A Very Backward Country

A trained economist had a month-long look at Red China (TIME cover, Sept. 13) and emerged last week with some pertinent conclusions. The man was Raymond Scheyven, 52, Belgium's former Economic Affairs Minister and currently a member of the Belgian Parliament. Scheyven visited Canton, Peking and Shanghai, and a number of industrial centers in northeastern and central China. He was told that cloth rationing would continue for at least five years. Scheyven added that optimists gave China 20 years to catch up with the industrial nations of the West, and pessimists 40 to 50 years. Said Scheyven, "I give it approximately 60 years."

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