De Gaulle and China

...Surely one result of this will be that de Gaulle's vital testing area will find itself heavily infiltrated with Communist Chinese...

...But will the French delegation try to swing the votes of French-speaking African countries to China...

...There, while we discussed the problems of the day around a pot of tea, a photograph peered down at us from a high bookshelf: it was a picture of Chiang Kai-shek, personally sent to de Gaulle through the then French Ambassador to Chungking, General Zinovi Pechkoff...

...Whatever one may think of that treaty, the fact remains that it was the death blow to de Gaulle's ambitions...

...Still, it would be unrealistic to underestimate the danger de Gaulle's recognition of Communist China represents for the free world...

...Already it is obvious that France's political and financial help to Prince Sihanouk's "neutralist" regime in Cambodia has resulted in a serious increase of Communist pressure on Vietnam and Thailand...

...Now, even though he managed to keep England out of the Common Market, de Gaulle is further than ever from realizing his ambitious plans...

...as for a "Communist war of subversion," it is a theory the General has never put much stock in...

...Curiously enough, this may have direct bearing on de Gaulle's pet atomic projects...

...Indeed, since Konrad Adenauer's departure from active political life in Bonn, not one of France's five EEC partners accepts England's exclusion as final...

...When the talk was over, I promised the American official I would speak to my colleague, Cove de Murville, de Gaulle's Foreign Affairs Minister, about France's Southeast Asia policy...

...They also have made it clear that they feel Europe should be closely affiliated with America...

...Chou En-lai's recent trip through Africa, moreover, revealed that Communist China wields enormous influence on that continent...

...At the very least, such problems as those of South Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia will not be made any easier...

...Events in Southeast Asia also go a long way toward explaining de Gaulle's move...

...The pro-French, pro-Western governments set up in Black Africa after the dissolution of the former "French Community" are one by one being overthrown by elements clearly linked to Havana and Peking...

...As de Gaulle must certainly be aware of the situation, one cannot help but wonder if some sort of cooperation between France and China in atomic matters is not soon contemplated...

...Interestingly, in his speech last December 31 de Gaulle did mention Pankow as one of the European capitals with which it is to be hoped that better relations will some day be possible...

...He explained many things that I myself did not then know, since it is de Gaulle's policy to conceal his actions from his own Ministers...

...officials in that part of the world...

...The underlying assumption in de Gaulle's mind is obviously that, since he has failed to become the accepted leader of either Europe or a pacified Africa, he will be able to appear as the only Western statesman who holds out a strong appeal to the so-called "Third World," thanks to his association with Mao Tse-tung...

...After taking such a position, France, or rather the French "Monarch," was bound to establish closer ties with Communist China...

...Either de Gaulle chose to align, and thus renounce his plan for an independent nuclear force, or he had to grip China's hand...

...Nor did he fail to understand that nothing was left for him except to make a deal with China, the only other major power which did not sign the Moscow treaty...

...What about giving Bonn the same treatment that has been meted out to Tapei...

...The gap between French foreign policy and that of the rest of the West is therefore likely to grow wider and wider in the next few months...

...high command toward the hostile French attitude in Indochina, and specifically in Laos...

...As a matter of fact, throwing old friends to the wolves is a favorite de Gaulle pastime, as I personally well know...

...There is no reason to believe that France is to be exempt from this blanket hostility...

...As far back as 1959, it became apparent that he strongly favored "neutralizing" the IndoChinese Peninsula, which clearly means surrendering that vital area to Ho Chi Minh and Mao...

...Ironically, it was this same Pechkoff who was dragged out of retirement to perform the unsavory task of informing Chiang that his erstwhile "great friend" deemed it necessary (or convenient) to throw him to the wolves...

...This argument holds true, too, in the case of East Germany, since it is equally true that Communist Germany exists...

...It is ridiculous, of course, to suggest that de Gaulle was induced to recognize Red China by economic considerations...

...today it is extolling the new friendship with Peking...

