OUR CHINA POLICY REACHES DEAD END
Clubb, O. Edmund
Our China Policy Reaches Dead End by O. EDMUND CLUBB Our China policy has reached a dead end. The United States' political position on "the China question" is crumbling, for it was built on sand....
...In simple tactical terms, the Communist bombardment of Quemoy and the tensions it has produced can be viewed as the prelude to Peiping's demand that the Formosa issue be settled...
...Nor are its prospects any more real than its present claims: it has already lost the civil war...
...Our China policy is effectively a projection of the Korean War and the earlier domestic controversy regarding "the China question...
...The United States, nevertheless, has still not made a place for China in its draft plans on the subject...
...In 1957, the General Assembly vote was 48 against discussion of the Chinese representation issue, 27 in favor, and six abstaining...
...In the meantime, by making its stand at Quemoy, the Administration has revived the issue of Formosa's legal status...
...This may tend to confuse the issues in the American mind, already conditioned to regard the two hypothetical developments as practically identical and alike laden with potential peril...
...The United States, standing alongside Chiang Kai-shek in his civil war with the Communists, remains committed to the "passing" of the Peiping regime...
...Peiping's foreign policy is even more violently anti-American...
...General Assembly today...
...And the United States has lost its hold on a built-in majority in the U.N...
...Peiping and Moscow have accepted Washington's challenge in the international field, where the odds are heavily against us...
...For China has aligned itself with Asian nationalism in a day when that sentiment has become a world force...
...Then there is the problem of the proposed control of nuclear tests...
...In such circumstances, the initiative for any basic policy change would have to come chiefly from the Administration itself...
...But the matter is not confused for the Peiping government, which views the two items as separate, one being an American national affair, the other being an international issue of substantial concern to China...
...Seventh Fleet maneuvers off the China Coast, the Sino-Soviet partnership labors to draw closer to such so-called "neutralists" as India, Indonesia, and the United Arab Republic...
...Every American attack on the Peiping government consolidates support for that regime at home and abroad...
...Legally, Formosa and the Pescadores are (as described by British Prime Minister Eden in 1955) "territory the de jure sovereignty of which is uncertain or undetermined...
...Except for those who say that the Nationalists outweigh all of our other allies and friends, and therefore American obligations under the U.N...
...The economic cordon sani-taire constructed around China at American initiative during the Korean War has collapsed...
...With the aid of the Soviet Union, China brought its first atomic reactor into operation in July...
...American authorities on international law have analyzed the technical aspect of the matter...
...The strategic retreat would aim at saving, at least temporarily, something from the burning— Formosa and the Pescadores...
...Peiping on its part frequently voices friendliness toward the American people as such, and professes to be willing, even anxious, to settle outstanding issues by political negotiation...
...Yet, when the American representatives presented our plan to the U.N...
...To buttress our adjusted position, it would be necessary to end our long and, ultimately, probably futile fight to prevent the entry of Peiping's representatives into the U.N...
...representation...
...The probability now seems to be that Peiping will gain China's seat in the 1959 General Assembly session...
...Chinese Premier Chou En-lai recently remarked that China is, and actually has been for a long time, "unconcerned" with American recognition...
...And most of the world is "neutralist" today regarding American moves toward hostilities with China...
...Our involvement in the Nationalists' military operations along the China coast has followed almost automatically...
...Isolated and immobilized, the United States gambles its own national future in another's reckless political game...
...As a natural corollary, this country would be pressed to come to an agreement, where none exists now, fixing the legal status of Formosa...
...Too little attention has been paid to the circumstance that the Common Program of 1949, on which the Chinese Constitution is based, stated that China was prepared to establish diplomatic relations, on a basis of equality and mutual respect, with countries which "sever relations with the Kuomintang [Nationalist] reactionaries and adopt a friendly attitude toward the People's Republic of China...
...The repair of Sino-American relations would manifestly be attended by great difficulties...
...We propose the same "solution" this time...
...Charter too, the logical question arises: is there a way out of our perilous entanglement in the Chinese civil war...
...The racial issue has become international, and Asians deem our anti-Chinese policy prima facie obnoxious...
...By signing a treaty of alliance with the Chinese Nationalist regime on Formosa in December 1954, the Republican Administration committed American political hopes to the defeat of the Nationalists' enemy—the Chinese Communist regime on the mainland...
...Failure of the American and Chinese ambassadors to reach a compromise settlement in the talks at Warsaw would make it virtually certain that the conflict would come before the U.N., whereupon the United States would there lose its case...
...a major international issue, and has moreover suggested (primarily, for domestic consumption) a possible causal relationship between that issue and American recognition...
...Washington strongly opposes Peiping's admission into the world community, and the State Department's August memorandum set forth the official position in challenging terms...
...The Afro-Asian countries in particular stand firmly in favor of applying the rule of universality for U.N...
...Disarmament Subcommittee at London in 1957, he proposed reductions for the military forces of the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, but made no mention of China...
...Even the support we had in the voting was begrudged us...
