain production has increased from about 530 pounds per acre to 6,000–7,900 pounds per acre.

In the same district another system pumps basin waters into a hilltop storage reservoir. Still another local project carries water into the next county in a series of tunnels carved through solid rock, with the canal covered over by a paved roadway. I inspected the 800 yard long Yu Kung, or "Foolish Old Man Tunnel." It is named after a well-known Chinese fable of how a seemingly impossible task was accomplished through hard work and perseverance from generation to generation. The setting for the fable was the Hsin-hsiang area and the people there carry on the tradition in their daily lives.

Self-reliance applies also to power production. In Kwangtung Province, in South China, I visited a small hydroelectric plant containing Chinese-made turbines, which utilizes water carried by tunnel from a multipurpose reservoir. The reservoir is used not only to generate power for agriculture and industry, but also for flood control, as a source of irrigation water for 75,000 acres, and for raising fish. The power plant's output ties into a province-wide grid even though most of the rural areas in the grid produce at least part of their power-needs through small hydroelectric plants operated by communes, brigades, and individual production teams. Excess power is sold to the state which feeds it into the provincial system.

When one sees such massive man made works as those being created throughout China, the Western concept of gross national product as a measure of economic progress and well-being appears to have little relevance. Many of the services which enter into the Western GNP, such as the cost of garbage and sewage disposal, antipollution works, and alcoholic and drug treatment centers, not to speak of advertising and the fancy packaging of goods, are irrelevant in the Chinese system. Much of China's needs, which in the Western world would require large capital inputs, are being met by recycling and reuse and immense inputs of labor. It is a frugal and self-sufficient society fully at work.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

Planned development, decentralization, and self-reliance were all exemplified in Honan Province. Not only is the province highly productive in agriculture, it is also a growing industrial center. Chengchou, the provincial capital, has grown in population to 1,100,000 from 150,000 in 1949. It is expected that the city's population will be stabilized and further growth in the area will be dispersed in new villlages in the rural areas. The population of other major cities, like Shanghai, is also being kept in bounds by sending young workers to less-crowded centers as well as by population control measures.

From eight small factories, Chengchou's industrial base has increased to 800, some of which employ thousands of workers. I visited a factory which makes machinery for the many textile plants in the area and the nation as well as for export. There were 5,000 workers in the plant, compared with 300 in 1949. I was told that 45 percent of the 2,000 machine tools used in the plant were designed and made there. The factory had a hospital, dining halls, a nursery, kindergarten, a middle school, a spare time higher education facility and recreational facilities.

Apprenticeship for technical workers in the form of on-the-job training lasts up to three years with pay of about $15 a month during the

training period. Average wages within the plant were about $30 a month. Thirty percent of the technical force was composed of women and the percentage is on the rise. Retirement is at age 55 for women and 60 for men, with a pension of approximately 70 percent of the last pay received.

A tractor factory visited in Lo-yang, also in Honan Province, produced 24,300 tractors and bulldozers in 1973. Detroit would probably regard the assembly lines as antiquated but, relative to what existed in old China, the factory was a technical marvel. It had been created, moreover, largely by the Chinese themselves.

One of its main products is a 40 horsepower wheeled tractor which was designed and tooled by the factory workers. Ninety percent of the machine tools in use in the plant were Chinese-made, including twenty percent fabricated in the tractor factory itself. Only ten percent, dating from the period of Sino-Soviet cooperation, had been imported.

The average wage is $27 a month. Workers also have free medical care, housing at about $1 per month, free educational and recreational facilities, and sick pay and retirement benefits.

In Yunnan Province I visited the Number 2 Kun-ming Machine Tool Plant which makes precision, high-speed machine tools for a variety of appliances. Before 1949 the factory work force of 400 turned out only scales and small lathes. With a current work force of 4,000, the plant manufactures more than 100 types of heavy machine tools. In recent years the workers have designed and produced thirteen new machines, some of which have been exhibited at the Kuang-chou (Canton) Trade Fair and are being sold for export. Many women work on the production lines. A concern over defense was evident here in the building of underground workshops behind the plant site.

