Food For China
P., S.
We now have sufficient information confirming that the Chinese Communists have approached American officials and private exporters with proposals to buy large quantities of American surplus...
...Hence, the issue of food for China is a national one, touching each citizen of the country...
...Politically speaking, the act of supplying large quantities of needed food could, if properly handled, reap its own rewards—and this would mean acceptance of the premise that such generosity and solidarity on the part of the American people could not have, to be effective, any strings attached to it...
...He prefers to remain entrenched, isolated and sealed off...
...Other possible political consequences cannot be foretold...
...The aging party leadership, known to be sharply divided internally, appears to have lost the fanatic elan and drive which made so notorious its early years in power...
...We now have sufficient information confirming that the Chinese Communists have approached American officials and private exporters with proposals to buy large quantities of American surplus wheat and grains to feed China's hungry millions...
...Unless, of course, we consider ourselves as waging war upon the Chinese people in their present helpless state...
...The outrageous Communist position on admission of China to the United Nations (expulsion of Chiang Kaishek's Taiwan plus advance approval by the UN of a Communist onslaught on that besieged island) indicates that Mao Tse-tung has no serious intention or wish, at present, to entertain normal diplomatic or other relations with the world...
...For the first time there exists a large body of corroborated information (cf...
...Congressional action at the last session prohibits the sale of farm products receiving price parity support, such as wheat, to any Communist country...
...war in its ultimate form —the denial of life...
...We may add to this the open admission of the Chinese author ities that starvation on an almost unprecedented scale even in a land familiar with such disasters, is taking place...
...the excellent scholarly journal published in England, The China Quarterly) which indicates the shocks and crises that have brought the violent transformation of China by Mao Tsetung and his party to a halt...
...Nor could it suppress knowledge of the source of the grain and bread...
...and in forced industrialization...
...there is more than one international agency available to regulate the terms...
...Such are the simple facts of the situation...
...a preference in which he is reinforced by American intransigeant attitudes and policies...
...Only America has sufficient surplus food stocks to meet these needs...
...First of all, the senselessness of our refusal to have any relations with Communist China becomes more apparent...
...For us, that suffices...
...Successively, there has been an abrupt abandonment by the regime of its programs in agriculture (collectivization, state farming, communes etc...
...From the standpoint of the Chinese government, beset by crises and anxious to find time in which to readjust its hopeless industrial and agricultural targets, what could be more convenient than the rigid "bamboo curtain" raised by the Chinese and patrolled and reinforced by the American insistence on an inflexible boycott...
...The conditions can and must be worked out...
...The regime would be compelled to establish certain technical and other relations with the sup pliers, for the problem of receiving and distribution alone would require this...
...The hungry Chinese men, women and children— the most immediate victims of the stiff totalitarian regime under which they live—appeal to no political principle in their cry for bread beyond that of elementary human solidarity...
...There are basic political and moral issues involved here...
...Australia and Canada—not to mention Russia and her satellite nations—can not meet these demands...
...And even if there are no guarantees that new relations, entirely to the advantage of the West and America, would open up, need Americans be reminded of their own historic picture of themselves as generous providers in the cause of humanity and the relief of suffering...
...America ought to open its overflowing graineries to the Chinese people—now...
...On top of this have come the disagreements of the XXth Russian Party Congress and the disputes with the Russians...
...One such report states that China wants 6 million tons of wheat per year to raise the daily city food ration to 1500 calories, a minimal survival diet...
...Only an act of Congress could open the food graineries to China...
...Thus far, the preliminary negotiations have produced no results...
Vol. 9 • January 1962 • No. 1
