Freak hailstones weighing 15 kilograms (33 pounds) battered southern mainland China early this month, killing five persons and injuring 225.
Red China's leadership apparently has called a truce with its critics and postponed the long-awaited trials of the followers of the convicted "gang of four," diplomatic sources in Peiping said.
A Mitsubishi consortium will demand a 26 billion yen (US$119 million) compensation from Red China to cover losses from a scrapped steel plant contract, company sources said.
APRIL 17 — The awakening of youth from their illusions about Communism has created a crisis on the Chinese mainland, according to an analysis by mainland affairs experts in Taipei.
After three months of confusion and strong Japanese protests, Red China has backed down on its plan to cancel plant contracts with Japanese companies totaling up to one billion U.S. dollars, according to Japanese Foreign Ministry officials.
The Los Angeles Times voiced opposition to U.S. arms sales to Communist China. "Everything considered," the paper said, "it looks very much as if the supplying of weapons to (Red) China would do more harm than good."
APRIL 18 — Red China blasted an anti socialist mm writer and arrested two human rights activists, signaling it will no longer tolerate criticism of the Communist party and Mao Tse-tung or political dissent. The army's Liberation Daily criticized film writer Pai Hua by name for writing "very contemptuously" of socialism and for criticizing Mao. Dissidents Hsu Wen-li and Yen Ching of April 5 Forum, a publication critical of the Communist party, were arrested. The editor, Wei Ching-sheng, was arrested in October, 1979, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Hongkong is apprehensive that Red China may become a major drug transit center following the inauguration of commercial flights between Bangkok and Canton.
APRIL 19 — Red China, which spurned international aid after a cataclysmic earthquake in 1976, now wants the United Nations to help children who were victims of that disaster, diplomatic sources reported in Peiping.
Frustrated youths are systematically destroying the windows of school buildings in Shanghai, reports from mainland China's largest city said. The Wen Hui Pao said peasants are taking over the playing fields of schools for their own purposes, sometimes even building private homes on them.
APRIL 20 — The United Nations has distributed vitamins to nearly 35,000 mothers and children suffering from malnutrition and rickets in the worst drought in 37 years in North China's Hopeh Province. Many peasants are too weak to take part in planting, officials said.
Many Red Chinese officials are illegally earning extra money by setting up private businesses and employing labor, People's Daily said. The Communist party newspaper said the officials often earn several times as much in business as at their jobs. Many are using their authority to get hold of raw materials and equipment and some are stealing machinery and spare parts, the paper added.
Red China will slow down or postpone research projects such as construction of a large astronomical telescope, controlled thermonuclear reactors and a high energy accelerator, the Peiping Review said.
Peiping Daily published a scathing attack on army writer Pai Hua for his story "Unrequited Love," which was made into a controversial film. The article said Pal Hua's work shows he is antagonistic to the party and the people and violates the four principles of Communism and socialism.
APRIL 21 — Mainland Chinese artists and intellectuals chose sides in a fierce and widening debate over artistic freedom and a political attack on a famous playwright. The party newspaper, People's Daily, and the intellectual newspaper, Kwangming Daily, both rushed indirectly to the rescue of playwright Pai Hua and said artists should be persuaded, not punished. The army newspaper denounced Pai, an army writer, for his story "Unrequited Love," which painted a bleak picture of mainland China and Communism and the mindless worship of Mao Tse-tung.
Former Cambodian chief of state Norodom Sihanouk said Red China is not yet willing to grant him the military aid he requires as a condition for heading an anti-Vietnamese united front in his homeland.
APRIL 22 — Red China's trade with the United States in 1980 lagged far behind the trade between the Republic of China and the United States, a ranking official of the U.S. Department of Commerce said. The official said U.S. imports from Red China totaled US$1,058.34 compared with US$6,894.3 million from the Republic of China. The United States exported US$4,336.6 million worth of products to the Republic of China and US$3,748.99 million to Red China.
