Of Geese & Ballyhoo

To celebrate the end of Red China's month-long trade fair at Canton last week, a chorus of mountain girls sang of their yearning to be turned into wild geese so they could fly to Peking to be with Chairman Mao. Mao wishes that more Western businessmen would share that ardor, but his yearning has little more chance of fulfillment than that of the girls. Fewer countries sent delegations to the fair than in the past. While the range of goods that the Chinese showed off was wider, the quality showed only scant improvement. The Chinese-made suitcases were so heavy as to constitute a load in themselves, had unreliable locks. Many of the canned foods caused heartburn. The Chinese wines tasted like fruit juice.

As at previous Canton fairs, there was an emphasis on light industrial goods: bicycles, radios, toys. The Chinese also showed off such major capital items as locomotives, turbine generators and transformers, but they were not for sale. Reason: they are too desperately needed at home to further domestic production, were included in the show strictly for ballyhoo. To some visitors, the poor state of the fair seemed evidence that Red Chinese industry is reflecting the strains of Peking's backing of Hanoi in the Vietnamese war.

Nonetheless, the Chinese made some sales. Visitors were impressed by low-cost, simple-to-operate lathes, printing presses and weaving looms, and representatives of African and Asian nations placed substantial orders. Japanese businessmen were the biggest buyers, ordered $10 million worth of pig iron and iron ore and large quantities of soybeans and maize. Typically, though, they took home more money than they left behind, made deals to sell the Red Chinese $100 million worth of steel plate, stainless-steel tubing and heavy truck axles. In Peking this week, France will take its turn at supplying Red China's urgent demand. The French are opening a huge industrial exposition for which they carefully selected each exhibit to satisfy concrete interest expressed by potential Red customers.

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