In all factories, as well as on the streets, many posters were to be seen relating to production goals, and the campaign to criticize Confucius and Lin Piao. Occasional criticism of the factory management and other leadership was also expressed in this fashion. One official described it as "proletarian democracy" at work.

In every plant I visited, I was struck by the young age of the workers, most of whom appeared to be in their early twenties. China's industry was started practically from scratch and its greatest expansion has been in recent years. It is not surprising, therefore, that the young would run the machines of the new and growing industries.

CHINA'S MINORITY PROBLEMS

Strictly speaking, no Chinese race exists as such; the Chinese people are made up of many racial elements. But the people traditionally known in the West as "Chinese" are classified in China as Han, a name derived from the dynasty that ruled from the 2nd Century B.C. to the 2nd Century A.D. Throughout the years the Han people have constituted the central homogenous bloc, the expanding and assimilating core of Chinese civilization. In former times, those outside the Han populated areas were looked upon as "barbarians."

Hans comprise nearly 95% of China's present population. The remainder consists of 54 groups of peoples, totalling 40 million who are referred to as "national minorities." This 5% of the population is spread through 60% of China's land area. Non-Han peoples live in

large numbers in what have been designated as five "autonomous” regions. They are Inner Mongolia, Ningsia Hui, Sinkiang Uighur, Tibet, and Kwangsi Chuang.

The Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region, the area that generated the famous Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century, was formed in 1958 from what formerly had been Kwangsi Province. Twelve different national minorities live in the region, the largest of which is the Chuang nationality. There were no indications that Chinese policy is designed to erase the Chuang or other distinct cultures. On the contrary, a concerted effort is apparently being made to preserve the language and traditions of the minorities in this region.

Special attention is given to education of the minorities. Enrollment in primary schools of students from minorities is fifteen times that of 1950. Although text books are in Han Chinese and reading is taught in Han, there are also lectures in Chuang. Bilingualism, Chuang and Chinese, is common. In other areas, minority languages are also used. In the Kwangsi Chuang Region there are four teacher training colleges for minority students.

Each county has it own theatrical group which performs in the local language. There are special radio broadcasts in the Chuang language. In minority areas films are either shown with dubbing or subtitles which use the local language.

Population control is not promoted in the more sparsely populated nationality areas. The growth rate for the Chuang and Han populations in the region, I was told, are approximately the same, 2% annually. However, in the Double Bridge Commune, a Chuang community, the growth rate was only 1.5% per year.

The national minorities are represented in the government of the Kwangsi Chuang Region. There is no discrimination against them as regards membership in the Chinese Communist Party. Among the ranking party members for the districts, counties and communes, 40% are said to be from national minorities. In the Double Bridge Commune, six of the seven highest commune leaders are Chuang, including the chairman. At the local level, the indigenous idiom, not Chinese, is the spoken language. Records are kept in Chinese, generally a necessity since many minority languages lack written form.

The autonomous regions have more autonomy in finance than regular provinces with some budget subsidization by Peking. On the regional level, a special fund has been set up to help solve special local minority problems. If an area's income is unusually low, it receives subsidies for health, education, economic development projects and so forth. There is also a policy which insures that prices of basic commodities in the most remote areas are the same as those charged in the cities.

Yunnan Province, which I visited next after Kwangsi Chuang, is the home of twenty-four different national minorities. These peoples comprise one-third of Yunnan's 23,000,000 population. There are eight special districts, or chou, and fifteen counties controlled by national minorities. These areas are autonomous in many respects. Policies of oppression and discrimination have been abolished and serious efforts are being made to improve living conditions, health, education, and general welfare of the minorities. As in Kwangsi Chuang the minorities have the right to use their indigenous languages and their own