DECLARES CHINA READY TO MEET U.S. ATTACK
At a reception staged in Peking February.4 in celebration of the nineteenth anniversary of Ceylon's independence, Vice-Premier Chen Yi declared that China was ready to smash any plan which Washington may have to escalate the war in Vietnam to involve the People's Republic of China.
The Ceylonese ambassador to China, D.B.R.Gunawardena, acted as host at the festivities. "For peace in Vietnam the American troops should withdraw," he said. "Allow the Vietnamese to settle their affairs among themselves by their accredited leaders."
The representative of the Senanayake government in Ceylon hailed the "cultural revolution" and paid tribute to "the guidance, ideology and the radiant thought of the great leader, Chairman Mao Tse-tung."
Chen Yi thanked Ambassador Gunawardena for praising “our great leader Chairman Mao, the great thought of Mao Tse-tung and the great proletarian revolution."
He then described the aims of the “cultural revolution" and condemned "imperialism, modern revisionism and the reactionaries of all countries for their brazen slanders and virulent attacks against China." These attacks, he said would only injure those who CHEN YI made them. He then turned to the war in Vietnam. The struggle there, he said, "is now entering a crucial stage." He cited Mao Tse-tung on being distrustful of the "nice words" of the imperialists and not being intimidated by their bluster.
Chen Yi then declared: "We have long been prepared. China's great proletarian cultural revolution is itself the most extensive and best preparation against war. The 700 million Chinese people are determined to support the Vietnamese people to the end in their struggle against U.S. aggression and for national salvation and can certainly smash any plan of U.S. imperialism to expand its war of aggression."
After attacking the "modern revisionists" for being in collusion with U.S. imperialism and serving "as the counterrevolutionary special detachment of U.S. imperialism," Chen Yi praised the Senanayake government, saying: "We are deeply convinced that so long as our two governments and peoples work sincerely together, the relations of friendship and cooperation will surely continue to develop and grow stronger."
HOUSING SHORTAGE IN JAPAN
In 1966 the Construction Ministry of the Japanese government estimated that about 7,600,000 houses would be necessary in the next five years to meet the acute