...But such professions do not signify a readiness by Peiping to surrender any of its objectives in exchange for American recognition, or to embrace that recognition unconditionally...
...Peiping and Moscow both know this, and capitalize on it...
...Most of the rest of the world recognizes the political transformation that has occurred and moves to adjust, in one way or another, to the rising power of Communist China...
...There has been solid bipartisanship in an "anti-Chinese Communist" stance...
...As the situation in the Formosa Strait suggests, he probably meant it...
...Asian nations are now quick to resent wrathfully the action of a great occidental power against one of their number...
...membership...
...Our relations with the Peiping Communist regime are, of course, the reverse of the U.S.-Formosa relationO. EDMUND CLUBB served as an officer in the U. S. Foreign Service in Asia for two decades and was director of the Office of Chinese Affairs of the State Department when he retired in 1952...
...support for the American exclusion policy will weaken...
...General Assembly...
...China, for example, possesses what is probably the largest land army in the world...
...Washington, far from conceiving a need for better relations with Peiping, would justify perpetuation of the present China policy by leaning on the premise that the Peiping regime's days are numbered...
...trusteeship, or implementation of the Cairo Declaration promising the return of Formosa to China...
...For the national good, we must revise our China policy without further delay...
...At the time of the 1955 "Formosa Strait crisis," majority U.N...
...Finally, this second trip to the brink of war in the Formosa Strait shakes our NATO allies, and weakens our influence in the United Nations...
...But the rehabilitation of relations between the United States and China is a task essentially political in character, and would require fundamental changes in our China policy...
...And Congress similarly, with almost clocklike regularity, votes overwhelmingly to oppose Peiping's representation in the U.N...
...Moscow is reported to have promised Peiping to build four more such reactors, which produce material suitable for the manufacture of atomic bombs...
...Nor can we any longer mobilize support for our economic embargo of China...
...opinion...
...as soon as a majority of that body's members might conclude that China had abandoned aggression in Korea and Indo-China...
...Prominent businessmen may upon occasion speak in favor of a resumption of trade with China...
...Peiping's participation in U.N...
...In isolated instances, the U.S...
...Asserting that American recognition of China would lead inevitably to Peiping's representatives being seated in the U.N., it held that this "would vitiate, if not destroy, the United Nations as an instrument for the maintenance of international peace...
...This year, the vote was 44 against and 28 for discussion, with nine abstentions—and the Asians argued more forcibly than ever before against the American position, while only three delegates rose to speak in our support...
...Statesmanship should have led the Administration long ago to evolve a policy proposal for the ultimate disposition of Formosa, whether along the lines of self-determination, a temporary U.N...
...ship...
...Then, and probably only then, by all indications, would Peiping consent to an exchange of ambassadors...
...The Nationalists are no longer an effective power factor in their own right...
...Committed and shackled as we are to Chiang's political ambitions, our China policy has been openly anti-Chinese...
...No major American political force today challenges the basic concepts of the existing policy...
...and we shall be host nation for the 1961 General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, of which China is a member...
...opinion rejected the American argument that there should be a cease-fire that would leave the Nationalists in occupation of the offshore islands...
...At this late date, however, time presses hard upon us...
...They are neither China per se, nor of China...
...Confronted with the fait accompli, Washington reluctantly agreed to an appropriate revision of the controls...
...On the evidence, a very different hypothesis would appear more credible: the United States, by refusing to recognize existing Chinese realities, invites heavy losses in its world position...
...In a manner holding a portent for the future of our political strategy, Japan and West European countries in 1955-56 began to avail themselves of the right to make "exceptions" to the strict rules governing exports to China...
...The handwriting is plain on the U.N...
...With the entry of Peiping's representatives into the U.N...
...The trend is unmistakable...
...It sufficed to give us, once more, our cherished "victory," but this will probably be the last time we shall win on this issue...
...they do not belong to the Nationalists, and still less to the United States...
...But our Nationalist ally, still concerned primarily with "recon-quest of the mainland," pulls us in a different direction—away from our ties with Japan and India, NATO, and the United Nations...
...But is it true that all we have to do in order to win is to sit and wait— and Communist China will vanish...
...Our China policy fits the Communist grand strategy of levering the United States away from the major centers of power...
...China, possessing one-fourth of the world's population, makes urgent claim to U.N...
...Moreover, it is crystal-clear that the Nationalist government, whose very tenure on Formosa depends upon continued American support and military protection, no longer exercises an effective claim to sovereignty over China...
...The votes in Congress for the treaty and Congressional resolution binding us to Formosa were nearly unanimous...
...government (confronted with the unpleasant alternative of having this country stricken from the list as an eligible international meeting-place) has been caused to bend somewhat: Communist China's athletes will be permitted to come to the United States to take part in the 1960 Winter Olympic Games...
...Thus, our desperate efforts to keep the Nationalists in control of Quemoy and Matsu, where legal title lies with the China mainland, is bringing into increasing jeopardy the American position on Formosa itself—where the legal situation is different...
