Learning From The Chinese

The WikiLeaks cable 09SINGAPORE863 was titled "RULING PARTY YOUTH WING COZIES UP TO CHINESE". For the uninitiated, the folks who fought the Commies during the turbulent years have picked up quite a few pointers from their operating manual. Where do you think they got the idea for grassroots organizations from?

It's intriguing why Young PAP is taking private tuition lessons from China's Communist Youth League in this modern day and age. YP members like Teo Ser Luck still use the honorific "Comrade."

¶2. (C) Young PAP (YP), the youth wing of Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP), nurtures close ties with its communist Chinese counterpart, two members of the organization's executive committee told PolOffs on August 27. Joel Leong, Chairperson of the International Relations Sub-Committee, and Phyllis Chng, Executive Secretary, explained that YP's "easiest" international relationship is with China's Communist Youth League (CYL). Leong said the YP-CYL relationship dates back many years. In keeping with Singapore's growing ties with China, YP officials have made two "study trips" there this year. In February, they visited a party school in Beijing to seek inspiration for their own political education and training programs, and in July, they received advice on recruitment strategies from their CYL counterparts in Chengdu. After the February trip, YP chairman Teo Ser Luck told Singapore press that associating with a Communist organization did not trouble him: "We're not worried because it's the governing party and Singapore-China relations are so close. We don't talk about political philosophy."

Serving as English interpreter for Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong - his memoir is aptly named "The Man On Mao's Right" - Ji Chaozhu had a ring side seat to modern Chinese history. In spite of his close association with China's two top leaders, he was not immune to the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, which the Central Committee of the Communist Party finally admitted was "initiated by a leader labouring under a misapprehension and capitalized on by counterrevolutionary cliques, led to domestic turmoil, and brought catastrophe to the party, the state and the whole people." Being promoted to deputy director of the Translation Department did not spare him from another round of peasant reeducation, transplanting rice in the leech infested paddies of Shanxi.

Interpreting for Robert Muldoon, PM of New Zealand, at Mao's villa, Ji Chaozhu was aghast that the chairman, at 82, was so feeble he could no longer stand on his own. His bodyguard had to support this arm so that he could offer a limp hand to shake. Chaozhu interpreted for Mao one last time when Pakistan PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto visited on 27 May 1976. After Mao saw the official photo of himself - bloated, slack-jawed, eyes swollen, head lolling against a badly stained spot on the back of his chair's cushion - he declared that Bhutto would be his last official visitor.

At least Mao knew when to call it quits.

 One more for the road (author Ji Chaozhu is on left)