Chairman: Welcome.

Pande: Every member of our education delegation feels extremely happy and deeply honored to meet such a great figure as yourself. Words cannot express our joy.

Chairman: Thank you. I am not great; I’m about the same as you, and in some ways perhaps even a bit behind you.

Pande: We all regard you as the great leader of a great nation.

Chairman: You may be mistaken. Your king is very good, a very fine person.

Pande: King Mahendra is indeed the greatest leader of our country. Under his rule, our nation has made significant strides forward.

Chairman: Your country has made progress and development. You have gradually freed yourselves from the influence of imperialist forces and certain individuals imposed upon you, and are building your country independently and on your own terms. We, too, have gradually shaken off the incorrect influence of imperialism and certain individuals.

Take the education system, for instance. We are currently carrying out reforms. The existing system features excessively long schooling years, too many courses, and many poor teaching methods; examination methods also leave much to be desired. Students read nothing but textbooks, learn concepts just for the sake of concepts, and know nothing else. They are unaccustomed to physical labor and cannot tell the difference between the five grains. Many students do not know what horses, cattle, sheep, chickens, dogs, and pigs are, nor can they distinguish between rice, millet, beans, wheat, glutinous millet, and common millet (millet is xiaomi, beans are shu, and glutinous millet is shuzi). Students must read until they are in their twenties to finish university; the schooling period is too long and the courses too many.

The method adopted is spoon-feeding rather than heuristic. The examination approach treats students as enemies, launching sudden attacks. (All laugh) So I urge you not to blindly worship China’s education system or assume it is good. Reform now still faces great difficulties; many people simply do not approve. At present, few support the new methods, while the majority do not.

This may pour cold water on your expectations; you hoped to see the good, yet I am specifically talking about the bad. (Laughter)

However, it is not that there is nothing good at all. For example, in industrial geology, the old society left us with only some 200-odd geological scholars and technical workers; now we have over 200,000.

Broadly speaking, intellectuals engaged in industry are somewhat better, because they stay close to reality. Those in the natural sciences, i.e., pure science, are a bit behind, but still better than those in the humanities. The most divorced from reality are the humanities. Whether studying history or economics, they are too detached from reality and understand the least about the ways of the world.

Please have some tea. Do people in your country also drink tea?

Pande: We also drink tea, but with sugar and milk.

Chairman: We do not add sugar or milk; that is not our custom. Most people drink plain water and do not drink tea at all. Those living high in the mountains do drink tea.

Pande: In relatively cold places like China and Nepal, tea is needed to generate warmth.

Chairman: The people in Tibet mainly eat beef and mutton, so they need tea. In regions where grain is the staple, tea may not be necessary. Besides, there is not that much tea; supply cannot keep up. Does your country produce tea?

Pande: Very little. This habit only developed in recent decades; now not only the rich but also ordinary people drink tea.

Chairman: Tea is quite expensive; the very poor cannot afford it. Our country is still a poor one, and our culture remains backward. (To Minister XXX) How is the situation with universal education?

XXX: Cities have basically achieved universal coverage, but rural areas still lag behind; some places are better, others worse. In rural areas, the enrollment rate for school-age children generally reaches only around 60-something percent.

Chairman: Better than before liberation. Cities have basically attained universal coverage, but rural areas have yet to do so.

XXX: Nepal has experienced significant development in culture and education since King Mahendra came to power. Mr. Koirala is a poet and a veteran educator.

Koirala: I have a strong interest in education. I have been involved in educational work for over fifty years, and my passion is eradicating illiteracy.

