Nixon and Mao

...Taiwan is the rare developing country that exports principally industrial goods (seventy-eight per cent of foreign sales) rather than raw materials...

...The second fascist characteristic, delegation from above, is today evidenced by the fact that of all the Pay and Price Board members, only the Chairmen need he confirmed by the Senate, and President Nixon allowed that concession only to guarantee that Congress would extend his extraordnmry powers for another year...

...Fully one-third of the 268,000 people who live on the Portuguese island of Macao are refugees, and half of the four million residents of Hong Kong fled from Red China, too...

...Last year, Taiwan matched the estimated $4.3 billion total trade of the Communist mainland -- and this year will overtake R. The per capita Gross National Product, $400, is already about four times as large as Communist China's...

...But many do not make it...

...Most newspaper and magazine accounts of Nixon's China have been predictable...

...One was shot as he entered the water, and one was captured...

...Let us look into just a few of the individual cases which came to the attention of the Hong Kong police in 1971...

...Yet, these four integral aspects of life in Communist China hardly have been touched upon at all in the millions of words that have resulted from the Nixon visit...

...Peking insists on an immediate 'return" of Taiwan...

...Not only is Taiwan an economic success, one of the few countries in the world to receive American foreign aid and then "take off" economically on its own, but more than this, it is the repository of the ancient Chinese culture and tradition...

...he lemm fn~t to the right md then to the l e ~ " Mussolini began his political life as a soem~t but earned his greatest renown as a vehement hetor of bolshevism and soeialbun While N'nron's ~xe4uce has p e ~ . been not qu~e so dramatic or bm'limic, the President has d e - - t e d a _~imiimr scorn for consistent faith in a set of abstract kkmls...

...Nixon's chances of re-election have improved consMerably, and, as far as the America-watchers of the world are concerned, the international prestige of a U.S...

...During the first five months of that year, 840 "illegal" emigrants had been found, as many as during all of 1970...

...Today there are refugees from Mao's China in most free countries of the world...

...And still they come, not yet aware of the "Era of Negotiation, net Confrontation," not yet knowing that Nixon's America has joined Mao's China in the "Great March Together...

...A danger we face, and one which our allies both in Asia and in Europe are very much aware, is that of an emerging isolationism in America...

...Professor Gerhart Niemeyer, writing in Orb[s, points out that "by contrast, Chiang Kai-Shek has governed in u spirit of respect and reverence for the traditional order of China...

...If we abandon these allies we will be fulfilling the prediction of the radicals on the New Left that America is, after all, "like everybody else," willing to do anything for what it conceives of being its narrow self-interest...

...Typical of many is the story of ane refugee, a twenty-two year old student, who started out from the Ommmnist coast with two companions...

...Even though Senator Goldwater attempted to reassure his understandably worried "conservative friends," that...

...The Swiss, as is their wont, were talking about the "easing of tensions" and the "neutralization of a possible confrontation...

...There are some immediate result...

...But a serious case cao b~leed be ma :le that the New Ecomsnic P o l l y and Mussolini's ~ State have enough traits in common to ~e~ed the bomMs of mere coincidem:e...

...Another gunboat sank a craft filled with former CCP functionaries attempting to flee The Alternative May 1972 9 to Taiwm...

...We have seen - - even in our life time - - the example of a Nazi Germany...

...The people of Taiwan are depending upon America's honor...

...In spite of all the hazards, they continue to come, estimated at 6~00 in the first half of I~/I, ~m at ~ 6 , ~ in the three mooths ~ . Ammg six girls who swam to Ikeg Kong in July wm a fornm~ mmnber of the Red Guard, wbo voiced what snrely must be fl~e e ~ I o of so many Freedom S ~ . "Freedom means ~,"Mmsmd...

...certm~ the .~mmg w~e am~g the fo~.mmr tmets of Massolmi's a) While social md ecommfic class dis/inctims emtime, m emphasis is 12m~d upon ~ evope~ ~ " b) Pot~t~d powe~ ~s delegated from ~ve ~ thin elected from below...

