Last Friday/Saturday we carried in adjoining columns an article arguing that there are clear indications of the Chinese leadership lowering its sights in respect of its modernisation plans on account of lack of resources, especially foreign exchange. Since this article was written, evidence has come to light which suggests that the architect of the highly ambitious modernisation plans, Mr. Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-ping under the old spelling) may be encountering resistance on ideological grounds as well. It will clearly be premature to rush to the conclusion either that his leadership is being seriously challenged or that the challenge, if it has arisen, is the result of the war with Vietnam for which he appears to have been largely responsible. In matters relating to so closed a society as China one must be cautious. After all, it is well known that hardly a Sinologist predicted the so-called great proletarian revolution, the course it would take, the fall and death of Marshal Lin Piao, Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s heir- designate, the return of Mr. Deng when the “Great Helmsman” was still alive, and so on. But by the same token it is vital to take note of ideological controversies when they begin to surface in the press. For one thing, there is often little else to go by and, for another, in the past these controversies have provided useful clues to the status of the power play in Beijing (Peking).
In the present case, the Chinese news agency has circulated two reports, one of them quoting one of the deputy prime ministers, Mr. Kang Shi-en, as saying that modernisation “cannot be bought or borrowed” and the other quoting an article in Beijing Daily (not to be confused with the far more important People’s Daily which is also published in Beijing) contending that “we cannot advocate the omnipotence of bonuses to the neglect of the role of political awareness.” The first report points towards the revival of opposition to foreign loans and of emphasis once again on self- reliance — this impression is reinforced by the report that Beijing has frozen $2 billion to $3 billion in contracts for Japanese equipment — and the second towards a resurgence of the Maoist approach to labour. And while the Chinese leadership has been rather ambivalent on the question of foreign loans, under Mr. Deng it has been fairly unequivocal on that of bonuses. Only as recently as December 2, 1978, the authoritative People’s Daily endorsed the concept of bonuses being linked to work. Indeed, China has of late been encouraging managers to reward their best workers with larger bonuses than for other workers. Thus, reversal on this issue would be a significant indication of the revival of Maoism, if not of the supporters of the “gang of four”, and by implication of the beginning of trouble for the third time for Mr. Deng.
The Times of India, 26 March 1979