...He refuses to admit that the world has for years been engaged in an ideological war...

...It is apparent, too, that France, though still a member of SEATO, is likely to find itself siding more and more with the Communists in Southeast Asia...

...So what about recognizing its Soviet-dominated government...

...Khrushchev, who is realistic enough to know power when he sees it, has instead preferred negotiating the test-ban treaty with the United States...

...In this scheme of things, "the danger of World Communism" is an empty phrase...

...Yet de Gaulle continues to visualize himself as the liberator of Africa...

...The other reason that official Gaullist propaganda gives for recognition, and perhaps the only one of any substance, is that "China exists," which nobody denies...

...Peking would thus gain at least 10 additional votes, and the U.S.'s position vis-à-vis the new Africans nations would be considerably weakened...

...That his plan will automatically fail is more than likely, if only because France's present economic prosperity cannot last if such a policy is carried through to its logical conclusions and de Gaulle"s regime cannot withstand any serious economic difficulties...

...His is an oldfashioned vision of world affairs, a purely 19th century, nationalistic Weltanschauung according to which Soviet Russia is nothing more than Russia, "eternal Russia," and Communist China is merely China...

...The American did not hide the growing dismay of the U.S...

...The idea seems to have met a fate much like last year's Paris fashions in hats: cela ne se porte plus...

...One is reminded of George Orwell's 1984, where in the midst of a hate meeting the propagand machine suddenly switches from one enemy to another...

...This means that France is now and will become ever more committed to thwarting American and British policy in Asia...

...Beyond reach, too, is de Gaulle's "Grand Design" for a "little Europe," with himself as leader...

...De Gaulle's stand will no doubt also encourage the forces of subversion elsewhere in Asia and Africa...

...The Grand Design for a more or less neutralist Europe dissociated from the "Anglo-Saxon" world, and therefore from the Atlantic Alliance, in order to attract the Soviet Union-that is, the "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals" schemehas proved a chimera and a failure...

...Jacques Soustelle, a former Vice Premier of France under Charles de Gaulle, is now living in exile...

...De Gaulle thinks in terms of nations and of power, and his aim is to play his own game-which he likes to refer to as "France's game" -among all the nations and powers...

...He still considers himself the most qualified statesman to lead an uncommitted bloc of newly independent and Latin American nations whose main thrust would be anti-Americanism...

...One of the most evident is that China's influence and expansionist aims will be greatly abetted in the Pacific area...

...He clearly intimated that one day China would try to grab part of Siberia, and he called upon "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals" to unite against the "yellow danger...

...The crux of the matter is that the General had to turn to Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai because he had nowhere else to go...

...What, indeed, happened to that grandiose scheme of "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals...

...China continues to work exclusively toward its own ends...

...While it is clear that China stands to gain from de Gaulle's policy, French gains seem dubious...

...One of the General's favorite quotations is Nietzche's famous description of the State as "the coldest of all the cold monsters.' De Gaulle sees himself as the embodiment of one particular cold monster, France, which must make its way among other cold monsters named Britain, Russia, the United States and China...

...De Gaulle's obviously hopes, therefore, that he will be able to regain some of his influence through France's association with Peking...

...During the 12 years of de Gaulle's retirement from public life, he had a few faithful followers (of whom 1 was one) who would visit him at Colombey-les-Deux Eglises...

...Algeria, while gobbling up French money at a rate of $2 million a day, is following the Castro pattern...

...For the first time in history, France, with its vast material and intellectual resources and the fund of good will it enjoys in many nations, is drifting away from democracy and its life-long allies...

...The amount of trade that can be done with China is in any event limited, unless France hands out money to the Chinese under the guise of longterm loans...

...I remember a very earnest and interesting talk I had in Honolulu with one of the most highly placed U.S...

...2.) strengthening France's powerand hence his own-through a tight alliance with Germany...

