The Pied Piper of Peking

THE ENEMY The Pied Piper of Peking As the Dutch steamer Tjiluwah sailed from Singapore for China last week, 1,150 yelling, wild-eyed Chinese stood on her decks, pelting dock police with fruit and garbage. The rowdies were "Nanyang" (South Sea) Chinese students from Malaya and Indonesia.

More than 10 million Chinese are scattered through Southeast Asia. Their loyalties are mixed. Since 1949, Peking agents have moved in, set up newspapers and front groups, grabbed control of most of the Chinese schools. Indonesian-born parents complain that the Red teachers teach their children that loyalty to country--meaning Red China--is higher than loyalty to family. Red teachers openly urge their students to go to China to join the fight against the "brutalized Americans." Then other agents appear, offering students passports and steamship tickets.

A trickle of Chinese youth started moving northward in 1951. Last year Peking offered 2,300 scholarships to Nanyang students, padded the offer with promises of high-salaried government jobs after graduation. The trickle increased to a flood. In the past year, more than 9,000 Malayan Chinese and several thousand Indonesian Chinese have gone.

Peking is wooing the students for two reasons: they are young enough to indoctrinate, and they represent a means of getting at the tremendous wealth of the Nanyang. Warn the British in Malaya: "The moment educated youngsters get into institutions in China, they will be writing 'home' for more and more money.'' The British in Malaya are so suspicious of the return traffic from China that in the past year they have barred 2,103 Chinese, more than half the applicants, though many are wives or children of Chinese in Malaya.

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