TO TURN TO THE study of Japanese communism, Paul F. Langer's brief monograph is one of a series of comparative analyses of nonruling Communist parties being made by Stanford University's Institute of Political Studies." It does not significantly break new ground, but rather is a well-organized, careful summation of known data on the structure, strengths, and changing tactics of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), providing information that is particularly useful to the beginning student.

After sketching the evolution of the party before World War II years marked by organizational factionalism and ineffective leadership in a hostile, repressive environment-the author traces the postwar resurgence of the JCP. The party's modest but growing success at the polls in the past decade (despite a membership of only 300,000), its apparently

14 Agence France Presse dispatch, Manila, Sept. 30, 1974; from Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Oct. 1, 1974, p. P-7.

15 Dr. Langer is a member of the Social Science Department of The Rand Corporation.

profitable publications, and the Japanese tendency to respond in extremist fashion to "crisis-situations" are all factors that have made the JCP a force to be reckoned with.

At the same time, it would seem that the JCP's preoccupation with bread-and-butter issues, its current united-front pragmatism, and its "autonomy" and relative doctrinal moderation (the latter reflected in its attempt in recent years to avoid being drawn into the Sino-Soviet conflict) are singularly uninspiring and unattuned to the violence-prone dissent and inner turmoil of many younger Japanese today. It is Langer's view that while Marxism is still "the single most potent intellectual and political belief system in postwar Japan," it is losing popularity among the younger leftist intellectuals. If this is true, and if the JCP continues on its present course, then the distinctively Communist character of the party may be threatened.

While these considerations raise questions about the party's future, the relative success of the JCP to the present cannot be gainsaid. As one reads Langer's pages, with the Dake and Lachica works still fresh in mind, the contrast between the JCP's present via

bility, on the one hand, and the experiences of the Maoist NPA and the PKI, on the other, is striking. Dake's study leaves a clear impression of the gradually radicalizing effect of Peking's influence on the Indonesian political climate in general, and on PKI tactics in particular, in the year or so before the 1965 coup. Lachica similarly shows that Maoist ideology had a radicalizing effect on various youthful Philippine dissidents in the earlier 1960's and heightened their dissatisfaction with the ineffectual, united front policies of the underground PKP. In contrast, the present studied independence and neutrality of the JCP in the Sino-Soviet dispute (after a significant "tilt" toward Peking during 1962-65) has probably strengthened the party's short-term legitimacy and future "establishment" role.

What the long-term costs may be, both in terms of party strength and ideological appeal, remains to be seen. The respectability and yet declining popularity of Marxism in Japan may not be unconnected. To the surviving followers of Aidit and Sison, a glance at the JCP today may underscore the dilemma of all makers of revolution: "damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

the volume is unavoidably more

a body of historical data than a currently helpful analysis. Nevertheless, certain enduring patterns have carried over from the years when the United States and the People's Republic, albeit largely through surrogates, maneuvered for influence in Southeast Asia. Most obviously, American power is still directed toward shaping the outcome of the struggle in the Indochinese states in a way favorable to US interests, while China continues to hope for the emer

rection. North Vietnam has consistently avoided falling under the Chinese shadow, as demonstrated most recently by Hanoi's unwillingness to support the People's Republic in its territorial dispute with Saigon over contested islets in the South China Sea.

The theme of Sino-North Vietnamese unity of purpose is carried over into the author's discussion of Chinese behavior toward Burma and Cambodia. According to Gurtov, it was possible for China, at the height of the Cultural Revo

For example, he views the relatively restricted Communist movement of Thailand as significant to Peking only to the extent that it has created unsettled conditions in the northeastern part of that country, where the Americans maintain their major base area in support of intervention in Indochina. The assumption is that a US decision to cease backing its clients east of the Mekong would likely bring an end to the limited support the Chinese have given to the Thai Communists. This, in turn, "would put great pressure on North Vietnam to stop infiltrating guerrillas and military supplies" to the Thai insurgents through Laos. The argument, while in some respects plausible, seems to involve a misunderstanding of the relationship between Peking and Hanoi. The speculation seems to rest on the conviction that the Vietnamese Communists feel accountable to the giant to the north, although no evidence of Hanoi's vassalage to China is offered. The record, as interpreted by most observers, points in the opposite di

ment at Rangoon and to urge Burmese Maoists to rebel, because Burma was not strategically situated in terms of thwarting American aims in Indochina. Moreover, the Burmese government had earlier invited Chinese retaliation by refraining from denunciation of the US escalation of hostilities in Vietnam. (If Peking was then actually so eager to aid Hanoi, it seems strange that, almost simultaneously, rail shipments across China of Soviet supplies destined for beleaguered North Vietnam were impeded).

