Hong Kong, Nov. 1—Meeting with foreign correspondents in Hong Kong after a brief visit to China and substantial reading about developments there in the recent past, I ventilated a perception—more accurately, an inquiry—which, to judge from the reception I received, strikes most Chinawatchers here as near-hysterical. I hope it is, but hear me out.
Question: If de-Nazification procedures of the sort used in postwar Germany to track down and punish the most heinous offenders under Hitler were begun tomorrow in Peking—de-Maoization, if you like —how many more Chinese would be convicted than Germans?
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