...Now I do not mean to be provocative or insolent, for this compmson has already been suggested by Ralph . Nader among ot~rs...

...If Taiwan is ever permitted to fall, all American alliances may fall with it...

...President Nixon has returned from his flight to Red China, and from his flight into the rhetoric of euphoria...

...And of course, the simnle fact that the gbvernment is playing a major role in detern~ing wages and prices indicates t h ~ "Nixonmnics" has separated ownership control of 'private property America...

...In a rare occasion in the United States, James Reston had praise b The Alternative May 1972 for the new Nixon, in a column he entitled, "The Peking Journey: Nixon's Finest Hour...

...Such tragic tales are not merely skeletons of the past...

...Only Bill Buckley (and, perhaps, James Michener, representing Reader's Diaest), seemingly alone among the eighty-seven newspapermen who accompanied Nixon, appeared to have no illusions about what the visitors were allowed to s6e...

...Against inhuman obstacles, people who love freedom, more than they love life, will flee - - they will crawl, they will swim, they will burrow, if they must, to reach a land of freedom...

...The French, with their own brand of chauvinism, were impressed that Andre Malraux gave valuable advice to Nixon on the eve of his departure, including the gratuitous suggestion of a new Marshall Plan for China, because "today the Chinese absolutely are no longer interested in revolutionary problems...

...The capital city, Taipei, is a bustling and prosperous commercial and economic center...

...Buckley spared none of his deliciously accurate expletives.on what he saw behind the scarcely camouflageable scenes of Mao's China in the process of "creating the new man...

...The evil that was inherent in Nazism is even more concentrated and potent in the international Communist movement, as we should have noted~ every time it spread its totalitarian tentacles (so often with naive Western acquiescence) over innocent peoples in the last twenty-five years...

...Whether America's face is missing remains to be seen...

...Hopefully, the President will come to understand that peace can never come as a result of ignoring legal and moral obligations...

...After a decade of growth averaging ten per cent annually, Taiwan has beconle a resilient industrial mini-state...

...major disthlctkm between fascism and commm~m is that the former is in part a reaction by the governing I0 The Alternative May 1972...

...Only the Russians, who, after all, have a great deal of personal experience with these inevitable by-products of Communism, noted these facts with any emphasis-) Let us not forget the seven million refugees who have managed to escape from the prison-camp which is Communist China over the' past twenty years...

...The flood of refugees from China began in 1948, with 40,000 non-Chinese (mostly "White" Russians who once fled the Red Revolution in Russia...

...It would have a sobering ~ my euphoric dream d grand detentes ~ ba~tar~ ~ . [ ] The Uses of History Nixon an or Mussolini ? George Me~r I N THE 1930s Ezra Pmmd came out with a short book on the virtues of fasci.~m in Italy, and he gave it the catchy title of Jefferson and-or Mussolini, the reason being flkat he hoped the book would suggest certain parallels between the two men which Mussolini's American critics had so far not acknowledged...

...Massolmi, he wrote...

...Throughout the two and one half years of Mr...

...The City is filled with schools, colleges, and universities...

...over half the cumulative total has come in the past three years...

...The Swedes chalked up Nixon's trip to electionyear politicking, and, with the special penchant for anti-Americanism that Swedish journalists have,_ they cherished quoting the "average" Chinamanin-~he-street about how Nixon was coming, "begging-bowl in hand...

...By any standard, it is a lively, vigorous city...

...The New Eennomic Pol~y suggests its lack of a firm grmmd~g in political or economic theory by the s ~ p l e fact that all its ~ (save recently Paul MeCracken) insist that R is temwrary...

...single thing to the Red Chinese...

...In morals, habits and customs, rituals and beliefs, he has acted as a steward of a great heritage, while providing his people with the benefits of a rapidly expanding economy...

...is a marvelous opportunist whm it comes to action...

