THE twenty years since the founding of the People's Republic of China have been years of earth-shaking changes. The history of the past 20 years is a record of brilliant achievements by the Chinese people under the leadership of the great leader Chairman Mao on all fronts in the socialist revolution and socialist construction and also a record of great victories for the Chinese people in their courageous struggles against U.S. imperialism, aggressor to the finger-nails, and its accomplices. The dismal defeats, one following the other, suffered by U.S. imperialism and its stooges and running dogs in pursuing a policy of persistent enmity and aggression against China over these 20 years have made it abundantly clear - those who oppose China will come to no good end.

Waging a protracted, arduous revolutionary war Under Chairman Mao's leadership, the Chinese people 20 years ago finally wiped out the Chiang Kai-shek bandit gang's 8 million troops who were armed and paid for by U.S. imperialism, overthrew the reactionary rule of the Chiang Kai-shek regime, the running dog of U.S. imperialism, and shattered the aggressive forces of U.S. imperialism and other imperialism entrenched in China for more than a century. The victory of the Chinese people's revolution, which breached imperialism's Eastern front, was of great international significance. It dealt a heavy blow to U.S. imperialism's wild ambition to carry out global aggression, changed the world's balance of forces and added impetus to the people's revolutionary movement in all countries.

As far back as on the eve of the birth of New China, Chairman Mao pointed out: "The imperialists and their running dogs, the Chinese reactionaries, will not resign themselves to defeat in this land of China." "Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again. . . till their doom; that is the logic of the imperialists and all reactionaries the world over in dealing with the people's cause, and they will never go against this logic. This is a Marxist law." The course of history has fully borne out these brilliant conclusions of Chairman Mao's. Following this logic, U.S. imperialism, which never for a moment in the past 20 years relented in its trouble-making and aggression against China, has met with more and more dismal defeats. The Chinese people on their part, following the teaching of the great leader Chairman Mao, have never slackened their vigilance against U.S. imperialism's frantic trouble-making and aimed aggression. They have persisted in a tit-for-tat struggle against U.S. imperialism and have won one victory after another.

Ever since the. birth of New China, U.S. imperialism has been moving heaven and earth to strangle her in the cradle. It waged one aggressive war after another in areas adjacent to China. It flagrantly unleashed a war of aggression in Korea and occupied by force China's territory Taiwan only some eight months after the founding of New China, and continuously interfered in and expanded the war in Indo-China. In doing so, it tried in vain to menace China militarily and to invade her from these three fronts.

U.S. imperialism hurled large numbers of ground, naval and air forces into its war of aggression in Korea, and spread the flames of war towards China. It did not even slop at using germ warfare in defiance of world opinion. The then chieftain of U.S. imperialism Harry Truman time and again threatened to use atom bombs against China. How conceited and arrogant! But neither its threat of atom bombs nor its use of bacteriological weapons could save U.S. imperialism from defeat. The iron fists of the Chinese and Korean people hit U.S. imperialism right, between the eyes and brought it down in the most dismal defeat ever known in the history of U.S. wars of aggression.

In their War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, the Chinese people took on U.S. imperialism direct in a trial of strength on the battlefield. They thoroughly exposed the true colours of U.S. imperialism, armed with "nuclear teeth," as a paper tiger. Truman himself hysterically shouted that the U.S. defeat in Korea had put the United States "in peril." And the then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Omar Bradley wailed in dismay that the United States was involved "in the wrong war at the wrong place, at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy." When U.S. imperialism was compelled to sit down at the negotiation table for the truce talks, U.S. News and World Report, a mouthpiece of American monopoly capital, moaned: "A U.S. military commander, under Washington orders, offered to go, flying white flags, seeking a meeting with the enemy. This is described as the first time in 175 years of U.S. history."

