SINGAPORE: Test of Strength

In Singapore, bastion of British strength in Southeast Asia, the Communists at last felt strong enough to attack in the open. For months they had worked to infiltrate the local Chinese, who make up 80% of the city's 1,200,000 population. They wormed their way into control of unions, and organized a handy riot squad of 3,000 students (whose schools, say wags, now teach "reading, rioting and 'rithmetic"). To pay their way, they shook down wealthy Chinese merchants, those shrewd barometers of "who's ahead," who have become convinced that Red Peking is the way of the future.

Last week the Communists proclaimed...

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