China has emerged as a new and independent nation this year, Chu Tang, editor of the New York China Daily News and long an advocate of Chinese Communism, said last night at the Liberal Union's forum on "Whither Red China."

Since 1842, Chu Tang claimed, China has been a semi-colonial nation controlled almost completely by imperialist European powers. The Communist attack on a British gunboat last week is a sign of the end of this era of foreign rule, Chu Said.

Edwin O. Reischauer, associate professor of Far Eastern Languages, and Benjamin Schwartz, of the Russian Research Center, were the other participants in the HLU-sponsored discussion.

Permanent Power

Reischauer noted that it is careless to assume that the communists have gained permanent power in China. He pointed out that 15 years ago the Kuomintang government also looked strong.

He said that the greatest problem which the communists face is improving conditions in the overcrowded and unorganized cities.

Schwartz sketched the background of the Chinese Communist movement and paralleled the political techniques of Communist leader Mao Tze Tung to those of Lenin. Communism's chief attraction to the Chinese, he said, is its action and melodramatic methods as compared to the inefficient bumbling of Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang government.

All Classes Unite

Chu told his audience that the Communist government in China will no be a domination of any one class, but will be a coalition of all classes including the peasants, industrial workers, petite bourgeoise, and "productive" businessmen.

But "imperialists, feudal landlords, and bureaucratic capitalists will be considered enemies of the people."

When asked by a member of the audience about the influence of the Russians on Chinese Communist policy, Chu replied that the Communist Parties of both countries have "strong natural ideological ties" but that the Chinese formulate their policies entirely independently.

Confiscation and nationalization of major industries is a major plank in the Communist economic program, Chu explained, but "private enterprises not belonging to bureaucratic capitalists will not only be allowed to exist but will be encouraged."

Land Reform

A large scale land reform will be carried on by confiscating land belonging to "feudal landlords" and organizing agricultural cooperatives.

"As for the existing intellectuals," Chu Continued, "we intend to win them over to communism, unite with them, educate them, and reform them."

Communist China's foreign policy will maintain relations and trade with the western powers provided the western powers treat China as "an equal."

China needs United States machinery of forward the industrialization critical to its future, Chu declared, but it will not by any means be dependent on U. S. trade. "We can always get machinery from England or Russia," he said.