Since forcibly occupying our territory Taiwan, U.S. imperialism has turned it into a base for further aggression against China and Southeast Asia. U.S. military and political bigwigs arrogantly claimed that Taiwan constituted a key link in the U.S. "defence chain" in the Pacific. But U.S. imperialism's ceaseless armed provocations and sabotage activities against China over the years have received harsh punishment and head-on blows from the Chinese people, and its so-called key link in the "defence chain" has become a noose round its neck, with one end of the rope J irmly in the mighty hands of the Chinese people. In 1958. as the guns of the Chinese people boomed to punish U.S. imperialism and the Chiang Kai-shek bandit gang for their provocations, John Foster Dulles, the warmonger who had been yelling that New China did not exist on the map, apprehensively went to Taiwan and, after looking across the waters, had to admit dejectedly that he saw a communist China, adding: "We know it exists." Dulles has been dead for ten years, but his disciples still cling to his mantle, continue to occupy China's Taiwan, hold fast to the political corpse Chiang Kai-shek and oppose China in a still more unbridled manner. History has, however. proved and will continue to prove that the noose round U.S. imperialism's neck will become tighter and tighter. In the face of the 700 million Chinese people who are determined to liberate Taiwan, U.S. imperialism has run into an inextricable predicament, and what lies in store for it is only a still more ignominious and thorough defeat.

U.S. imperialism has been intensifying its intervention and aggression in Viet Nam. In the past few years, it has thrown over half a million aggressor troops into its war of aggression against Viet Nam. Under President Ho Chi Minh's leadership, the Vietnamese people persevered in people's war, dealing U.S. imperialism heavy blows and winning great victories in their war against U.S. aggression and for national salvation. China and Viet Nam are neighbours as close to each other as the lips are to the teeth. The Chinese people resolutely support the Vietnamese people in carrying this war through to the end. The crushing defeats suffered by U.S. imperialism in Viet Nam have seriously upset U.S. imperialist plans for wars of aggression against China and Asia and once again exposed before the people of the whole world its feeble nature - outwardly strong but brittle within.

In addition to armed provocations and war threats, U.S. imperialism has painstakingly tried to rig up in Asia a ring of military encirclement against China. Designed to oppose China, this encirclement also aims at controlling and committing aggression against other Asian countries and establishing U.S. neo-colonialist rule in Asia. In 1953, Richard Nixon, the present occupant of the White House who was then U.S. Vice-President, trotted out his sinister proposal for a "crescent" encirclement against China. Later, the then U.S. Secretary of State Dulles made Herculean efforts to knock together the "Southeast Asia Treaty 0rganization"(SEATO) and other military alliances. He boasted that these alliances were powerful bulwarks. Dulles' fantastic braggadocio notwithstanding, the history of the last 16 years shows that these bulwarks, far from being "powerful," are splitting at the seams. At a SEATO meeting convened with much difficulty in May this year, the representative of one member state did not hesitate to say that he had come to the meeting as a "pall-bearer." The U.S. imperialist overlords are drunk with ambition in their manoeuvres against China. But what a miserable come-down it has been for them in the end!

In the past 20 years, U.S. imperialism has obdurately imposed a "blockade" and "embargo" against China, dreaming its favourite dream of strangling China by economic sabotage. Former U.S. imperialist chieftain Eisenhower blustered that this was "a part of war" waged by U.S. imperialism against China. In the calculations of the U.S. imperialists, the Chinese people cannot survive without them and China will fall to pieces. But their smug calculations have backfired. Chairman Mao pointed out 20 years ago: "Let them blockade us! Let them blockade us for eight or ten years' By that time all of China's problems will have been solved. Will the Chinese cower before difficulties when they are not afraid even of death?" Things have turned out exactly as Chairman Mao predicted. The "blockade" and "embargo" by U.S. imperialism and its accomplices have not cowed us in the least. Instead, all this has speeded up our efforts to eliminate the forces of economic aggression of U.S. imperialism and other imperialism in China. Instead of checking the Chinese people's advance in any way, "blockade" and "embargo" have fired the Chinese people's lofty aspirations to build a great socialist motherland, independently, keeping the initiative in their own hands, relying on their own efforts and working their level best. Contrary to the wishful thinking of the U.S. imperialist overlords, the Chinese people, far from finding the going tough, have been faring better and better. Far from falling apart as they complacently calculated, the dictatorship of the proletariat in China has never been as secure and consolidated as it is today. In contrast to U.S. imperialism, which is up to its ears in debt and beset with a financial-economic crisis, China has become the first country in the world with neither internal nor external debts. We have built our great socialist motherland into a country which has attained initial prosperity. Our motherland is thriving and flourishing.