A new internal directive has been issued in Red China telling people to shun social contacts with foreigners. Peiping foreign residents said some of their Chinese acquaintances have stopped calling them up and have appeared to avoid chance meetings.
The Chinese Communist news agency launched a strong attack on the political, economic and social systems of the United States. A report filed by Washington reporter Peng Ti said the U.S. economic system is based on competition among individuals and companies and that society is psychologically sick.
APRIL 23 — Sun Yang-fong, a leading Red Chinese economist, said the disastrous economic policies of Mao Tse-tung led to the deaths of more than 10 million people in the 1959-1962 famine.
Peiping indirectly accused the United States and the Soviet Union of attempting to undermine Chinese Communist society through sabotage.
Hundreds of Shanghai youths sent to the countryside during the "cultural revolution" have been demonstrating in Shanghai over the past month in an attempt to get jobs in their home town, diplomatic sources said. The sources said thousands of youths who returned to Shanghai for the Chinese New Year in February declined to go back to Sinkiang Province.
The newspaper campaign against mainland Chinese film writer Pai Hua escalated with two fresh attacks against him for criticizing Mao Tse-tung and violating Red China's socialist principles.
The Communist Chinese leadership opened a new front in its get-tough drive against opponents by branding the Free Chinese as "enemies" in an outburst that could signal the end of its smiling face overtures to the Republic of China.
APRIL 24 — A total of 40,000 young people in Peiping failed to find work last year and will join 220,000 other youngsters due on the city's job market in 1981.
Political activists responded to the ongoing crackdown on dissidents in Red China by spray painting protest slogans on the outside of the Hongkong "New China News Agency" building.
Red China has agreed to provide former Cambodian chief of state Norodom Sihanouk with small quantities of weapons and ammunition for his personal forces, the prince's spokesman said in Peiping.
APRIL 25 — The snowballing campaign to crush literary dissent in Red China has caught up with a satirical critic, the second writer to fall afoul of the Communist party in the last week. Liberation Daily said critic Wang Juo-wang heaped sarcasm on party tenets.
Red Chinese deputy premier Ku Mu feels it will take at least five years for Red China to review and make reforms in its economy, a Japanese news agency said.
APRIL 26 — The Voice of America has discovered that Chinese on the mainland do not completely understand Chinese broadcasts although the announcers speak in flawless Mandarin. VOA said the trouble has nothing to do with pronunciation but lies in limited mainland vocabulary and different use of the language.
The Pelping Students' Union has adopted an oath for college students that begins with a pledge of love for the Communist party, socialism and the people. It comes at a time when some college students have been criticized for expressing doubts about or opposition to socialism or leadership of the Communist party.
APRIL 27 — The Peiping regime has signaled that it intends to return to strict censorship and to once again emphasize party-line discipline, Edwin M. Reingold of Time-Life News Service reported from Peiping.
Rising waters broke the banks on the lower reaches of Sunghua Chiang in Heilungkiang Province in northeast China, causing severe floods.
Authorities in Shanghai have detected more than 900 smuggling cases worth a total of more than one million yuan (US$667,000) so far this year.
A serious shortage of small farm implements for Red China's 800 million peasants has affected food production in some places, People's Daily reported. The Communist party newspaper said farm tools are being rationed in some areas.
Red China's official media are taking a more Maoist stand in the latest ideological jousting. After months of explaining mistakes made by Mao and warning against the dangers of "leftism," authoritative mouthpieces of the army and Communist party are singing a different tune. People's Daily invoked Mao's name in a front-page article to warn against "rightists." Liberation Daily blasted writers who criticize Mao and the party.
APRIL 28 — Even professional Red China watchers in the West were wrong. They did not realize how poor the Chinese under Communism were and how the masses in various parts of the mainland suffered from famine and other disasters, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported from Peiping.
Two more wall posters appeared at Peiping University opposing the official media campaign against Red Chinese writer Pai Hua, who was condemned for opposing Communism and casting doubts on the leadership of Mao Tse-tung.
