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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 16. 12th July 1973

"Political Swindlers"

"Political Swindlers"

Driving from the station to our hotel the slogans we noticed were interesting. Yesterday (July 1) was the fifty second anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and so then were several slogans relating to that. Internationalist messages are also prominent.

On one sign we read: "Support the liberation struggle of the African, Asian and Latin American People", while on top of the large Canton Sports Stadium is the slogan: "Long Live the Unity of the People of the World". One particularly striking hoarding warned against Liu Shao- Chi and all "political swindlers". The recent reopening of the trade unions was welcomed by several other slogans.

Since crossing the border we have received extremely good treatment from our hosts — China International Travel Service. Travelling on the train to Canton was an extremely comfortable experience. Very cool and roomy carriages with tea being served at frequent intervals. The food is so good that you feel as though you're going from banquet to banquet.

The hotel we're staying in — the Tung Fang — has an interesting political history. It is now used for putting up foreign visitors to the city, but it was built to house Russian technical experts. From the outside the building looks fairly functional but some of the ornamentation inside is quite amazing. Obviously the people who planned this building had high regard for the needs — aesthetic as well as practical — of their Soviet experts; and expected that the Russians were going to be around for a long time. Built as it was on the principle of excluding foreign experts from the masses and providing them with excellent quarters, the Tung Fang Hotel is a monument to Lui Shao-Chi's political line of relying on experts — including foreigners for economic and social development rather than relying on the creativity of the masses.