In the political sphere, the U.S. imperialists have pursued a policy of so-called "isolation" and "containment" of China during these 20 years, vainly trying to obstruct the development of friendship between the Chinese people and the people of other countries and undermine China's international prestige. Just as their anti-China policy has become a shambles in the military and economic spheres, politically their anti-China antics have also yielded results which are opposite to what they set out to achieve. Obdurately hostile to China, the U.S. imperialists have forced others "not to recognize" the existence of the great New China. But contrary to their expectations, China's international prestige has risen higher and higher. The U.S. imperialists have jumped at every opportunity to whip up one vicious anti-China wave after another, trying to smear and slander socialist China. But instead of harming China in any way, this only helps people the world over to see the ugly features of the U.S. imperialists more clearly and further discredits their anti-China policy. Confronted as they are with an impossible situation, the chieftains of U.S. imperialism have resorted to counter-revolutionary dual tactics, turning their policy of so-called "containment through isolation" of China into one of so-called "containing but not isolating" China. However, frequent change in tactics does not mean a change in aim. Their consistent machinations against China only testify to the fact that they are at the end of their tether and that they are being deprived more and more of their freedom of action.

The magnificent victory of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, initiated and led personally by our great leader Chairman Mao, while striking a hammer blow at imperialism, revisionism and reaction, has greatly inspired the revolutionary struggle of the people of the world. Like an owl afraid of sunlight, U.S. imperialism and its lackeys are so frightened by this great victory of the Chinese people that they are still more frenziedly stirring up anti-China hysteria. But the more feverishly they oppose China, the more eagerly the people of the world turn to New China, and the more widely Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought spreads in the world. The people the world over warmly praise the splendid' achievements of the Chinese people in the socialist revolution and socialist construction. The militant friendship between the Chinese people and the people of other countries in the world has grown deeper.

In short, over the past 20 years, U.S. imperialism and its stooges have done all they could in rabidly opposing China in the military, political, economic and other fields. But the net result is that it is not China but they themselves who have been isolated. This living fact fully demonstrates that in the world today there are only a handful of imperialists, revisionists and their lackeys who oppose China while the broad masses, who account for more than 90 per cent of the world's population, sympathize with and stand on the side of the Chinese people. As to the handful of imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries who believe it is to their advantage to oppose China, they can never succeed. In fact, they have long boon heavity besieged and battered by the people the world over, while our great socialist motherland has friends all over the world.

The world revolution has now entered a great new era. Imperialism, revisionism and reaction are finding the going tougher than ever before. Bogged down in the quagmire of opposing China for 20 years, U.S. imperialism has failed to draw any lesson from its defeats. Today, it is collaborating further with reactionaries of all descriptions to form an anti-China "holy alliance." But this is a futile and desperate struggle.

The ganging-up between imperialism, revisionism and all reaction against China in a hopeless effort to "isolate" her redounds to China's honour, since it proves that China has drawn a clear line of demarcation between herself and imperialism, revisionism and reaction. The Chinese people's trial of strength with imperialism, revisionism and the reactionaries has already proved that imperialism, revisionism and all reaction are paper tigers. If their heads are spinning from their anti-China hysteria and they dare to launch a war of aggression against China, the Chinese people in their hundreds of millions, armed with Mao Tsetung Thought and tempered in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, are determined to resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely wipe out all aggressors who dare to come!

In these days of rejoicing over the 20th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese people who are in high spirits and strong in their fighting will are advancing in giant strides on the path of the socialist revolution and socialist construction charted by the great leader Chairman Mao! Contrary to the scene of prosperity in New China, imperialism, revisionism and all reaction are beset with difficulties and bristled with crises. The future looks bleak to them, pounded as they are by the world revolutionary storm. No matter how desperately they struggle, they cannot avert their doom! Let imperialism, revisionism and all reaction - the handful of anti-China clowns - weep in a corner and bemoan their woeful fate!

(Beijing Review NO. 41, 1969)