"Fantastic!" "Beautiful!"

China's touring newsmen praise a former paper tiger

Most of the 32 journalists who accompanied Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-p'ing to the U.S. knew little or no English. Before the week was out, the Chinese reporters and film crews had learned a great deal about "body English" and were elbowing and kneeing for position along with the most practiced members of the American press. But most of the time, unleashed at last in what they had long been taught to think of as the land of "imperialists" and "paper tigers," these Chinese observers seemed withdrawn and lacking in the curious eye, pugnacious stance and fast footwork of their Western counterparts.

During their recent trip to the People's Republic, American journalists filmed hand-holding couples in city parks, raided beauty parlors and chronicled a Peking duck's journey from barnyard to dinner table. The Chinese sent home low-key interviews with the manager of Atlanta's Peachtree Plaza Hotel and an average family in Washington. A U.S. reporter wondered whether the visitors might explore some of the less attractive aspects of life in America. "That's not our plan," replied a Chinese television producer. "Our purpose is to help build friendship between our two peoples." So, instead of accustomed adjectives like "decadent" and "bourgeois," China's press was studded with "fantastics" and "beautifuls."

The idea, of course, was to give the waiting millions back home an absolutely glowing account of Teng's triumphant journey. Accordingly, no inconvenient details or unpleasant incidents were to be photographed or written about. Violent protests by ultraradical Maoists in Washington's Lafayette Park and demonstrations by Taiwanese loyalists in Atlanta went unreported. With rigid discipline, the Chinese press portrayed Teng's host country as America the beautiful, a land apparently without poverty, blessedly free of political or racial strife, a perfect industrial model for the new China. As filler, Chinese TV stations even dipped into footage from U.S. propaganda films showing fruitful U.S. farms and factories.

To summarize each day's events, Chinese producers and technicians, assisted by personnel on loan from the three U.S. networks, put together 20-to 40-minute nightly telecasts. These were notable for their rousing music--America the Beautiful and She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain were favorites--and leisurely pace. For the same type of sequence that an American network packs into 60 to 90 seconds, the Chinese frequently used more than five minutes, unbroken by commercials. Teng's diplomatic activities, his excursions to a Ford Motor plant outside Atlanta and the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center near Houston, plus all social gatherings were presented in loving detail.

Coverage of the trip created relatively little stir back in the People's Republic. The telecasts reached only a comparatively small portion of the population (700,000 TV sets for 1 billion people), yet they did have some impact, particularly in Peking. "Walking down the street," noted an American diplomat serving there, "I heard a number of people saying 'Jimmiiee Cahter,' which is their way of pronouncing the President's name."

In Taiwan, Teng's trip was presented differently. TV coverage of the visit was dominated by shots of the anti-Teng demonstrators. It was difficult, however, to discern exactly what the crowds were protesting because Teng himself was not shown at all on Taiwan's TV screens.

Although they warmed up toward the end of their visit, the Chinese reporters exasperated quote-hungry Americans with their studied reticence and spirit of bland approval. Ultimately, the expansive city of Houston inspired one reporter to venture a faintly salty comment. Confronted by an exhibit of lunar modules, space suits and moon buggies at the Lyndon Johnson Space Center, he saw fit to paraphrase ex-Premier Chou Enlai: "We have too many problems down here on earth. Until we solve them, there's no point in going to the moon."

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