THIS IS COMMUNIST CHINA

Trumbull is the chief of the New York Times Tokyo bureau. He has recast the reports of journalists (several of them Chinese-speaking and/or scholars) from the Tokyo daily Yomiuri Shimbun, whose dispatches based on the wall posters have filled American newspapers. Trumbull probably deserves the blame for some of the simplistic comments: ""A different kind of discovery was in store for Takeo"": ""Was the Mao-Liu split because of personality differences or plain destiny?"" The reporters deserve credit for the intervals of conversation with a variety of citizens. The most interesting sections deal with social and economic change... workers' designs and discoveries of new manufacturing methods, the residual presence of capitalists, the liberation of women, the disappearance of dope addiction and crime (no bars on the banks; fascinating descriptions of the banking system). As for the Cultural Revolution, some sharp vignettes, but weak political analysis. The biases are forthright enough for cautious readers to discount, but the book is aimed at the very general, undemanding reader.