Chairman: That is very good. I also worked as a teacher for a few years—a primary school teacher. Later, when I joined the revolution, I could no longer be a primary school teacher. At that time, I organized trade unions, carried out strikes, organized peasant associations, and fought against rural despots. Then Chiang Kai-shek launched a white terror and drove us up into the mountains, where we fought for ten years. Afterward, the Japanese invaded, and that war lasted another eight years; ten plus eight makes eighteen years, doesn’t it? After the Japanese left, the Americans came and supported the Kuomintang in attacking us, and that fight went on for another four years. Eighteen plus four makes twenty-two years. If you add the Korean War, it becomes twenty-five years. Having fought so many years—yet I never studied the art of war, never read any military treatises, and had no intention of fighting. Who made me fight? Imperialism and Chiang Kai-shek. They imposed white terror and killed everywhere, so people like us had no choice but to head for the mountains. At that time we had no guns, so we seized weapons from Chiang Kai-shek. Nor did we have foreign aid. It was foreigners aiding Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang Kai-shek in turn aiding us. So in a sense, we did have foreign aid after all. (Laughter)

(XXX introduces the identities of several delegation members to the Chairman.)

Chairman: You will be warmly welcomed by the Chinese people. Our two countries are friendly nations.

Pande: The warm hospitality we have received in China makes us feel as if we are among our own kin.

Chairman: We must not practice great-power chauvinism or look down on small countries. It is wrong to say small countries are no good. On the other hand, small countries themselves must have confidence. Big countries have their shortcomings, and small countries have their strengths. Your country, historically, never yielded to imperialism. Imperialism could not conquer you, but it conquered our country. How was it conquered? By making the Chinese government obey foreign orders. The Qing emperor at the end of the dynasty obeyed foreign orders. Sun Yat-sen founded the first republic, but it collapsed within months. Then Yuan Shikai became emperor, and he too obeyed foreign orders. After that came the dictatorship of the Northern Warlords, which created division in China. They fought among themselves for years. Then the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated in the Northern Expedition and won victories. Then the Kuomintang slaughtered the Communists, and we fought them for ten years. Chiang Kai-shek ruled China; at first he listened to the British, later to the Americans, because the British became ineffective. Then the Japanese invaded, and the war lasted eight years. After the Japanese left, we fought the Kuomintang for another four years, and only then was the whole country liberated. Now Chiang Kai-shek is still in Taiwan, with the Americans controlling him. He “represents” the entire Chinese people at the United Nations, while we have no right to enter the UN. The UN criticizes us as “aggressors”—how can aggressors join the UN? The first “aggressor” was me. They say we “aggressed” mainly against China, then “aggressed” against Korea, and later, I heard, “aggressed” against India. We fought India for a few weeks; why did we later withdraw our troops? Because their soldiers all dispersed, they had no forces left, so there was no opponent to fight! (Laughter) Now we have withdrawn to a point twenty kilometers behind the border. The Indians are now somewhat better behaved, more disciplined. Regarding the so-called McMahon Line, even Yuan Shikai did not recognize it; demanding that we recognize it—isn’t that absurd? In reality, we do not cross that line, and we have withdrawn twenty kilometers behind it. With both your countries, we have resolved border issues very well and easily; with Burma, it was also very easy to reach an understanding and resolve the issue. With Pakistan, too, it was easy to reach an understanding and resolve it. With Afghanistan, we have also signed a border treaty. It is only this friend India with whom it is very difficult to reach an understanding.

Malla: Why is that?

Chairman: I don’t know either. The Indian people are good, but there are some bad elements in the Indian government. The lives of the Indian people are not particularly good. The Indian people are good to us and to you. I hear relations between India and you have improved somewhat; that is a good thing, and we are in favor of it. Perpetually tense relations are not good. Now the relations between the Indian government and us are not as bad either; in the first place, their troops no longer cross the McMahon Line. Previously, they crossed this line to our side, advancing several dozen kilometers and squeezing us this way; now they are a bit more disciplined. That is already an improvement. Your country has to go through foreign nations for imports and exports, and personnel exchanges also pass through foreign countries, so it is a good thing to maintain good relations with them. By "through foreign countries," I mean through India. When relations were tense, India caused trouble—for example, machinery shipped to your country was sabotaged, even parts removed. I don’t know if the situation has improved now.

