“No longer the notorious ‘Crime City’ it was before 1949... Shanghai is today a peaceful, clean
and beautiful city belonging in name and fact to the people of China.” The world-renowned Shanghai

Bund is shown above.

‘The new Shanghai

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ANYonr who has ever lived in
ey: Visited Shanghai would find
: argest city in the Far East as
ed ie China no longer the in-
its S “Paradise for Adventur-
City 2 the notorious “Crime
a, Was before 1949. Shang-
rs h a population of six mil-

IS today a peaceful, clean

beautiful city belonging in

© and fact to th 1
China, e people of

“ ne Shanghai was liberated
ation. 27; 1949, from the re-
Sep i Kuomintang govern-
os ae the foreign imperialists
his ee its trade and eco-
skeptical 1 many observers were
Anh. that the Chinese peo-
Ould be able to manage by
. Wselves a metropolis of such
Indeed, On June 5, 1949,
: Ai uf America announced
a a Shanghai will perish
€ rule of the Chinese
Mmunists,»
Such

\

\

Judgments were based on
known weaknesses.
nghai, with its semi-
Onomy was never in-
Among essential in-
. Materials, the city
fue] amor 80 percent of its

60 percent of its cotton.
. China’s economy was
to brin Sricultural, Shanghai had
Percent” ™m as much as 50 to 60

Of the rice she needed.

Th <
Chi de’ at the beginning of 1950
desper al-shek’s forces made a
City’s € attempt to strangle the
blocks, deem by bombing and
Out ae in the hope of knocking
eo €conomic heart of China.

- glmmeg;
| Shangiiately, the call, “Help
+ tiegn” 3! Overcome “Its Difficul-

Country issued throughout the

Y old s
qonial s

to th 1, Coal, were rushed
through my: Shanghai lived
, ~ ‘He blockade and the

ge quantities of.

bombings to become, for the first
time in its history, totally inde-
pendent of “aid” from abroad.

*

Having thwarted their enemy’s

A

‘designs, the people of Shanghai

turned to production. As a re-
sult of their driving initiative
and united efforts, the industrial
output of the city today has hit
the highest mark in history.

Today Shanghai puts out 60 to
80 percent of China’s cotton
cloth. It provides the country
with large quantities of mach-
ines and farm implements neces-
sary for the reconstruction of the
country.

These inclute spinning and
weaving machines, rotary print-
ing machines, large motors, gen-
erators, and fine, delicate scien-
tific instruments, and such farm
implements as improved plows,
mechanical seeding machines,
which have simplified farming
and raised production.

Most of the huge sluice gates,
hydraulic pumps and other such
flood control and water conserv-
ancy installations in the Huai
river project, for instance, were
produced in Shanghai.

Gone are the days when even
a nail had to be bought from
abroad.

Business has taken the road to
steady development and growing
prosperity. Trade ethics _have
been restored. No longer 1s the
city a paradise for “adventurers
where “sharks” could make a
quick million out of the people’s
misery. Unscrupulous specula-

“tions have been banned.

Through. the “Wu Fan” move-
ment*, which was carried out
throughout the country in the
spring of 1952, businessmen
learned how to do their business
honestly and to make legitimate

ee

By SUN CHAN-KO-

profits within the limits of the
country’s needs and the people’s
welfare.

* Wu Fan means the “five-anti”
movement among business circles,
the movement against bribery
of government personnel, smug-
gling and tax evasion, theft of
state property, cheating on gov-
ernment contracts, and espion-
age to obtain economic informa-
tion from government sources to
be used for market speculation.

Through government aids, such
as loans to buy and repair mach-
inery, standing orders for manu-
factured goods, private industry
has been able to recover and
expand. Just before the libera-
tion only 30 percent of factories
owned privately by Chinese were
able to operate.

The Kuomintang regime had

sold the country out to the im-
perialists and was doing nothing
to protect and develop home in-
dustries. Foreign goods were
being dumped on the country and
it was impossible for China’s
young industrialists to exist.
Thus the eve of liberation found
even the few factories in opera-
tion short of materials, capital
and markets.

By the fall of 1952, however,
over 95 percent of the plants in
Shanghai were operating.

