Red China's Outward Leap
ALONG the main street of Rabat, the newsstands these days are plastered with copies of Peking's monthly picture magazine China in Spanish, Arabic and French—well printed but unrelievedly self-glorifying. In government offices in Rabat, Red Chinese experts discuss expansion of Morocco's tea production. In West Africa's Guinea, technicians from Peking are helping improve the rice yield. Cuban generals in Havana talk weapons and tactics with Chinese army officers. In backward Yemen, 2,000 Red coolies labor in the sweltering heat on a new highway for the Imam. No longer is Russia the sole voice or representation of Communism to the outside world. China's Mao Tse-tung is intent on showing the undecided, the needy and the restless that Russia is not the only Communist power that can offer aid and comfort.
The Challenge. Today Red China has diplomatic relations with 26 non-Communist countries, trade and economic ties with 45 more. Although its own economy barely makes ends meet, Peking even has a foreign-aid program of sorts. The planes into Red China are packed with foreign delegations from every corner of the globe: Cambodian educators to tour the schools, Japanese trade unionists to inspect the factories, South American left-wing journalists and youth leaders to see the banners and hear the speeches.
The junkets are free, the rice wine good, and the propaganda heady for the delegates of emerging young nations whose economic problems and recent revolutionary triumphs seem so similar to those Red China itself has experienced. Yellow skin is also an advantage in places where the classic colonialist enemy bears a clear Caucasian label. Feted in Peking two months ago, Guinea's Sékou Touré seemed more cordially at ease than he was on his later visit to Moscow.
When Red Chinese Ambassador to Cairo Chen Chia-kang arrived in Leopoldville last July to visit the new Patrice Lumumba government, he found an eager ally in Communist-leaning Vice Premier Antoine Gizenga. While Lumumba appealed to the Russians for planes and technicians, Gizenga asked the ambassador for arms and volunteers from China. Chen cautiously offered cash and advice instead, as his Peking colleagues have done in Guinea, Ghana and Morocco. For, though the Red Chinese might be prepared to stir up real strife later, their present limited goal in Africa seems to be quiet infiltration behind the scenes, to gain allies for Peking's struggle for world recognition.