The average urban Red Chinese worker earned 762 yuan (US$476) last year, 141.1 percent more than in 1979, the "New China News Agency" said. Taking price rises into account, the real rise in average income was 6.1 percent, NCNA added.
APRIL 29 — A ballet dancer from mainland China was released in Houston, Texas, after being detained for about 20 hours by officials of his own regime when he told them he had secretly married an American teenager. Li Kun-hsin will stay in the United States.
Red China released an appraisal of its economy acknowledging it was unable to meet pent-up consumer demand in 1980 and suffered declines in energy and grain production. The trade deficit was 1.9 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion). The population was put at 982.55 million as of the end of 1980.
APRIL 30 — Crime is increasing in Peiping and a small number of people are trying to wreck the socialist system in the name of democracy and freedom, the vice mayor reported.
Portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin which were removed from Tienanmen Square last year were put up again as part of the celebration of May Day.
MAY 1 — Tens of thousands of laborers and peasants from Shanghai staged mass demonstrations in Sinkiang autonomous region bordering the Soviet Union late last year, protesting their exile from home, a Hongkong leftwing magazine reported.
Former West German state president Walter Scheel told Red Chinese leaders not to harbor any illusions that the German government will subsidize cheap credits or use other financial means to help them revive canceled contracts with German firms.
A Hongkong trader recently contributed an article to Chen Ming indicating that the misuse of privilege, corruption, incompetence and con fusion are characteristics of Red China's foreign trade as well as other mainland enterprises.
MAY 2 — Communist China will need a period five times longer than the current schedule to adjust its economy, "deputy prime minister and foreign minister" Huang Hua told A. M. Rosenthal, executive editor of the New York Times. The readjustment might take 15 years, he said.
Drinking water is a problem in some places, some fields lack water for irrigation and the drought in Peiping's suburbs is expected to continue, Peiping Daily said.
A Chinese Communist dramatic company staging a play about a corrupt power company worker has to perform without lights. The power company turns off its electricity in protest during every performance, People's Daily reported.
Canadian businessmen and their wives have been deeply disturbed by the lavish banquets served by their Chinese Communist hosts at a time when parts of the mainland are suffering from starvation, according to a Hangchou dispatch of the Southam News Agency.
MAY 3 — Against a background of inflation, unemployment and hardship, youths on the Chinese mainland have turned restive. Many of them com pare their lives unfavorably to the opportunities in the Republic of China and the West, Isabel Hilton wrote in London Sunday Times. Street crime is a common urban problem.
To check the Russians by helping the Chinese Communists is tantamount to "lending a crutch to a cripple to scare a giant," Stanley Karnow said in the Washington Star.
Peiping is facing strong opposition from overseas Chinese in its recent crackdown on dissidents. Two Hongkong groups expressed disapproval of the arrest of two editors of an outlawed magazine.
The average age of mainland China's 1,000 million people is 26, said a leading member of the central committee of the Communist Youth league.
MAY 4 — Foreigners and Hongkong Chinese visiting Canton have been gypped or had their pockets picked by crowds of peddlers trying to change money or sell papayas, a Canton newspaper said.
Red China's leading newspaper accused the United States of interfering to maintain a split in Korea and of unwisely supporting South Africa. People's Daily denounced plans for further U.S. arms sales to South Korea and a U.S. veto against proposed United Nations sanctions against South Africa.
The Chinese Communist party lamented young people's lack of faith in Marxism, calling for more ideological work to "enlighten" them.
Innocent political prisoners are still in labor camps waiting to be released after having been wrongly sentenced in Maoist years, a Peiping magazine reported.
Posters championing artistic freedom went up at Peiping University on the anniversary of the May 4 (1919) student movement.
MAY 5 — People's Daily called for the purging of Communist party members who infringe party discipline while at the same time condemning the wholesale attacks on alleged heretics that occurred during the Maoist "cultural revolution."