Pande: It is slightly better now. For instance, I bought a Chinese radio, and the dial needle was broken; many other people’s dial needles were also broken.

Chairman: So you need to open a back door, and at present, that back door is not yet open.

Pande: The highway from Kathmandu to Kodari, which the Chinese government is helping us build, will provide a back door once completed. Besides this, we are also opening other routes.

Chairman: That may prove beneficial.

Chargé d’Affaires Basnyat: The head of the delegation has already said that we are exploring various corridors; in addition to the one from Kathmandu to the Tibetan border, there is also a route via Dhaka in Pakistan.

Barta: We came to China this time without passing through India; we came directly via Dhaka.

Chairman: When those routes are all open, India will probably hold you in greater respect. (Delegation members nod repeatedly.)

Chargé d’Affaires Basnyat: I have visited Lhasa, and it convinced me that once the road from Kathmandu to Tibet is completed, it will play a significant role in economic, trade, and cultural exchanges between China and Nepal.

Koirala: China and India are two big countries, while we are a small one. When you two big countries fight, we grow afraid; when you are on good terms again, we can rest easy without worry.

Chairman: The main issue is not just the McMahon Line, but the Tibet question. Because we marched into Tibet and later carried out reforms, the Indian government was unhappy. It was precisely that Mr. McMahon who, several decades ago, behind the back of the Chinese government, signed an agreement with the local Tibetan authorities. So in the view of the Indian government, Tibet belongs to them.

Koirala: You just mentioned that Sino-Indian relations are improving; that is very good news. We hope the dispute between China and India can be resolved amicably, so that we, situated between you, can live more easily.

Chairman: Now there is less quarreling, and the exchange of mutually recriminating notes has also decreased.

Malla: Hopefully, in the near future, the Sino-Indian border dispute can be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides.

Chairman: That is possible.

Malla: That is good news, very gratifying.

Chairman: Two countries ought to live in friendship.

Malla: Can you tell us what the secret of your greatness is? How did you become so great, and what is the source of your strength, so that we might learn a little from you?

Chairman: I have already said, I am not great at all. I have merely learned a bit of knowledge from the common people. Of course, we have studied some Marxism, but studying Marxism alone is not enough; one must study Chinese issues by starting from China’s characteristics and realities. We Chinese, people like myself, at first did not understand China’s situation; we knew it was necessary to oppose imperialism and its running dogs, but we simply did not know how to oppose them. That required us to study China’s conditions, just as you need to study your own country’s conditions. It took us a very long time—from the founding of the Chinese Communist Party to national liberation, a full twenty-eight years—to gradually form a set of policies suited to China’s circumstances. The source of strength is the masses of the people. Without reflecting the demands of the people, no single individual can get anywhere. One must gain knowledge from the masses, formulate policies, and then go back to educate the masses. Thus, to be a teacher, you must first be a student. There is no teacher who was not first a student. And even after becoming a teacher, you still need to learn from the masses and understand the conditions of your own students. Hence, in educational science, there are the disciplines of psychology and pedagogy.

Barta: Your Excellency, Chairman, Chinese schools educate young people in the “Five Loves”—teaching them to love the motherland, to love their neighbors (as originally stated), to love science, and so on. This left a deep impression on me. Personally, I have always thought that only a great country could educate each individual in such a spirit.

Chairman: What is your opinion?

Barta: As I just said, I was deeply impressed by that. Another thing that left a deep impression on us was the visit this morning to Tsinghua University, where the vice president talked about how they integrate higher education with practical experience.

Our country also faces this kind of problem. Many people have read a lot of books but don’t have much understanding of reality.

Chairman: Tsinghua University has factories. It is a university of science and engineering. If students only have book knowledge and do not do manual work, that won’t do.

