Teng Hsiao-ping’s visit to America has focused attention upon the far-reaching changes taking place in China at this time. Visitors to China before 1978 could never have imagined that the changes of the past few months were possible. Less than two years ago a prominent Christian leader, after returning from China, wrote: “What of the future? One can assume that the leadership of China will hold to its present policy of self-reliance, declining all offers of aid and assistance from mission societies, Peace Corps volunteers, United Nations agencies, and other persons or groups bearing gifts and services. Chinese government representatives in Peking and foreign capitals politely declined offers of help at the time of the earthquake disaster in Tangshan in the summer of 1976. Liberated from a century of humiliating foreign incursions and dependence, the Chinese will not easily surrender their present self-sufficiency.”
The principle of self-sufficiency advocated by Mao Tse-tung has now been laid aside in favor of Teng Hsiao-ping’s drive to modernize China. Instead of struggling against the “Four Olds” of the Cultural Revolution ...
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