...This pessimistic view of society necessarily leads to the fourth fascist tenet listed above...

...Surely a meeting between the leader of the world's great democracy, and the tsar of a Communist empire (whose bloody deeds make Hitlerism pale in comparison), must amount to something more than a pandering for pandas...

...I am determined to m~rk harder ttum anyone else to get the thim~s I need, ~ s t as I have sought [ r ~ d o u l . ~ As Preside~ Wmm moves about the world, from one summit to the next, it is too bad that he does not pmme in H~g Kong, or in T ~ , there to walk amid the milmms of refugees, there to hear ~ bero~ ~ for h'berty...

...It is clear that Lhe status of Taiwan is high on Coma~unist China's list, and it is difficult Lo understand how the Nixon Administration intends to fulfill its treaty commitments by urging fifteen million people on Taiwan to negotiate with 700 millionon the Mainland...

...He is a recipient of a Wall Street Journal Foundation Award...

...If our commitment to these old and faithful allies is not honored, who in the world will believe that any American commitment is any longer worth the paper upon which it is written...

...With the estimate that only one in five is found, the total number of refugees for those five months was estimated at 5,000...

...Even With Communist police boats, disguished as fishing vessels, plying the six-mile strait, many escapers succeed...

...If a system, to sustain itself, must build walls, implant mine-fields erect electric fences, and mount ubiquitous armed patrols, has it not, in fact, deprived itself of the right to be regarded as a nation, worthy of respect, deserving of equal footing among states...

...Like Mussolini, who said "We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms of civilisation, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become," (The Road to Serldom/-too many Americans in the summer of 1971 had an almost mystical faith that the President's "bold action" in controlling wages and prices would succeed where free market f~ces had apparently failed...

...the comervadive dictator of P o r t u p l who was himself ~ labeled ot~rved m~on-,'s shallowness...

...The Chinese realities include (a) an internal Stalinist dictatorship at home...

...Statistics sometimes obscure the tragic fact that, behind each one of the casualties of Communism, there is an intensely personal experience...

...It is a city in which publications of every kind from throughout the world may be found, a stark contrast to the closed society on the Mainland...

...The people of Taiwan will be disappointed only if America turns its back not only upon them, but upon its own national honor as well...

...Those who urge the recognition of Communist China and the abandonment of Taiwan, or even the lesser Nixon-Kissinger position of direct negotiations, must consider the international ramifications of such a policy...

...Chiang Kai-Shek's government has maintained its link with the leg[tim[zing principles of the Confucian tradition, the renovating movement of Sun Yat-sen, and the traditional pattern of Chinese habits and customs...

...In his "State of the World" message ,n February 9, the President moved ~ven further in this direction...

...e) T~e aven, ge.eaffien ~s ~ to believe t h ~ modem so~ety is "too complex" for the old logical solutions to ret~m any relevance, and that it is th~ duty d a gifted leader to take extraord~r~ry measures...

...Nixon's quasimonetarist "game plan" the President had to endure constant appeals from leading Democrats to "do something" about inflation and unemployment...

...In Taiwan, the ancient Chinese culture, literature and religious tradition continues to live and to thrive, while on the Mainland that tradition has been ruthlessly destroyed...

...Each of these, to some extent, is vis~ie in Phase 1I of the New Economic Policy...

...The sterner realities remain, however, now, when the heady bubble of American champagne, and those inscrutable semi-smiles, have been wiped off the faces of Mao's entourage...

...Is it not a measure of the tyranny of a regime, that it is unwilling - - even in the face of the Universal Declaration on Haman Rights - - to allow free crossing of national borders, including the right to leave or re-enter one's own native country...

...Antonio Smlamu...

...Is not freedom of passage one of the most essential qualities which governs - - or ought to govern - - the conduct of civilized nations...

...International prestige and political popularity aside, however, certain realities cannot be erased, but clearly remain, like smudges on the shield of Richard "the Lionhearted,, who preferred to make friends than to do battle with the Chinese Dragon...