But for liberal arts in universities, it’s not easy to set up factories — not easy to set up some literature factory, history factory, economics factory, or novel factory. (Laughter) The liberal arts must take society as their factory. Teachers and students should have contact with peasants and urban workers, with agriculture and industry. Otherwise, after graduation, students won’t be of much use. For example, those who study law — if they don’t go into society to understand the circumstances of crime, they cannot study law well. There cannot be any law factory; one must take society as the factory.

So by comparison, the liberal arts in our country are the most backward precisely because they have too little contact with reality. It makes no difference whether it’s students or professors, all are the same. They just give lectures in the classroom. To teach philosophy is just the philosophy found in books. If one does not go into society and among the people to study philosophy, or go into nature to study philosophy, the philosophy learned in that way is of no use, merely grasping a few concepts. The same goes for logic. You can read a little textbook material, but you won’t understand very much; only in application can you gradually come to understand. When I studied logic, I didn’t really understand it. Only when applying it did I gradually come to understand. Here I am speaking of formal logic. Also, for example, those studying literature must learn grammar. When reading about it, they also don’t quite understand. Only in the process of writing can they grasp the use of grammar. People write articles and speak according to habit; they can do without studying grammar. For several thousand years in our country, there was no such subject as grammar, yet some articles by the ancients were written quite well. Of course, I’m not opposing grammar.

As for rhetoric, you can study it or not. Great writers do not really study any rhetoric. (To Koirala) Did you first study rhetoric and then write articles? (Laughter) Koirala: No. After the mind receives inspiration, or after having “inspiration” as you say, one proceeds to write, not first studying rhetoric. Chairman: I simply ignore rhetoric. I have looked at rhetoric, but I ignore it. You cannot write good articles by following the methods set out in rhetoric books; there are too many rules and restrictions.

Do any of you still have questions?

Koirala: To love all people and not to hate anyone — this is a principle of life. Act in accordance with this principle, and your days will go very well. China and India are like two big oxen, and Nepal is like a small calf next to them. When big oxen fight, the small calf is terribly frightened and worries about being crushed. When China and India are on good terms, we are very happy. Then the little calf can be safe and sound.

Chairman: One can only love the majority of people. For example, we love Chiang Kai-shek, but he does not love us. (Laughter) He wants to devour us. In the past, Japanese imperialism occupied more than half of China and wanted to turn it into its colony. Then we had no choice but to fight.

Koirala: Practicing the three principles of self-respect, self-study, and self-restraint can enable one to gain independent sovereignty. We see that every person in China possesses the spirit of self-respect and self-regard; this is a factor making China a great nation.

Chairman: That is right.

Koirala: Personally, for the sake of my motherland and my people, I have undergone much suffering. Therefore I am very happy to see China develop.

Chairman: You are developing too, and we are also very happy to see it.

Koirala: Let our two countries advance forward hand in hand. Yet the most important thing is peace. You fought a war for so many years, causing great losses in time, money, and energy. If that time, money, and energy had been saved, China’s progress could have been faster. Chairman: Unfortunately, our enemies did not give us time. They would not leave even when asked. We had no choice but to fight. The British left on their own. The Japanese simply would not leave; it was not until 1945, when they really had no alternative, that they left. Chiang Kai-shek also did not want to leave. At that time, we could not enter the city of Beijing; only Americans, Chiang Kai-shek, and his army could come in.

Later, when he was defeated, we came. And then you also came. (Laughter) Your country recognizes us, but does not recognize Chiang Kai-shek. Did you establish diplomatic relations with Chiang Kai-shek in the past?

Bhat: No. Our government supports the restoration of China’s lawful rights in the United Nations.

Chairman: Well done. Chiang Kai-shek himself is a lackey of imperialism, yet he looked down on you, and even looked down on Nehru. For a period, relations with India became very tense. I am relatively familiar with this man Chiang Kai-shek. (Laughter)

Shall we conclude here for today?

Pande: Yes. Please allow me once again to express gratitude for your receiving us. For each of us, today is an unforgettable day.

Chairman: Goodbye. Please convey my regards to His Majesty the King.