...Since Algeria is increasingly reluctant to accept the continuation of the A-bomb tests now taking place in the Sahara under the Evian accords, France is building an atomictest area at a huge expenditure in the French Polynesian islands, roughly 1,000 miles from Tahiti...

...An interesting test will be the issue of Communist China's admission to the United Nations...

...Many other far-reaching consequences are likely to follow from de Gaulle's decision to recognize Red China...

...And never has a decision of this dimension been taken and then followed by such a paucity of explanation and argument...

...It hardly seems likely that France will be able to sit on the fence if the question is raised at the next UN session...

...When Chou Enlai recently spoke in (ex-French) Guinea, he did not mince words in his denunciation of "neo-colonialism," a term which in his lexicon stands for influence in Africa and Asia by any Western country whatsoever...

...The fact is, Communist China has existed for some years but de Gaulle apparently did not think it necessary to establish diplomatic relations with Peking until now...

...At the time, I was still a member of the French government, and in my capacity as Vice Premier visited Hawaii, following an inspection tour through the French territories of New Caledonia and Tahiti in the Pacific...

...Until now, this large Chinese population was attached through its consulates to the Taiwan regime, but Paris' recognition of Peking will force them to switch their allegiance to Mao...

...Ultimately, all the attempts by French official agencies to explain de Gaulle's recognition of China are meaningless, for the real explanation cannot be given...

...and 3.) acquiring a nuclear deterrent, the wellknown force de frappe...

...Knowing his habit of announcing future decisions by slipping a name or a word into an apparently innocent context six months or a year before an actual step is taken (as he did several times during the protracted Algerian crisis), one feels fairly confident that a "solution" to the East German problem will also emerge in time from Gaullist foreign policy...

...Certainly, the General himself did not fail to understand this...

...Certainly he thinks of Mao Tse-tung as Emperor of China, and not as a Communist leader...

...Clearly, he could not care less if China buys more from France now that he has recognized Mao Tse-tung's regime...

...Belgium's Paul Henri Spaak, the Netherlands' Joseph Luns, Italy's Antonio Segni and Guiesseppe Saragat and, above all, Germany's Ludwig Erhard make no bones about the fact that they want Britain to enter the Common Market, or at least to associate with it...

...If he was really concerned about this, it would have been easy to establish economic links with China through Hong Kong or through trade missions, as West Germany has been doing...

...Then, a few weeks before the fall of Ngo Dinh Diem, the French government announced that it favored a "settlement" of the Vietnamese imbroglio through reunification and neutralization of the entire area...

...To him economics is a tiresome, boring subject, one he is content to leave to the "technicians...

...De Gaulle's Algerian and African policies have been costly failures...

...On the contrary, when he mentioned China in public it was to describe it as a huge, poverty-stricken, hunger-ridden mass which threatened world peace...

...An important segment of the Tahitian population as well as that of the surrounding islands is made up of Chinese, who practically control the entire trade in these territories...

...I myself remember how, in 1944, when he returned from Moscow after signing a stillborn treaty with the Soviets, de Gaulle always referred to Stalin-the only foreign statesman for whom I ever heard him express any admiration-as "the Tsar...

...This was to have been achieved by 1.) keeping England out of the Common Market and thus weakening the links between America and Europe...

...If it does, most of the former French territories will probably toe the line, except perhaps for the Malagasy Republic...

...The propaganda of France's State-owned and State-controlled radio and television has made an abrupt about face: Yesterday it called for a ParisMoscow axis against "the hordes of Asia...

...In fact, it can be said that the "rapprochement" with Peking was virtually contained in the test-ban treaty...

...Never in the history of France has a decision as momentous as de Gaulle's decision to recognize Communist China been taken by one man, without Parliament or even the government being called in to express an opinion...

...This I later did, though without result, Couve being little more than a mouthpiece and penholder of the "Guide," as de Gaulle likes to style himself...

...Since everyone in France knew that the General would stick to his nuclear project at any price, the deal with Peking was a foregone conclusion...