A Partial Eclipse?

China in recent months has been undergoing a mini-Cultural Revolution. While less violent and public than the convulsion of radicalism that ravaged the country between 1966 and 1969, the current drift leftward could affect the composition and course of the leadership. One big mystery has been the position of Premier Chou Enlai. Last week China watchers had new evidence that Chou may be under increasing attack from ideological hard-liners for his pragmatic policies, especially China's developing rapprochement with the capitalist world.

The most telling hint to date that Chou has either stepped or been pushed into the background came earlier this month when he failed to attend a banquet in his honor given by visiting Senegalese President Leopold Senghor at the Great Hall of the People in Peking. It was the first time that Chou has been known to miss a scheduled public appearance.

Two days later he was not at Peking airport to welcome President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan. When Bhutto was ushered into Chairman Mao Tse-tung's book-lined study for a ceremonial audience, Chou relinquished his customary place of honor at Mao's right hand to Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping and sat on Mao's left instead. Chou conducted two hours of energetic negotiations with Bhutto the following day but excused himself from attending a banquet that evening, explaining, "I am not very well because I am old."

Since China's leadership holds some sort of record in the annals of gerontocracy, Chou might as well have said, "I am not very well--but not because I am sick." At 76 he is four years younger than Mao. He is known to suffer from chronic neuralgia and rheumatism, perhaps high blood pressure as well, but none of these ailments is considered serious enough to explain his partial eclipse. As though underscoring the political rather than the medical nature of Chou's troubles, one of his aides remarked cryptically, "He is neither in bed nor in the hospital."

Chou, who was denounced outright by the extremist Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, has in past months been under oblique attack in the Chinese press. Last month the Peking Review carried an ostensibly historical essay on a 3rd century B.C. Prime Minister who wavered in the class struggle against the aristocracy and was "asked to return the seal of his office because of illness."

Another recent article criticized a 12th century Prime Minister who "sought to conspire with foreign countries and push our whole nation into an abyss." The author concluded by asking, "Is there not another man who has already attained a very high position and yet still wants to be Chairman of the country?" Lest the reader miss the point, the article added that the unnamed culprit "will not allow any dazzling light into the room." Chou is known to be bothered by bright lights.

Anonymous Attackers. The April issue of Red Flag, the party's theoretical journal, contains a diatribe against the philosopher Confucius, ridiculing him for his origins in the landed gentry and for having talked a great deal but never having written. Chou was born into a mandarin family and, unlike Mao, has never distinguished himself as a writer.

Chou has never been assailed by name, and his attackers are always anonymous. There would, however, be two prominent beneficiaries if he were to surfer a major political setback. Mao's wife Chiang Ching, 60, a leader of the radical faction, is a driving force behind the anti-Confucius campaign (TIME, Feb. 25) and is also Chou's principal rival for influence with the aging Chairman. Vice Premier Teng, 70, was one of Mao's favorites until he ran afoul of the Cultural Revolution because of his reputation as an apparatchik and went into total eclipse in the 1960s; he was rehabilitated under Chou's aegis and elevated to the Politburo earlier this year.

If Teng continues to sit on Mao's right at official occasions, he will probably be regarded as Chou's replacement rather than merely his deputy. Nevertheless, it is an open question whether the shrewd and accomplished Premier, a master in the art of survival, has suffered a lasting defeat at the hands of his political opponents. It is also possible that he has deliberately lowered his profile in order to present his foes with a smaller target while moving his own men into place.

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