Confucius Is Alive in Canton

By .

The sprawling commercial city of Canton (pop. 3,000,000), 110 miles by rail from Hong Kong, has for thirteen centuries been China's principal point of contact with the outside world, a traditional gathering place for both Asian and European traders. This month businessmen from more than 100 nations visited Canton for the semiannual trade fair, at which many of China's foreign-trade deals are arranged. Among the visitors to the fair was TIME Correspondent David Aikman. His report:

The lush, subtropical greens of Canton's trees and parks give almost no hint that fall is upon China. But there are other sights and sounds that do. On a typical November morning, the city's hordes of bicyclists are likely to be disturbed by trucks roaring out into the suburbs with gongs clanging and crimson banners flying. The trucks are full of high-school graduates who are being sent out for two years' manual work in the countryside "to learn from the peasants," in accordance with a Mao Tse-tung instruction first given in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution.

Relaxed Mood. No one really seems to be paying much attention. Down on Shameen Island, the gently crumbling foreign-concession area built by the 19th century European traders along the Pearl River banks, old men squat placidly over a game of cards and little girls hop in unison over their skipping ropes. Canton's mood is relaxed, visibly so in the curious but friendly glances foreigners get, or in the newly repainted names of stores: MOON BEAM FRUIT STORE and EASTERN SEA HERBAL MEDICINES now glow in soft pastels where only a few years ago there were strident slogans in gaudy red.

There are other signs of normalcy. A few weeks ago, a team of puffing European businessmen went down 2-1 at soccer to a pickup squad from Chung Shan University, which during the Cultural Revolution was the scene of violent clashes between rival Maoist factions. Currently, one of Canton's major problems, which seems less than earth-shaking to Western visitors, is an increase in petty crime. "There are class enemies who conduct sabotage activities," says Tseng Chen-cheng, a local Communist Party vice chairman. "Some of them tell our young people: 'While you are young, you must enjoy yourselves.' So some of the youngsters were led to steal and pick pockets."

According to Tseng, wayward youth are not the only ones who have failed to heed the teachings of Mao. In the residential district that he heads, some workers arrive late and leave early. His solution: more education and ideological indoctrination. What he means by education was apparent in a visit to the neighborhood primary school, where ranks of chanting, ten-year-old martinets were memorizing verses that told them of their ineradicable debt to Chairman Mao. Ideological work for their elders took place in a "recall bitterness" room, where melodramatic clay figures of pre-Liberation exploited workers were neatly set on display opposite a collection of San Francisco leftist poster art.

Latent Tension. Despite the friendly look of Canton, there is a latent tension beneath the city's surface. Inevitably, as China has regained confidence after the trauma of the Cultural Revolution, ideological purists in the party's top leadership have called for new campaigns against backsliding to pre-Cultural Revolution days. There has been a call for continuing revolution in the government superstructure. The attack on Confucius has intensified all over China. Some China watchers in Hong Kong regard this as a veiled assault on the moderating policies of Premier Chou En-lai by party leftists, since Confucius is charged, among other things, with having the Duke of Chou --a slave-owning aristocrat--as his patron. There has also been a continuing editorial onslaught on the surviving supporters of Lin Piao, Mao's disgraced former heir, who was killed in a plane crash in Mongolia in 1971.

Party members who barely kept their heads during the Cultural Revolution are wondering just how serious the current tremors will prove to be. But in balmy Canton, the political quirks of chilly Peking have always taken longer to gather steam. At present, the only furrow on the sun-drenched face of this ancient gateway to the outside world is minor criminality and antisociability.The Cantonese are hoping that the anti-Confucius campaign, with all its political implications, will pass them by.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.