IN the cavernous Peking Gymnasium a former diplomat named Yao Teng-shan last month was unceremoniously dragged before a gallery of 4,000 approving spectators, then forced to bow down in humble obeisance while his hands and arms were twisted behind his back. The leader of a Red Guard unit during the frenetic Cultural Revolution, which all but paralyzed China between 1966 and 1969, Yao was accused of mounting a raid on the Chinese foreign ministry, burning down the British chancellery, and plotting a personal assault on Premier Chou Enlai. Yao's reported sentence: ten years...
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