...It is too early to praise Nixon for diplomatic or political achievements of which we have yet to see the evidence...

...Since the game plan more closely resembled libertarian economics than it did the more chic activism, its lack of instant success persuaded many that the old varieties had lost their relevance in today's complex society...

...I am satisfied that we have not given away one...

...If much of what'I have said regarding the dmracteristics of fascism seems just as typical ~ dictatorship in ge~-ai that is because absolute states either of the right or cf the left are equally opposed to republican government and ~ free market economics...

...Each time that a Communist regime has oppressed a people, there has been a wholesale exodus...

...e) Private owr~.rship, while permitted to exist, is separate from control over owned assets...

...In his nessage, President Nixon noted point~dly that "the ultimate relationship ~tween Taiwan and the mainland is mt a matter for the United States to lecide...

...Since only the most hardy and courageous can survive, most of the swimmers are between 13 and 16 years of age...

...President has not been so great since the Kennedy Camelot myths swept Europe with all the enthusiasm of beatification proceedings...

...i ~ e from the very Mmsol~ md h~ Black .~irts believed that the fatherland was the higher gond and that individuals should subordln~te their semsh im~-ests to it...

...and (d) the almost total destruction of long-cherished religious and cultural traditions and values...

...Let us recall the 1.6 million who fled from Communist East Germany, the three million who fled from Communist North Korea, the one million who fled from Commnist" North Vietnam, the .75 million who fled from Communist Cuba...

...If Ezra Pound still follows "politics, he is no doubt delighted to observe that the President's economic measures resemble nothing so much as they do the "corlm~te (or cm3mrative) state" d Benito M~solini's fascist Italy...

...d) The individual must accept discipline as a greater good than ~_rty...

...One Red Chinese gunboat once caught a sampan with would-be refugees within fifty yards of Macao territory...

...b) an effective and expanding network of subversion abroad...

...155,000 are in Taiwan, 82,000 in Burma, 70,000 in India (net counting the Tibetan victims of the Communist Chinese invasion of their country), 62,000 in the Soviet Union, 45,000 in South Vietnam, 20,000 in Saudi Arabia, 10,000 in Laos, 4,000 in South Korea, 2,000 in Japan...

...Beyond this, such an abandonment would be a 'tragedy, both morally and economically...

...One UPI report quoted a foreign correspondent residing in Peking: "When you ,leave, the smiles will come off their faces, and it will be like old times again...

...as Dm~l Brod~ Ires observed of Wmm's '~ragnmUam' so the late Dr...

...To turn Taiwan over to Communist China would be to lose for the Free World Asia's number two economic power...

...It is this super-mtimmlimn which omlemlmrary ~ refer to when they brmd regfmes such m those in and Greeee as "fascist," and at first perlm~ that was all Mussolini Imi in mind But a ~ simplistic definiUm of l~umoPni's system is oet:usm7 if one is seriemdy to ~amh~e the elmrge that Rielmrd Wmm is ml~katmg mmy a ~ ~.aturm...

...The island's exports, which range from canned mushrooms to railway cars, rose 40.6 percentlast year to $1.6 billion...

...Messrs...

...Only the student lived to tell the story...

...Allan C. Brownfeld is a former editor of New Guard whose articles have appeared in Human Events, The Yale Review, Commonweal and Modern Age...

...indeed they profess ahiamamce for any society in whleh Pay Boards and Price CommL~'~ms would be ~ t F, ffilares...

...Unfortmately the mr~mmmr has failed to make an ireland;m, because, to most Amoricam, me tam "fascist" no longer ms any connoCaU...

...The structm'e of the Pay Board, with its representatives from labor, management and the public, is an obvious illustration of the first tenet, and the near unanimons condemnation of George Meany when he appeared uncooperative further indicates that the present political climate places a premh~m on cooperation between eompet~ag segments of society in pursuit of an elusive national ~aterest...

