The Week
China’s Autumn Export Commodities Fair Opens in Kwangchow
[This short article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 11, #43, Oct. 25, 1968, p. 3.]
China’s 1968 Autumn Export Commodities Fair opened in Kwangchow on October 15, at a time when the Chinese people are winning all-round victory in the great proletarian cultural revolution.
The opening ceremony was attended by thousands of people, including friends from trading circles in dozens of countries and regions of the five continents, as well as overseas Chinese and compatriots from Hongkong and Macao.
Huang Jung-hai, Vice-Chairman of the Kwangtung Provincial Revolutionary Committee, addressed the gathering. He emphasized our great socialist motherland’s ever growing prosperity which is being brought about by the great proletarian cultural revolution. Steady reports of outstanding production achievements pour in from industry. There has been another good harvest in agriculture this year. Both in the cities and countryside the market is brisk and commodity prices are stable. The excellent situation in industrial and agricultural production throughout the country, he said, has provided a still more solid material foundation for the further development and expansion of China’s foreign trade.
Speaking of today’s excellent international situation, Huang Jung-hai pointed out that a now historical period of struggle against U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism has begun. The scheme of U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism to collaborate in an attempt to redivide the world will go completely bankrupt.
He said: Holding still higher the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought and guided by Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line, the Chinese people will carry out their internationalist obligations still better and actively promote friendly trade relations with various countries and regions in the world under the guidance of a foreign trade policy based on equality, mutual benefit and mutual exchange.
After the opening ceremony, foreign friends flocked to see the exhibits.
Totalling over 30,000 and housed in 20 halls, the exhibits include many new industrial products of advanced international standards — splendid fruits of the great proletarian cultural revolution and vivid proof that the working class of our country armed with Mao Tse-tung’s thought is the most creative and ingenious. During the great proletarian cultural revolution, the Chinese working class has brought its earth-shaking revolutionary vitality into full play. In accordance with the great policy of “grasp revolution and promote production” put forward by the great leader Chairman Mao, the workers have shouldered the historic task of the working class to exercise leadership in everything. They have firmly grasped leadership in enterprises and technology and scored victory upon victory.
A huge precision surface-grinding machine of advanced international standard on display in the machinery hall was designed and produced by the Shanghai Machine Tools Plant, by relying on the collective wisdom of veteran and other workers with a worker-technician as the chief designer. An electron microscope which magnifies 200,000 times is on show in the hall for instruments. It is the product of the self-reliant efforts of the workers and young technicians at the Shanghai Research Institute of Electronic Optics. On display for the first time are new products which were turned out by a methyl alcohol workshop which was designed and constructed by Chinese chemical workers during the great cultural revolution. The exhibits of the textile and light industries show considerable progress in design, variety and quality. Many of the new products show that the production level of the textile and light industries has reached a new height.
Grain and oil products and other foodstuffs, special local products, marine and livestock products are on display in a much richer variety than ever before. The exhibits give a vivid picture of the thriving farming, forestry, animal husbandry, side-occupations and fisheries run by the people’s communes.
A reception was held on the evening of October 15 in honour of more than 4,000 guests, including representatives of the trading groups.
The reception was followed by a performance of the piano music The Red Lantern with Peking opera singing, and of the revolutionary ballet on a contemporary theme, The Red Detachment of Women.
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