The Government Advocates a Return to the Status Quo Ante

In November 1972, in the course of talking about public security and protection work, Premier Zhou issued important directives on reactivating and developing informants. Below are his key points (wording not checked by the Premier): The Premier said the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution resulted in an ideological mobilisation and a mobilisation of the masses. The major weakness in our work now is that we are no longer sufficiently in touch with what is happening in society. The first issue that must be resolved is in the public security sector, where informants must be reactivated and results must be achieved before the end of this year. Our contacts among foreign expatriates, for example, were in some respects quite useful.