China revives Mao political tenet

A downgraded principle of the late Mao Tse-tung has been revived in China, raising some questions about the future direction of the country's economic development, Monitor correspondent Frederic A. Moritz reports.

The Chinese Communist Party's policymaking Central Committee has declared that the Maoist tenet of putting ''politics in command'' of industry is in fact correct.

That declaration brings into the open a dispute within China's leadership over the country's development strategy, according to a Peking dispatch by Michael Parks of the Los Angeles Times.

He writes that the revived slogan is a clear attack on Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang, an advocate of modern, pragmatic management, including increased use of economic incentives. The Central Committee called for an end of current ''laxness in ideological and political work.''

The committee also appeared to restore as a model for industry the Daqing oil field in northeast China, severely criticized just 15 months ago for emphasizing politics over scientific management.

Mao Tse-tung first made Daqing a model for industry in 1964. Mao's chosen successor, ''leftist'' Hua Guofeng, embraced the Daqing model. But this was downgraded as Hua lost power to his competitor, the architect of China's current modernization strategy, Deng Xiao-ping.