Who's in Charge?

As soon as Henry Kissinger finished shepherding President Ford through Tokyo, Seoul and Vladivostok, the Secretary of State embarked by himself on another diplomatic tour, this one to China. It is Kissinger's seventh trip to Peking since he helped open the Sino-American dialogue in July 1971. Chances are he will find China's leaders more troubled and uncertain than on any of his previous visits.

Even the recent whereabouts of China's venerable Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung, 81, has been something of a mystery. For the past three months, Mao has been out of Peking and on the move, occasionally meeting foreigners--such as Danish Premier Poul Hartling and President Omar Bongo of Gabon. At the same time, rumors abound that Mao's wife, Chiang Ching, is aggressively accumulating power for herself while Premier Chou En-lai remains in a hospital, recovering from a heart ailment. Chou still meets with visiting dignitaries, but many of his duties have been taken over by his Deputy Premiers.

Continuing Conflict. Is Mao still in control? Has Chou lost his once unquestioned power? Is Chiang Ching plotting to take over after Mao is gone from the scene? In the West, at least, there are no definite answers to these vital questions. But there are numerous signs in China of serious problems of disunity and factionalism. The theoretical journal Red Flag this month carried a frank admission of trouble within the party ranks. One article spoke of "indiscipline or anarchy existing in many places" and warned that "a small number of party members are asserting 'independence' from the mass line." Similarly, provincial radio broadcasts have for weeks harped on the need for "revolutionary unity"--in China, usually a sign that what is called for does not yet exist.

One specific problem is a continuing conflict between the party and the regular army. Since August the Chinese press has been pointedly repeating Mao's famous dictum that "the party commands the gun," again a sign that the reverse threatens to be the case. In more recent weeks the press has displayed a clear worry that the army's authority is too great. "The People's Liberation Army must subordinate itself to the centralized leadership of the party," People's Daily sternly editorialized earlier this month. "We must absolutely not permit the army to become an instrument in the hands of careerists."

No doubt to prevent just that, the party has ordered a buildup of highly politicized, worker-led urban militia--apparently to counter the P.L.A.'s role as a national police force. In one remarkable slight to the professional military, Shanghai's model militia force was pa raded before a group of the city's top political leaders; incredibly, the local P.L.A. garrison commander was not even invited to the event. Returning the insult, a majority of P.L.A. regional commanders, in what looks like an act of open insubordination, reportedly refused to attend a meeting called by Peking's central leadership.

Vacant Posts. Why would the professional military resist party authority? For one thing, the army may only be trying to prevent any reduction of the great power it has held in the provinces since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1969. For another, the military leaders, who tend to be relatively conservative and rigid, may feel that the endless leftist experimentalism of Mao Tse-tung has retarded China's development. A secret Central Committee circular of last summer, which found its way out of China only recently, reports on production declines in key industrial areas, as well as popular disaffection with Mao's latest ideological movement, the campaign to discredit Confucius and through remote guilt by association, former Defense Minister Lin Piao.

Probably, all of this will be hidden during Kissinger's four-day stay. But the issues are too important to remain under wraps for long. Key positions in the military hierarchy, including the jobs of Defense Minister and Chief of Staff, have been vacant since Mao's onetime heir-apparent, Lin Piao, allegedly attempted to assassinate the Chairman in 1971. Apparently the party and the army have been unable to agree on suitable candidates for these very powerful posts. That alone spells serious trouble for the leadership's efforts to pull the country together in preparation for the time when Mao--still the chief symbol of unity--has passed from the scene.

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