As I look around at this outstanding gathering tonight, my mind is filled with memories. Some of your faces are familiar to me. We were comrades in one of the most fateful and dramatic struggles of our times—a struggle which has made for itself an unforgettable place in military history. I am proud of my war-time association with the gallant men of the 14th Air Force.
Particularly, I am proud of my friendship with Major General Claire Lee Chennault, founder of the AVG, and later Commander of the 14th Air Force. General Chennault has rendered and is still rendering great service to Free China. I recall the time when he came to China in 1937 as an adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in the training of pursuit pilots. Those were dark days for China, when we felt the full force of the Japanese assault and when we stood alone. The help given by such great Americans as General Chennault was an important factor in making it possible to organize determined and effective resistance to vastly superior Japanese military forces, and finally to wear them down after eight terrible years. I also wish to mention, in passing, the contributions made by General Chennault in the organization of CAT, a private air line which serves a; a vital link between Free China and a number of free countries in that part of the world.
Great as is the name of the AVG, it is significant to note that it was never a large outfit. Even in its heyday, its strength never exceeded 100 planes, and most of the time it had only 60 planes. And yet, with a force so small numerically, it wrote an illustrious chapter in the history of military aviation. With the loss of only 23 planes, it destroyed 287 Japanese planes during its career and disabled many more. Certainly, General Chennault's name will occupy a niche in Chinese history as illustrious as that occupied by Lafayette in the history of your own country.
The glorious record of the AVG was but the prelude to the great task which was accomplished after Pearl Harbor by the 14th Air Force, and by many of you whom I see before me tonight. The 14th Air Force was a dedicated company in its resistance to the forces of aggression. President Chiang, in his letter to Mr. Hugh Hutchinson, President of this Association, has fittingly praised the members of this body for their proven devotion to the cause of resistance to all forms of aggression, including the present Communist aggression.
A few episodes, out of many, are vivid in my memory, as I think of the war-time years.
There was the episode of the nightmarish flight to India of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek in 1942, when AVG fighters protected them against almost certain death at the hands of the Japanese pursuit fliers. I was with the party which made the trip, at a desperate hour of the war, in the hope of winning Indian support for the allied cause. The Generalissimo had taken this dangerous trip to avert threatened civil war in India, which might have redounded to Japanese success. At the time, attractive offers were being made to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek by the Japanese to desert the allied cause and to join hands with them. The Generalissimo spurned all such overtures and risked his life to hold the allied ranks firm until America was ready to redress the balance.
At one time, on another trip in March, 1942, ten minutes after our departure from Lashio in Burma, where the Generalissimo had conducted a two-hour military conference, a wireless message reached us in the air that 18 Japanese pursuit planes in three squadrons were in hot pursuit. They had been alerted by their espionage agents, and were determined to shoot down the planes carrying Generalissimo and Madame Chiang. It was a desperate moment. With 20 people in the plane, there were only four parachutes. But an hour later, a probable disaster was averted by the arrival of a squadron of AVG fighters from Kunming.
This experience was all the more nerve racking since, on the preceding day, 20 Japanese bombers had staged an attack on Maymyo, while the Generalissimo was there. The air raid system in Maymyo had not been properly organized, and there were no dugouts or shelters. What the people did was to disperse in the countryside, when there was sufficient warning. But the attack caught Generalissimo and Madame Chiang without any means of protecting themselves. They stood, instead, in the garden, and watched the army bombers release their bombs one after another. One landed within fifty yards of them, but by sheer good luck, it turned out to be a dud. Ail of us profoundly wished on that day that AVG fighters would arrive to help us.
One of the operations of the 14th Air Force which I remember with particular vividness was its intrepid halt of the attempted Japanese advance from the province of Kweichow into Szechwan in 1944 in one of the truly dangerous crises of the war. The Chinese troops were committed elsewhere, and it seemed that the Japanese could make an almost unopposed advance into Szechwan and toward Chungking, China's war-time capital. So desperate was our plight that preparations were being made to evacuate to the provinces of Sikang and Tibet. Once again, the 14th Air Force showed its mettle by halting the Japanese advance and Chungking was saved. The war might have ended differently if it had not been for the 14th Air Force.
