DOES CHINA'S FALL MEAN WAR?
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation Does Chinas Fall Mean War? By JONATHAN STOUT WASHINGTON. D. C. THE STATE DEPARTMENT White Paper on China is the beginning of an open break in our bipartisan foreign...
...OFFICIAL CORRUPTION is hardly a new story in China—or, for that matter, in the United States, according to Comptroller Lindsay Warren...
...But that is the one thing the White Paper does not do...
...Byrnes and Marshall on the tie velopment of the Manchurian situation, from which the present debacle i:l China 1ms flowed in a straight line...
...That, in fact, is what happened...
...And, conversely, if they did not expect to remain in possession of Manchuria, how did they obtain this unexpected gift...
...The indisputable fact is that Manchuria's industry was stripped and destroyed...
...The parallel is now complete...
...Morris B. Chapman...
...Marshall withdrew American aid fiom Chiang while Stalin continued aiding the Communists...
...and it gave Senatoi Vandenb'.rg his opportunity to supply hope...
...Had we been as competent as the Soviets at that point, Manchuria would have remained in the hands of the Chinese Government and the Communists would have had no base from which to mount their conquering invasion...
...The White Paper makes no reference to this point...
...However, it is difficult to see what else Secretary Acbeson could have done about it, unless he were to violate all diplomatic tradition with a frankness not expected of diplomats...
...chioi spokesman on foreign polir.v There was irony in Senator Vandeiibcrg's criticism, for he ignored (.mi pletely the fact that until last week he, as the COP's foreign policy guide...
...The Soviet wrtter who recently hailed Russian vetoes in the UN as frustrating western warmongers is altogether wrong...
...2. "Our well-intentioned but impractical insistence upon a coalition of the Chinese Government with the Communists...
...The State Department's 1.054-page While Paper (1) declared that the collapse of China is solely the responsibility of the Chiang Kai-shek regime...
...Marshall was trying to mediate the civil war in China, the Chinese Government was in the full tide of a victorious campaign against the Communists and the latter were in retreat...
...Such a program, if it indicated some concrete way in whi< h the direction of events in the Far East could be >vversed to the strengthening of democracy's world position, could have piovided the one thing the White Paper does not provide — hope for the future...
...In addition, the Republicans will aim much of their lire at Truman...
...The world would he a better place if the Soviet kept its "no's" out of international affairs...
...for while Marshall could cut off American aid to the Chinese Government, he could not cut off Soviet aid to the Communists...
...Such as, for instance, admitting that President Roosevelt had no business turning Manchuria over to the Soviet Union without even con suiting the Chinese Government...
...PEN POINTS Spellman's vitriolic blast against Eleanor Roosevelt is boomeranging...
...China did not suddenly become corrupt...
...In his criticism the Senator said "the American government has made tragic, however well-meaning, mistakes...
...2) maintained that further aid at present to the Chinese Government would be futile, and (3) warned the Soviet Union that, while we will do nothing to stop the Communists in China, we would regard it as a warlike act if the Communists attempted to spread their invasion beyond the borders of China...
...Diplomatic protocol prevented Coun sellor Chen from giving blunt and clear answers to these questions...
...But tin- will make little difference For tin- Republicans now feel thev have caught the Administration in an untenabli position which will fail to command public support, and they in tend to chart a Chinese policy of their own designed to make campaign material for Republican Congressmen next year...
...The White Paper does not answer this and similar questions...
...Marshall was correct, of course, in estimating that the Chinese Government's strength rested on our aid and that without such aid its prosecution of the civil war would collapse...
...This is the result that Marshall apparently sought...
...Unfortunately, he obtained i...
...Lad collaborated and acquiesced in all the things In now criticizes...
...And he did it when he challenged President Truman to "deal with the realities, and to make it relentlessly clear we have not abandoned either the people of China or freedom ill the Far East...
...The State Department did the best it could to support those three points in its statements and documentation in the White Paper...
...Those Senators who favored the North Atlantic Pact but oppose aiming the signatories are expecting miracles...
...So far from being merely a clerical error, it is a cardinal offense...
...Can the Soviet Union contain its conduct in a straitjacket of propriety in the Pacific...
...The inescapable conclusion appears to be that the Kremlin did not expect to be allowed to remain in possession of Manchuria, and did not expect that its Communist puppets would be allowed to gel it either...
...Nr>ne of the things Hitler did in Europe succeeded In bringing us ac tively into the wai ^3jwjj|rneinwhen Japan moved in the P4cinc.^Wflr^W»*iBA Union has done many mlnji in Europe sit which we bridled, but we have not gone to war about it...
...That is the second big hole in the White Paper's alibi for the Chinese debacle...
...It explains how the Chines • Communists, after trying for 28 years, were suddenly able to acquire decisive strength only in the two years following Marshall's well-meaning but illadvised truce efforts in 1947...
...IN A RADIO INTERVIEW the Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Che* Chih-mai, several da.vs ago developed a point on which moro is certain to be heard...
...Among America's chief errors, Vandenberg listed: 1. "The price we paid" at China's expense at the Teheran and Yalta conferences for the Soviet Union's "belated and unnecessary" entry into the war against Japan...
...Can the Soviet Union, in fact, make any further moves in the Pacific area that are not in fact hostile to our interests and position there...
...The break in our bipartisan foreign policy was sufficiently indicated l>y the challenging criticism of the While Paper by Senatoi Aithui Vandcnbcrg dl Michigan, the Republican parly...
...When Marshall could not obtain the truce he sought, he obtained a United States embargo on the further supply of American aid to the Chinese Government...
...The indisputable fact is that Soviet consolidation of its position in the Far East depends crucially on its ability to produce goods the Chine.- > people need, and for which Manchuria's industry was critically necessary...
...Therefore, it is not being accepted as definitive But it does open a new vista, and that is that the Chinese problem makes war with the Soviet Union more imminent, rather than less...
...They hope to strengthen their hands by cutting off their arms...
...The two points evaded by the White Paper Manchuria and the Marshall embargo happen to constilut.the two big factors that gave China to the Soviet empire, and offer a more credible explanation of events than all the testimony about Chinese corruption...
...Why did the Soviet Union strip and destroy Manchuria's industry, asked Counsellor Chen, if the Soviets expected that either they or their Communist puppets would remain in Manchuria...
...If corruption in the Chiang regime were the explanaHon of the Government's defeat, why was there no sign of Communist victory before Gen...
...D. C. THE STATE DEPARTMENT White Paper on China is the beginning of an open break in our bipartisan foreign polity, and the start of a struggle to reverse the diplomatic mistakes of Yalta, Stettinius, Byrnes and Mai - shall which may fundamentally affect the chanches of war with the Soviet Union...
...Will the Soviet Union exercise greater restraints on its hostile attitudes in the Pacific than it does in Europe...
...The question of war or peace with the Soviet Union now depends on the , answers to those questions . . . questions which have come into being as a consequence of what Senator Vandenberg now describes as a "tragic, however well-meaning" policy of appeasement...
...The inference seems clear, therefore, that Counsellor Chen's questions point to an important failure of American and allied diplomacy...
...Nor is corruption confined to one side in the Chinese struggle...
...SENATOR VANDENBERG was not so reticent about this point...
...But its position is full of obvious holes...
...Now the Soviet Union, an avowedly hostile power, has moved into the Pacific...
...COUNSELLOR CHEN opened up another avenue of inquiry when he pointed out that when Gen...
...Stetti nius...
...THE STATE DEPARTMENT could have prevented our Chinese polity from becoming a Republican campaign asset by going farther in the WhitePaper and presenting a practical program of action...
Vol. 32 • August 1949 • No. 33
