"Huge Garden"

Man in China is now an "ecologic dominant." The eventual outcome is a new geography of China, for with rapidly increasing grain yields it will be possible to reduce the area devoted to food crops and to allocate more land to forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries. When the average yield per acre reaches 30 tons, which Chinese experts claim is an attainable figure, a mere 35 million acres will be needed to support 650 million people. Then, as one writer puts it, "the entire country will be transformed into a huge garden."

These developments are of vital importance to the world. They illustrate how the release of human energies and enthusiasm through a social and political revolution has made possible the creation of an entirely new relationship between man and his environment. They illustrate how, in the shaping of this new environment, new needs and new opportunities have brought into being new forms of social organisation.

If, as seems likely, the Chinese experiment suceeds, their achievements will have a major impact on the uncommitted countries of South and East Asia. The Chinese success in creating, within the framework of a Communist society, a new world of plenty will be taken as evidence of the superiority of that society by the small and struggling nations on China's southern fringes. At that moment, a new world power balance will be struck.