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Date Line China;

By-Line Rem enih

By John P. English

Tony Remenih, former news-
paper man and now a College of the
Canyons faculty member, returns
this semester from a leave of
absence granted last spring to
accept an invitation to "revisit" the
People's Republic of China._
The story goes back to July, 1944,
when Dixie Mission landed in
Y enan, the wartime capital of the
Chinese communist guerrillas.
One principal reason for the OSS
mission was to try to resolve ir-
reconcilable differences between the
communist guerrillas and the
Chinese Nationalist army under
Chiang Kai-shek.
The COC journalism instructor
was the mission's communications
officer.
During the war and before
Remenih recorded, in memory and
on film, a country fraught with
internal strife, rampant starvation,
,. human cadavers eaten by dogs, a
grey, listless sense of despair. He
"made three visits to Chinat' as he Marshall Yeh Chien-ying (left), vice chairman of the People's Republic of China, greets Tony Remenlh, journalism
states in his own personal journal, instructor, at reception in Peking. Pair are friends from World War D days when they shared cave-living in Yenan in
"before it was 'liberated' by the remote northwest China near the Gobi dessert.
communists in 1949." Remenih also
notes, "It was then a feudal society,
periodically swept by epidemics, a
suffering land out of sync with the
20th century."
Deja vu '78. Dreamlike, certainly,
but this was very real. Much has
happened to the world in the 34
years since Remenih's last sojourn
to what we now call mainland China.-
yet, strangely, one thing echoes out
of the caves at Y enan where he
spent a year of his life. That echo
bridges the long span of time:

"America, let's cooperate. Let's
'normalize.' Let's be friends. We
need you. You need us."
Remenih states, "As soon as we
crossed the border near Canton last
May, it became clear that this was
where we came in 34 years ago."
The message was basically the same
as in 1944. It was a message
"obviously orchestrated by Peking,"
writes Remenih. His group heard it
wherever it traveled even places
not visited before by a caucasian,
much less an American.

But controlled press notwith-
standing, and "propaganda throttle As it was .. . in China before "liberation" in 1949 when the communists took command of one quarter of the world's
always wide open. " admitted, in any population. Whatever the mental and physical regimentation today's Chinese are subjected to, abject poverty as shown
above has been abolished.
comparison of the old and present
communist governed China, the
current society comes out on top, as "Gone are the lepers reaching out journal gave this reporter added "The Chinese people are friendly
he observes in his private journal. with fingerless hands for pennies, as insight to a country in a dedicated toward the American people. But
are the homeless mothers and hundred-yard-dash to reach the 21st we need to make greater efforts for
"Some of the most superficial children sleeping (and dying) on century as industrial equals with normalization of relations between
comparisons" he tells us, "are the freezing nights on the sidewalks of the United States. our two countries.''
most important. Today everyone Nanking Road in Shanghai. Highlights of the trip included
appears healthy, simply but well- "Gone, too, are the opium dens, two official receptions at the Great Dixie Mission was considered a
clothed and well fed, undoubtedly the beggars, the nebulae of flies, the Hall of The People, one hosted by failure. This is a moot question for
for the first time in the hoary children with gaping open sores Huang Hua, foreign minister, the after 34 years there was a Dixie
history of this ancient land. This for . . . " the similes are endless. other by Marshall Yeh Chien-ying . Mission II. Somewhere someone
perhaps 900,000,000 people (no one Yeh, the 81-year-old vice chair- remembered and that line of com-
is certain), one-fourth of the world's Remenih's black and white and man of China, and a Y enan "com- munications had been established.
population, is a tremendous achieve- color slides record in stark and rade" during the war, declared Mission accomplished, welcome
ment." startling contrast two Chinas. His emotionally: back.