The Press: Paperless Tiger

The Monday edition of Communist China's biggest newspaper, Peking's People's Daily (estimated circ. 1,000,000), went down from eight pages to four. The Red Flag, semimonthly bull horn of the Party Central Committee, now occasionally publishes monthly. In Hong Kong, the customary array of Red Chinese propaganda—some 150 different periodicals in 1959—has dwindled to a meager dozen, and a few bookstore browsers were amazed to learn that one steady seller was no longer available: the collected works of Red China's Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

Behind these statistics lies no benevolent Red Chinese plan to ease up on peddling of the party line. Fact is...

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