Cambodia, of course, is adjacent to Vietnam and therefore, following Gurtov's reasoning, could not be brusquely sent to Coventry by Peking. It is true that for six weeks after Sihanouk's overthrow in absentia, on March 18, 1970, the People's Republic Republic sought to do business as usual with Phnom Penh so that war materiel might still flow to the embattled Vietnamese Communists via the port of Sihanoukville (since restored to its former name, Kompong Som). However, in view of the fact that the Soviet Union was then also engaged in trying to keep a foot in the Cambodian door, Peking's initial correctness toward Lon Nol may well be ex

plained by anxieties related less to Southeast Asia than to global politics. If so, the author under discussion would seem again to have overlooked the transcendent importance of Soviet-Chinese animosity.

In sum, the Gurtov volume conscientiously surveys a wealth of material and presents a stimulating interpretation, though there is one serious mechanical problem in the presentation. The author is excessively attached to lengthy explanatory footnotes that appear in tiny print on at least half of the pages, sometimes equaling in verbiage the text above. Surely, anything worth reporting in such careful detail merited incorporation into the main body of the text. More importantly, however, the whole undertaking suffers from its initial premise that China views Southeast Asia as a zone of primary concern, whereas in fact the region is more likely accorded only peripheral attention in the larger context of China's pursuit of national security and great-power status.

FITZGERALD'S EXAMINATION of the connection between China and persons of Chinese ethnicity abroad further documents the fact that the People's Republic has sought to disengage itself from counterproductive involvement in Southeast Asia. He aptly describes the process that began in the mid1950's as one of "decolonization," suggesting a parallel between Western withdrawal from empire and the Chinese effort to avoid embarrassing entanglements in the countries to the south.

Earlier, beginning around the turn of the century, successive Chinese governments had attempted to strengthen themselves

through the mobilization of patriotic support from the Overseas Chinese. Particularly in the matter of financial contributions to the motherland, much was expected of expatriate sons, and much was received. However, depression and years of hostilities decisively lowered the rate of Chinese emigration and reduced the proportion of China-born in the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia. After World War Il, the northward flow of remittances, long so useful to China, began to decrease as fewer and fewer Overseas Chinese felt personally bound to a distant land. Each year, the value to China of the Chinese abroad lessened.

With the inauguration of the "Bandung spirit," the Overseas Chinese came to be seen as more trouble than they were worth. If the People's Republic aspired to effective influence in countries of Southeast Asia, emigrant sons would have to be left to their own devices and that is precisely what has been done. (In significant contrast, the authorities on Taiwan, trast, the authorities on Taiwan, who could not conceivably hope to shape the course of events in Southeast Asia, have displayed extreme reluctance to weaken whatever ties may have existed between themselves and the Overseas Chinese.)

Thus, both authors arrive at essentially the same conclusion:

China primarily seeks national security and diplomatic freedom of action, and she has chosen to curtail her ties to elements abroad that she cannot control or effectively exploit in order to play for larger international stakes. The indigenous Communist movements and the ethnic Chinese of Southeast Asia are necessarily deemed expendable by Peking, for they are both more of a hindrance than a help to China in her bid for peaceful accord with the non-Communist governments of the region, most of which (with the notable exception of Indonesia and, of course, South Vietnam) have responded positively to Peking's initiatives of the past two decades.

By William L. Parish, Jr.

ALAN P. L. LIU: Communications and National Integration in Communist China. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971.

MARTIN KING WHYTE: Small
Groups and Political Rituals in
China. Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1974.

THE BOOKS by Liu and Whyte, while quite different in their focus and approach, both attack the issue of political mobilization in China the issue of the degree to which the government has been able to free people from their original commitments to individual,

family, and regional goals and recommit them to the goals of the larger political system.

Liu's volume is essentially a "top-down" account, emphasizing the organization and politics of the Chinese Communist Party's Propaganda Department, the radio, the press, book publishing, and films. Though it is the best existing introduction to China's communication system, it contains a number of flaws, the most significant of which is its failure to consider the which is its failure to consider the great volume of communication that flows not through the public media but through closed channels. To learn, for example, how

the public knew about Lin Piao's downfall or Nixon's impending visit long before they were mentioned in the press and over the radio, one must supplement Liu's book with Michel Oksenberg's 1974 article on communication.' Therein, one finds a description of the system of secret documents and confidential meetings by which information spreads from Peking to all levels of society. Also, because Liu's book was written too early, it does not discuss the Ref

1 "Methods of Communication Within the Chinese Bureaucracy," The China Quarterly (London), January-March 1974, pp. 1-39.