In the field of machine industry
alone the number of privately-
owned enterprises in the city has
increased from 700 in pre-libera-
tion days to more than 1,350 at
the beginning of this year and
the number of workers and staff
members has shown an increase
of more than 60 percent.

Together with the growing
prosperity in industry and com-
merce, the income of wage-earn-
ers has been constantly on the
increase. Savings deposits in
the People’s Bank of Shanghai
had, by the end of 1952 ,inereas-
ed 87 percent over the year be-
fore.

Gone also is inflation, long a
nightmare to citizens for whom
the figures on price tags frequent-
ly changed several times a day.
On the eve of liberation, com-
modity prices in Shanghai, as
compared to prewar days, had in-
creased an incredible 2,100,000
times. But in 1950, the second
year after liberation, prices were
stabilized.

To many people however, the
most remarkable as well as the
most prominent change under-

gone by the city is its new moral
standard.

In the past this city had been
so crime-ridden that it was known
as the “Chicago of the East,”
where “villians rule; honest peo-
ple suffer.”

Old Shanghai was a city of
spies, gamblers and prostitutes.

SRS

“Gone also is inflation. . . .”
Here a crowd is shown besieging
a Shanghai shop when the Kuo-
mintang still ruled the city.

It was virtually a city without
social order.

It was impossible to have a uni-
fied law enforcement system be-
cause the various foreign conces-
sions enjoyed extra - territorial
rights and criminals who escaped
into them were beyond the reach
of Chinese courts. ‘he police of
the International Settlement and

‘the French Concession openly

worked against the interests of
the people.

Today, after three years of hard
work by the people and their gov-
ernment, Shanghai for the first
time in many decades has emerg-
ed as a clean’ and honest city.

In 1950, the government gave
shelter to. tens: of thousands of
vagabonds, beggars, thieves and
pickpockets who, after being re-
formed, joined the ranks of pro-
duction as skilled laborers, handi-
craftsmen, and mechanics.

- Gambling dens too, have been
closed down. The notorious
Shaighai Race Course, situated in
the centre of the former Interna-
tional Settlement, was the biggest
gambling institution of the city.

Its history dated back to 1861
when the imperialists bought, at
an unreasonably low price, an
area of more than 80 acres from
70 Chinese families. An old say-
ing went: “The race track drain-
ed the blood:.of the Chinese and
overflowed the pockets of the
foreigners.”

ie es -

The- course was finally return-
ed to the Chinese people in Au-
gust, 1951. .In its place today is
the beautiful People’s Park. In
the park are a swimming pool,
an auditorium, a bandstand, a
cultural. palace and two play-
grounds for children. «

In November, 1951, the People’s
government ordered the closing
of all 315 brothels in the city.
The long-oppressed prostitutes
were liberated, cured of venereal
diseases, and sent to vocational
schools where they were educat-
ed and trained for work in in-
dustry. ‘

*

The physical face of Shanghai
has also been, altered. Streets
like the Bund, Bubbling Well
Road and former Avenue Joffre
(now known as the Huai Hai Lu)
have been repaired or rebuilt.

New houses like those in Tsaoy-
ang Villa, a recently completed
housing project which accom-
modates some 1,000 workers and
their families, have taken the
place of dark, overcrowded and
filthy slums. A similar project,
under construction will house
some 20,000 workers’ families
when completed.

New drainage and sewage sys-
tems and street lights have been
installed in formerly neglected
districts.

In step with its economic and
social development, Shanghai is
having a new boom in cultural
activities. ;

In the past only 30 percent of
the city’s children were able to
go to school; now the figure is
95 percent. No less than 30,000
women are’ now attending part-
time study classes. More than.
250,000 workers are in part-time:
schools to improve their general:
knowledge and raise their tech- |
nical levels... \

Concerts by the country’s lead-
ing musicians, the finest of Chin-|
ese and foreign films, widely dis-
cussed stage-- productions, are.
now available to all citizens.

No, Shanghai did not perish.’
On the contrary it has grown
prosperous and healthy, a city of '
which its own people and all
New China are proud.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 18, 1953 — PAGE 9