...We allied ourselves to Chiang Kai-shek's beaten political faction with our eyes open (presumably), but we thereby demonstrably became committed to a lost cause, under adverse conditions...
...The American economic embargo against the China mainland would have to go...
...It is urgently necessary to disentangle ourselves from the Chinese Nationalists' political and military ambitions, to resolve the offshore-island issue as a dangerous encumbrance upon our international relations, and to formulate proposals for the disposition of Formosa and the Pescadores which can enlist the support of a strong body of U.N...
...but we stand literally no chance of rallying any substantial support for that proposition in the U.N...
...In the final analysis, it is China's growth or decline as a world power that will determine the validity of such premises as those on which the United States has based its policy...
...There is only a thunderous silence in those political quarters where it might be helpful to have, as a base for any broad policy reorientation, a well-integrated opposition point of view...
...But there are limits, sometimes ridiculous, beyond which Washington will not go—as when it barred the entry into this country of a giant panda, a native of Tibet...
...the Communists have consolidated their rule over China, and now hold the strategic initiative...
...At the Geneva meeting of scientists that in August worked out a system for policing the proposed suspension of nuclear tests, it was stipulated that some of the projected control posts would necessarily have to be located in China...
...Through the instrumentality of our own policy, we have been entrapped and isolated on the China coast...
...When the United States acts so as to fit the role of "China's Enemy Number One" (as Peiping puts it), China gains Asian sympathy in corresponding amount...
...That growing isolation of the United States from its chief allies and majority world opinion threatens us with political disaster...
...wall...
...This is an over-simplification of the matter...
...now we discover that it has brought us to a position vis-a-vis China from which we can neither advance nor retreat with profit...
...members, now recognize Peiping...
...For most of the rest of the world has become alarmed by, and correspondingly alienated from, our China policy and its consequences—present and threatened...
...We have as yet provided ourselves with no strategic alternative to the policy of miltary opposition, political non-intercourse, and economic boycott toward a nation of 660,000,000 Asians...
...The United Nations will doubtless strive to save the world—and us— from war, but it is only by our own efforts that we can avoid serious political loss...
...Sir Gladwyn Jebb, sometime British U.N...
...affairs would thus recede rather than follow American recognition...
...Thirty countries, counting the North Korean and North Vietnamese People's Republics but also including 26 U.N...
...The United States has thus formally made Chinese representation in the U.N...
...representative, urged as early as March 1954 that Peiping should represent China in the U.N...
...Admitting that the Nationalists are no longer identical with "the Republic of China" should be simplicity itself...
...In an August memorandum to American diplomatic missions setting forth the official rationale for non-recognition of China, the State Department said that "The United States holds the view that communism's rule in China is not permanent and that it one day will pass...
...Our government refuses to acknowledge the all-too-obvious fact that China has become a world power whose participation in international deliberations is a prerequisite for the solution of some of mankind's most pressing problems...
...It has been suggested on occasion that American recognition of the People's Government at Peiping would resolve that difficulty...
...By withholding diplomatic recognition from Peiping it seeks to hasten that passing...
...councils, however, the question of the status of Formosa and the Pescadores would almost certainly soon be brought to issue...
...Our China policy has poisoned our Asian relations for years...
...Our apparent readiness to go to war in support of the Nationalists' military position on the offshore islands in addition undermines our standing in the Asian world...
...Disengagement from our present difficulty would patently require abandonment of the pretense that Chiang Kai-shek's refugee regime is "the Republic of China," and disas-sociation of ourselves from the Nationalists' hostility toward the Communists in favor of a detente in our relations with China...
...The United States has violated that fundamental principle of statesmanship which prescribes that a great power shall not permit its strategy to be dictated by a small country whose selfish ambitions can be served only by involving the bigger nation in war...
...This, quite evidently, is not to be expected...
...And, in the new circumstances, any American effort to maintain the status quo in the Formosa area would be bound to fail...
...Never before in our history have we joined our vital interests to so barren and ill-omened a cause as that of Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek...
...And, thanks to the character of American antagonism to China's representation, a victory for Peiping over this issue would be attended by all the more prestige...
...Here glaring inconsistencies show up in our position...
...As the U.S...
...It therefore seems inevitable that U.N...
...A simple act of diplomatic recognition by Washington would not by itself suffice to repair our battered relations with China...
...The recent recognition of the Peiping government by Cambodia and Iraq—the latter once counted among "our 42 allies"—shows that American political ostracism is a failing force...
...If the Communist regime were to apply that general rule in connection with any proposed restoration of Sino-American diplomatic relations— and there is no evidence whatever that the Chinese Communists are inclined to make exceptions in favor of the United States—we should find ourselves called upon to break off formal relations with the Nationalist regime on Formosa, including (1) abrogation of the U.S.A.-Formosa treaty of alliance and (2) repeal of the joint Congressional resolution (signed into law) that in January 1955 empowered the President "to employ the armed forces of the United States as he deems necessary" for the protection of Formosa and the Pescadores...
Vol. 22 • November 1958 • No. 11
