Leon M. S. Slawecki

The newly independent countries of Africa are now providing a somewhat bizarre setting for a continuation of the four-decade struggle between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, embodied in their respective states, the Republic of China (Nationalist), and the People's Republic of China (Communist) . The match between the two in this sector of the larger struggle is by no means as uneven as it looks at first glance. Certainly Communist China, with its 700,000,000 people and huge land area, looms far above any individual African country-indeed, it has over three times the population of the entire African continent. Rump Nationalist China, however, while minuscule when compared to its Chinese rival, is a large state by African standards. Its population of 11,000,000 would rank it seventh were it in Africa, ahead of 27 other independent African countries, as well as the few remaining colonial possessions. Moreover, its per capita income of nearly $120, second highest in the Far East, would place it tenth in Africa.