Throughout this twenty-some-year stretch (1949-1971), Roderick never stopped writing. From postings in Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam, and even the Middle East, he kept his eye trained on Communist China, tracking every shift in its politics from whatever vantage point his assignments allowed. During these years, he also made repeated attempts to obtain a visa to return—efforts that ran into immovable resistance and, before the rapprochement in U.S.-P.R.C. relations, had no real chance of success.
“Mao Gave Them Speech, But How Free?” (July 14, 1957) Reporting from Hong Kong, Roderick dissects the Hundred Flowers Campaign — arguing that Mao’s invitation to criticize the Party was never genuinely open, and that the backlash against those who spoke out revealed the movement as a trap rather than a liberalization. His assertion turns out to be true in every aspect.
“Red Action in Tibet: Nominal Rule Goes to Panchen Lama” (March 29, 1959) Filing from Tokyo in the immediate aftermath of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, Roderick explains how Peking installed the young, ostensibly pro-Communist Panchen Lama as nominal ruler of Tibet following the Dalai Lama’s flight — a political maneuver dressed in religious authority.
“Peking Sets Stage for New Purge” (April 6, 1962) Dispatching from Tokyo as the catastrophic failures of the Great Leap Forward Movement became impossible to conceal, Roderick reports that the Chinese leadership’s sharp public denunciation of Party bureaucrats signals a new round of internal purges — with the scale of the national setback far larger than officially admitted.