The Press: Paperless Tiger

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The Monday edition of Communist China's biggest newspaper, Peking's People's Daily (estimated circ. 1,000,000), went down from eight pages to four. The Red Flag, semimonthly bull horn of the Party Central Committee, now occasionally publishes monthly. In Hong Kong, the customary array of Red Chinese propaganda—some 150 different periodicals in 1959—has dwindled to a meager dozen, and a few bookstore browsers were amazed to learn that one steady seller was no longer available: the collected works of Red China's Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

Behind these statistics lies no benevolent Red Chinese plan to ease up on peddling of the party line. Fact is that Mao's prolific propaganda machine is suffering from an acute shortage of paper. Although production of paper rose from 581,493 tons in 1955 to 2,130,000 tons in 1959, according to the official statistics, it fell short of the 1960 goal of 2,800,000 tons. Even the most important newspapers, such as People's Daily, have been put on a starvation diet. Readers inside China hardly complain: there will just be less space in which not to find the news. Only exceptions to the paper austerity program are exports. By Mao's order, the gospel according to Peking is still flowing as freely as ever to the uncommitted countries of Latin America and Africa.