The People's Republic of China 

Murdered for Mao: The killings China ‘forgot’

The Letter, the Truth, and the Waiting

In August 1967, I found myself in a situation so precarious, so surreal, that it would etch itself into the marrow of my memory. I was aboard a cargo ship docked in China, surrounded by Red Guards stationed on board twenty-four hours a day, spaced no more than thirty paces apart. After being coerced into writing a confession—declaring myself a U.S. aggressor and a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader in Taiwan—I was told by the second steward, who handled the ship’s correspondence, that I had about two days before a response to my letter might reach me. That response, whatever it might be, would be delivered by the head of the Red Guards himself.

It was the second steward who quietly suggested I write to my parents. I did. I poured myself into 22 foolscap pages, writing with the urgency of a man who believed he might not live to see the end of the week. I told my church-going parents that I was not the saintly 18-year-old they believed I was. I confessed that the woman they had so often thanked in their letters—believing her to be my landlady or carer—was in fact my lover. She was 42. I was 18 when we met. From 1963 to 1967, she had been my anchor, my warmth, my truth. I wrote about my life at sea, about the chaos and the camaraderie, about the loneliness and the longing. I wrote because I needed them to know who I really was, in case I was executed before I ever saw them again.

As the ship’s cook and duty mess room steward, I had a front-row seat to the daily rhythms of life on board. I often watched the crew eat their meals on deck, plates balanced on the handrails that lined the ship. We were carrying grain to China on humanitarian grounds, and yet, the irony was unbearable—food was being wasted while the people we were meant to help were starving. Sausages, half-eaten steaks, baked potatoes—they’d slip from plates and tumble into the sea. But there were no seagulls to swoop down and claim them. They’d been eaten too. The food floated aimlessly, untouched even by fish, which had grown scarce in the harbour. Starvation wasn’t a concept. It was a presence. It was in the eyes of the Red Guards who watched us eat. It was in the silence that followed every wasted bite.

A Tray of Leftovers and a Silent Exchange

After my arrest, I was placed under house arrest aboard the ship. One day, I took a small metal tray from the galley and filled it—not with scraps, but with decent leftovers. Food that would have gone into the stockpot or been turned into dry hash cakes. I walked it out to the deck, placed it on one of the long benches, patted my stomach as if I’d eaten my fill, and walked away without a word.

Ten minutes later, I returned. The tray had been licked clean.

At the next meal, I did it again—this time with enough food for three or four Red Guards. I placed the tray on the bench and left. No words. No eye contact. Just food. I repeated this quiet ritual for two more days, all while waiting for the response to my letter. During that time, something shifted. The Red Guard, who had been waking me every hour to check if I was sleeping, stopped coming. The tension in the air thinned, just slightly. And I kept bringing food—whenever the crew was busy unloading wheat with grappling hooks wrapped in chicken wire, I’d slip out with another tray.

To this day, I don’t know what saved me. It was certainly not the letter declaring myself a U.S. aggressor and a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader in Taiwan. Maybe it was luck. Or perhaps it was that tray of food, offered without expectation, without speech, without condition. A silent gesture that said, “I see you. I know you’re hungry. I know you’re human.”

And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

In essence, the Australian government faced an agonising moral dilemma — weighing the lives of its soldiers engaged in the conflict in North Vietnam against the desperate need to provide sustenance for an entire nation teetering on the brink of starvation. This heart-wrenching choice highlights the often-unseen complexities of international relations and humanitarian crises, revealing the painful calculations made in the pursuit of survival.

Footnote 83, 84 and 169 → in a paper submitted by Tianxiao  Zhu to - The Faculty of the University of Minnesota titled Secret Trails:  FOOD AND TRADE IN LATE MAOIST CHINA, 1960-1978, etc → Requirements For The Degree Of Doctor Of Philosophy - Christopher M Isett June 2021 

Tianxiao Zhu's Footnotes 83, 84, 169:

In September 1967, a group of British merchant seamen quit their ship, the Hope Peak, in Sydney and flew back to London. They told the press in London that they quit the job because of the humiliating experiences to which they were subjected while in Chinese ports. They also claimed that grain shipped from Australia to China was being sent straight on to North Vietnam. One of them said, “I have watched grain going off our ship on conveyor belts and straight into bags stamped North Vietnam. Our ship was being used to take grain from Australia to feed the North Vietnamese. It’s disgusting.” 

84. The Minister of Trade and Industry received an inquiry about the truth of the story in Parliament, to which the Minister pointed out that when they left Australia, the seamen only told the Australian press that they suffered such intolerable maltreatment in various Chinese ports that they were fearful about going back. But after they arrived in London, Vietnam was added to their story. Thus the Minister claimed that he did not know the facts and did not want to challenge this story, but it seemed to him that their claims about Vietnam seemed to be an “afterthought.”

169. "...In Vancouver, nine sailors refused to work on a grain ship headed to China: two of them eventually returned to work, and the others were arrested. Just when the ship was about to sail, seven more left the ship but three of them later returned to work. In Sydney, six Canadian sailors left their ship; they resigned and asked to be paid, but the Australian immigration office repatriated them. At that time, a grain ship usually had crew members of about 40 people. A British ship lost the Chief Officer and sixteen seamen, who told journalists that if the ship were going to the communist countries, they would rather go to jail than work on the ship."

The Canadian Government and Its Moral Code of Ethics

Textbooks explain the Cultural Revolution – in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions more abused and traumatised – as a political movement started and led by Mao “by mistake,” but in reality it was a massive catastrophe for which we all bear responsibility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I reiterate: how can a country like Australia sell their produce (wheat) to Communist China on humanitarian grounds when Communist China was redeploying some of that wheat to another Communist country (North Vietnam), which was the enemy of Australia? The same enemy who was killing and maiming young Australian lives, and the young lives of Australia’s allies, New Zealand and the USA — young lives (mostly conscripts) who were never to see their homeland again.

I ask every visitor to this website to read the footnote pages 82-85 of the paper Food and Trade in Late Maoist China, 1960–1978, prepared by Tianxiao Zhu. The paper discusses the Hopepeak ship I was on between June and September 1967, which went to Communist China during the Vietnam War.

I have mentioned some tough memories from my short stay in China, including witnessing some pretty horrific scenes. Understandably, these experiences have stayed with me and affected my sleep until recently, when I started writing about them. We must acknowledge and address these kinds of events, so I wanted to share a resource with you — a first‑hand account from a Chinese girl who witnessed similar events. You can find it at the link https://shorturl.at/ltv89. It’s frustrating when those in positions of power try to downplay or deny what’s happening, as John McEwen did. We must hold our leaders accountable for their actions and their words. In this case, I think it’s only right that the Australian government apologise to those who were dismissed as liars by McEwen.

Confronting uncomfortable truths is never easy, but it is necessary to move forward. It’s essential to recognise that, thanks to the unwavering support of the British seamen who stood by me and refused to return to China, my British Seaman’s book received a clean discharge. This meant I could continue to pick up British‑manned ships in Australia and Britain, despite the not‑so‑Hon. John McEwen’s disregard for the welfare of others.
Please read Chapters 1 to 12 below and learn how my China episode affected my life even after I purchased the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp in February 1988.