...Report from Hong Kong Nixon and Mao Eric Brodin "The Week That Changed The World" recedes in history, although, to be sure, the world still appears rather unchanged...

...Evidently it was not James Reston's...

...What everyone finds unexpected is that the Nixon Administration would follow this erroneous approach, rather than leading the American people against it...

...While running a tightly authoritarian establishment, he has not dedicated his power to the subversion of China's substance...

...Since 1962 alone, over 300,000 men and women have fled the Communist mainland...

...c) a dirigistic Communist economic system causing bitter economic privations to the Chinese people...

...Both systems ~ e ~ ~m,vised, without any sul~tm~ background or ideals...

...It is, it must be remembered, only the power commitment of the United States which has provided an equalizer...

...It is a fact that, the amiable visit of the Chief imperialist paper tiger notwithstanding, Communist China continues to be what it was before: a brutal, dehumanizing, totalitarian dictatorship...

...This, coupled with their membership in the United Nations, will enable the Red Chinese to develop more refined - - and more effective - - methods of subversion, which they can employ alongside their more traditional guerrilla activities in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, just a few of the places in which they have operated for so long...

...It has several English language newspapers, as well as a host of Chinese papers...

...Such an abandonment would be neither in keeping with our moral role in the world, nor with our self-interest...

...one wonders whether, m fact, making the bloodied regime of Communist despots worthy of a visit from an American President, even before visits to world capitals such as Tokyo or Moscow, has not endowed Red China with a level of international prestige that they could not have attained for themselves...

...Taiwan has approved $559,180,000 in investment projects, with American companies accounting for $250 million...

...If the Chinese are not smiling, it is not because they have "lost face...

...Particularly in the area of prices, discipline has been sb'essed to the extent that labor officials, not to mention the general public, have been encouraged by the President to turn in their fellow citizens for violations of the price guidelines...

...Such a feeling of withdrawal has followed every war, and it is only natural that it would follow Vietuam...

...Taiwan amassed a thirty-four million dollar trade surplus...

...llae dromaed bodim oi young men and womm, floating adm~ on the ~ Kong coa~ give mute, but e~luent, testmmny, to the .risks people will take to ae~t~e f r t a l m . In the one month ~ Novmnhe~, 1~0, no fewer than fifty~ight such bodies were found...

...Our commitment to Taiwan goes back to 1949, when the Communists seized the mainland and the Nationalists moved to the island...

...Premier ~hou gn-Lai, for example, was reported to ~ave taken the position that he would lever come to the United States or the United Nations as long as the United States maintained diplomatic relations with Nationalist China...

...A new form of "ping _pon~ diplomacy" was that devised by the thirteen Freedom Swimmers who, on April 26, 1971, managed to reach Hong Kong bouyed up by their hopes, and by plastic bags filled with ping pong balls...

...Three days later, fum" more young people swam to freedom, including one whose feet were alm,~t_ entirely eaten by sharks...

...Mysteriously Pound's thesis never really caught on in America, but if he were now reclined to make a second effort he could assemble a convincing case that the menmbent Pr~,sidmt has, albeit unwittingly, demonstrated more similarities to the Itnlinn dictator than ever was the case with the Sage of Monticello...

...11~e " ~ ' of both leaders was a eommm d m ' - acterisUc...

...The Cultural Revolution was massive and deliberate attempt against the very core of Chinese culture, comparable to the Soviets' continuous warfare egainst Russian Christianity and the freedom of Russian literature, and it went even further in its attempt to destroy the authority of teachers and varents...

...While the President emphasized that he United States was not urging either ~hinese faction "to follow any particular ~urse" over Taiwan, Henry A. Kis;inger, the President's national security ldvisex, when asked if the Administra:ion favored direct negotiations between :hem, replied that "this is obviously :he course which, we think has the ,,reatest promise...

...N'mon, Commlly and l~,mqfeld ratimalize their support for these institminm wh/.-h they profess to mismast by invddng the "naUomd interest," thereby hapmg to stagmatize aU criticism...