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Perhaps the most frequent questions about Taiwan asked by non-specialists are those concerning the relationship of “native” Taiwanese to those of recent mainland origin. Are Taiwanese and Mainlanders one “people,” or two? How similar or different are their attitudes on a multitude of matters, especially political matters? Do they associate with one another very much socially? And how do Taiwanese fare economically and socially as compared with the Mainlanders on Taiwan?
In the years 1955–56, when it had already become evident that the star of the Stalinist Rákosi-Gerö clique was on the wane in Hungary, Ho Te-ch'ing was the Chinese Ambassador in Budapest. It soon became apparent that he was quietly establishing connexions with the opposition. Not only did he have free access to the highest Party circles and maintained regular contact with the Foreign Ministry (as could be expected of a Party and state representative) but the Chinese Embassy sponsored an extensive intelligence apparatus and was generally regarded as the best informed foreign post in the Hungarian capital. The Cultural Attaché, who spoke Hungarian fluently, maintained contact with Hungarian intellectuals. At the same time, correspondents of the New China News Agency and the Chinese exchange students in Budapest reported to the Ambassador on the activities of the revolutionary Petöfi Circle and the universities. The Ambassador himself travelled widely in the country, becoming acquainted with the local Party secretaries, councilmen and other leaders in the towns and villages. He was also prominent in the social life of the Hungarian capital; his two cooks and staff providing a lavish Oriental touch. While the Soviet Embassy invited Hungarian Stakhanovists (elite workers) to its receptions, Ho was more interested in entertaining leading writers, artists, economists and newspapermen, even those who were not outspoken supporters of the regime.
During the past 20 years, the politics of the Chinese in Malaya has been a subject of international interest.The Malayan Communist Party has been predominantly Chinese; it was Chinese politics in Singapore (briefly part of Malaysia) which produced the phenomenon of Lee Kuan Yew; and the Kuala Lumpur riots of May 1969 are widely thought to have been efforts to stem a Chinese challenge to Malay supremacy. The Chinese in West Malaysia, especially when taken together with those in Singapore, have earned the attention of governments, journalists and scholars alike. They form the largest concentration of Chinese outside of Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong; their economic life is among the most sophisticated in Asia; their social and cultural life probably the most complex that Chinese anywhere have ever known; and, above all, their political life has been more open and exposed than that of any other kind of Chinese. This last, their political life, has been difficult to evaluate for a number of reasons. The main reason is that two contradictory views about them have long prevailed: that the Chinese are non-political and that the Chinese are political in a secretive and inscrutable way. These views are based on a concept of politics in the democratic tradition and are either anachronistic or misleading. Chinese, Malay and colonial political systems have been, in varying degrees, authoritarian, and Chinese political life must be seen in that context except in the period 1957–69.
The writer on Chinese economic affairs may be forgiven for recalling an incident from early schooldays when the headmaster, introducing his pupils to The Odyssey, mused about its author: “Nobody, he said, knows for certain whether Homer ever lived; what is known, though, is that he was blind.” Turning to China, the student of contemporary affairs is similarly uncertain of his facts. He is facing the most populous, yet one of the industrially least advanced and statistically least well documented countries in the world. At the same time, China not only succeeded within two decades in developing its own nuclear striking force, but at the end of this short period of development it launched its first earth satellite. We are thus confronted with an entirely new situation, the study of which requires certain adjustments of the techniques of analysis usually applied. Today's “China-watchers” find themselves where 20 years ago the analysts of the Soviet scene were when they had to guess Stalin's intentions and successes on the strength of misleading indices related to unknown starting dates.