Red China accused the Vietnamese of launching 241 "provocations and intrusions" across the border this year, killing or wounding more than 60 Chinese and kidnapping 19 civilians.
Teng Hsiao-ping discussed American relations and Taiwan with Richard C. Holbrooke, former assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific. Holbrooke said Teng emphasized the importance of the Taiwan issue and repeated Red China's familiar statements.
Red China announced it has downgraded its embassy in the Netherlands to a charge d'affaires office to protest the Dutch sale of submarines to Taiwan. Peiping accused The Hague of going back on its word, contradicting itself and deliberately complicating discussions over diplomatic name changes.
Some expulsions might be needed to maintain the Chinese Communist party's purity and fighting strength, People's Daily said.
Red China has blocked Pan American World Airways' new third flight a week on the U.S.-Red China route, arguing that Pan Am cannot have three flights while Red China has only two.
Red China's news agency said a U.S. official's statement supporting the Republic of China's re-entry into the World Bank violates a U.S.-Red China agreement. Secretary Donald Regan made the statement at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing.
MAY 6 — Three more writers in Communist China have been subjected to criticism. They are Liu Yen-ping, author of "Between Men and Ghosts;" Wang Jo-wan, deputy editor-in-chief of People's Daily, and Sha Yeh-hsin, author of "If I Were the Real Person."
A report from Monrovia said that low quality of sugar and bad management have forced the technical assistance mission of Red China to withdraw from the sugar refinery at Capamas, Liberia.
The Chinese Communist party is interfering too much in everyday management and this is one of the main reasons for the rise in bureaucracy and inefficiency in recent years, the party journal Red Flag said. It said the party should concentrate on political leadership and leave practicalities to those who are qualified to deal with them.
Red China and Vietnam escalated their war of words, accusing each other of border raids and violations of air and naval space.
In a warning clearly aimed at the United States or any other country considering arms sales to Taiwan, Red China sharply renewed its criticism of The Netherlands for permitting sale of two sub marines to the Republic of China.
MAY 7 — James P. Sterba, correspondent of the New York Times, reported from Peiping that one-third of Inner Mongolia's 18 million people and nearly half of its livestock have been "seriously affected" by drought.
Some mainland Chinese college graduates are balking at jobs assigned them by the regime. The education ministry and Communist Youth league issued a notice calling for increased ideological education so 1981 graduates will happily go where they are sent.
About 40 inmates of a labor camp in Szechwan revolted on February 4 and fled to the mountains with arms after killing and wounding around 300 cadres and guards, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has warned in a secret report about the "alarming possibility" of a military coup in Red China, columnist Jack Anderson reported.
Red China's army newspaper has launched its second attack on army playwright Pai Hua, saying his controversial film script defiles the regime and opposes the Communist party.
MAY 8 — Vandalism has erupted at factories in several important industrial regions on the Chinese mainland, London Times correspondent David Bonavia reported from Peiping.
The Red Chinese regime announced it will begin imposing income taxes on foreign journalists. They will not be allowed to send news to more than one agency unless they go through separate registration procedures.
Red China said its frontier guards killed more than 100 Vietnamese troops in what diplomatic sources said was the biggest border clash since the two Communist regimes fought a month-long war in 1979.
More than 100,000 refugees fleeing from famine in their home provinces recently swarmed to Wuhan, the biggest city in flood-stricken Hupei, according to an intelligence report reaching Taipei.
MAY 9 — Southeast China's famed West Lake, once celebrated for its clean, mirror-like waters, is getting a transfusion of new water to clean up pollution.
Peiping, the second biggest city on the Chinese mainland, is backward by any modern standard. It has 109 telephones for every 100,000 residents in a population of 9 million. Taiwan with 18 million people has 19,000 per 100,000 people.
The Workers' Daily of Peiping reprimanded members of the Chinese Communist party who show "blind faith in bourgeois democracy" and advocate Western-style freedom of expression.
