圖書序言
I began my life behind the Bamboo Curtain on April 23, 1949, the day the nationalists pulled out of Nanking. “Bamboo Curtain” is a term coined by the American press for the totalitarian rule which the Chinese communists are expected to establish in China.
“Bamboo Curtain”, in my opinion, is a more appropriate term for China than “Iron Curtain”, which is used in reference to Soviet Russia, because the barrier against the outside world would not be as tight as that erected by Soviet Russia, due to the long vulnerable Chinese coastline and the large Chinese population abroad.
Another meaning of the Bamboo Curtain is that people behind a bamboo curtain can see outside the curtain, but people outside cannot see inside. This is generally presumed to be what the Chinese communists and communists in other countries are doing – banning foreign observation and inspection of their country, while maintaining a gigantic information or espionage network in other countries.
The most remarkable thing that emerged after the “liberation” of Nanking was the ingenuity and scale of the communist underground network. The set-up of the nationalist political and economic nerve centre was infested with the virus of communist espionage and sabotage, covering every part and level of the governmental machinery and reaching deep even into the Army Headquarters. This was one of the causes of the fast disintegration of Chiang Kai-shek’s power. One communist underground agent told me there were eight thousand underground workers in Nanking. He said three thousand of them were members of the Communist Party. Others were members of anti-Kuomintang parties and factions, communist sympathisers, individual political opportunists and people who were disgusted with the Kuomintang government. His figure may be a little exaggerated, but in my opinion it is pretty near to the truth.