Poverty on the Chinese mainland is the main reason for youth to long for change, an article in Red Flag said.
Over four thousand workers on Hainan Island staged a demonstration earlier this year in protest against mistreatment by the Communist regime.
Red China ordered the army to use as little land as possible for its training and food growing in order to avoid problems with farmers, especially minority peoples.
MAY 11 — Wang Hsi-chih, one of three dissidents who launched mainland China's current dissident movement has been arrested on unspecified charges, Hongkong sources reported. Wang is known for the lengthy Li Yi-che Manifesto of 1974 calling for "socialist democracy and a legal system."
Pollution problems make Peiping one of the least pleasant cities in the world, Bradley K. Martin of the Baltimore Sun reported. He said air, water and noise pollution plague the city.
The Dutch government changed the name of its diplomatic mission in Peiping from "embassy" to "office of charge d'affaires" as Communist China requested after the Dutch approved a submarine sale to Taiwan.
People's Daily acknowledged there was ideological struggle within the Communist party and called on party members to adopt proper methods of criticism and self-criticism.
MAY 12 — Han Lih-wu, president of the Chinese Association for Human Rights in Taipei, sent cables to the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International urging them to take appropriate action in Peiping's crackdown on dissidents.
"Vice premier" Fang Yi resigned as president of the "Chinese academy of sciences" and said a scientist should lead the academy. Fang spoke at the first session in 21 years of the academy's scientific council.
MAY 13 — Red Chinese student Chia An, who attended the graduate school of the National Tokyo University and sought refuge in the United States March 14, was confirmed by public security organizations of Japan to have been an intelligence agent of the Chinese naval forces, the Sankei Shimbun reported.
Four more editors of illegal magazines have been arrested, bringing to six the known total of mainland Chinese activists arrested in a crackdown on dissent, diplomatic sources in Peiping said. The four were identified as Ho Chiu, a shipyard worker in Canton and editor of "The Role of the People;" Fu Hsen-Chi, a Shanghai factory worker and editor of "The National Journal Responsibility;" Wang Hsi-che, a worker who put out a newsletter in Canton; and Hsuan Fung, editor of "The Wave" in Tsingtao.
Red China's best known woman activist has been released from prison after serving a two-year sentence for leading hungry peasants in a demonstration for food and human rights. Fu Yue-hua, about 36, was released in February.
MAY 14 — Communist China is rationing gasoline and electricity supplies to factories, enterprises and offices and halting production of gas guzzling Red Flag limousines used by high officials.
Factories that use too much electricity will have their supplies reduced or their fees raised. Enterprises that exceed their limits on gasoline will not be able to buy more.
The abrupt change of Communist China's smiling face for Free China in recent weeks is the best indication that Taipei's political counteroffensive has worked, the Executive Yuan said in Taipei. "The government's call for reunification of China under the banner of the Three Principles of the People has hit the Communists where it hurts," the cabinet said.
Anti-Teng Hsiao-ping leaflets have appeared at "Tsing Hua University" in Peiping, according to reports reaching Taipei. The leaflets say Teng should bear full responsibility for the economic chaos on the Chinese mainland.
Red China attacked remarks by U.S. presidential adviser Edwin Meese on American commitments to Taiwan, the sharpest such criticism by Peiping since the Reagan administration took office. NCNA said comments by Meese aroused serious concern among the mainland Chinese people and ran counter to the basic principles of the U.S.-Red China communique on normalizing relations. The agency quoted Meese as saying the United States would carry out the provisions of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
MAY 15 — Wall posters have appeared at Shanghai's Futan University supporting mainland Chinese writer Pai Hua and comparing his plight to the persecution of dissidents during the "cultural revolution."
Soong Ching-ling, widow of Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, was in critical condition with heart disease and leukemia, Peiping reported.
Red China admitted unemployment of more than 28 million people.
Many factories and mines in mainland China have been forced to suspend operations as a result of negligence, the Canton Daily said.