When these memories come crowding back into my mind, I cannot help but feel a pang of sadness that President Chiang, who so loyally and heroically served the allied cause during those days, is now abandoned by much of the allied world in this fight against Communism on Taiwan. One exception is the United States. There is irony in the fact that Burma, whose independence movement received so much support from the Republic of China, is also one of the first countries to recognize Communist China. The desertion of one's allies, in the hour of need, is an act of political cynicism which seems so prevalent today.
Once again, we of Free China find ourselves confronted by a situation of the gravest peril. This time the foe is world Communism. In many respects, the present danger is more acute than that which we faced, with your help, 15 years ago, from Japanese aggression. Japan at that time was a nation of only 80,000,000 people. But the Communist threat which today overhangs China's one remaining free province, Taiwan, comes from nations which, with their neutralist helpers, embrace half the population of the world.
Moreover, the present challenge is more insidious than that of Japanese militarism, which depended primarily on brute force. The Communist target is a moving target. When the Communists believe that the use of force would not achieve their purpose, or when the resort to force would imperil the central fortress of Communism-Soviet Russia—they shift tactics with well-greased skill. They turn to subversion, the fomenting of "nationalist" uprisings, and "cultural" exchanges in order to gain their ends. Since the suspension of the Korean War in 1953, Communism has been leaning heavily upon these secondary tactics. They are wearing down the free nations by resorting to guile and propaganda.
In the face of such disquieting events, it is paradoxical that a considerable number of high-minded men and women in the United States and other democratic countries are allowing themselves to be persuaded that Red China is actually a peaceful regime, and that America can coexist with it safely. A corollary to this is the demand that Red China be admitted to the United Nations. Recently I have been given some appalling information. I have been advised that there are now 9,000 college and university teachers, and 8,000 ministers of the gospel in the United States who, in one form or another have expressed sympathy for the Communists. Perhaps the number is exaggerated, but the fact cannot be denied that there is still a formidable pro-Red China faction in America. In my nationwide travels since I arrived in this country one year ago, I have met a disturbingly large number of persons who favor coexistence with the Communists.
What these persons appear to overlook is that there are four inescapable alternatives in the present Communist situation, and only four. These are:
(1) The Communists could abandon their design to achieve world domination.
(2) The Communist regime could be overthrown as a result of all-out defeat by the West in a. World War III.
(3) Or the West could surrender to the Communist way of life and adopt it.
(4) The Communist problem could be solved by the uprising of the masses in the Red-ruled countries and the overthrow from within of Communist domination.
Which of these alternatives is the logical course to be followed in the present juncture of history?
We can rule out the first three of these alternatives. Neither Communism nor democracy will voluntarily surrender its way of life. Nor is there any good prospect that Communist rule, now firmly entrenched as the result of our own past mistakes, can be overthrown by attack from without. There remains then the fourth alternative—the overthrow of Communism by armed uprisings of their own people. This is the heart of America's containment policy. We have no other choice in the existing situation.
If this is to be our policy guide-line, what chances are there for armed uprisings by the Chinese people, it will be asked.
The information which is in our possession indicates that the chances are extremely good. Red China is definitely in trouble. Food shortages, failure of collectivized farming, the terrible floods of 1956 and 1957, the inability of Red China to get capital goods from its Communist allies, the resistance, passive and active, of large segments of the Chinese population, the unrest among the students-all of these things are harbingers of serious trouble for the Communist masters.
Mao Tse-tung, top dictator, recognized the danger in this deteriorating situation when he delivered his famous "Hundred Flowers" speech last February. His apparent objective was to deflect the rising tide of popular criticism by pretending to welcome public criticism of the regime. The invitation, of course, was phony, and those who were so rash as to take his invitation seriously are now busy apologizing and experiencing painful reprisals. But the fact that Mao made such a speech in the first place reflects the unhealthy political situation which prevails in Red China. It is a situation which has all the familiar ingredients of popular revolt.
In the face of such a probable development, the wise course for the anti-Communist nations to take is to let Red China stew in its own juice, while giving it positively no outside aid. Red China will inevitably collapse under such a policy of political and economic ostracism by the free world.
Are the best minds of the free nations thinking in these terms? Are they ready to let Red China wither on the vine? Are they aiding the Republic of China in Taiwan to prepare adequately for a reoccupation of the mainland? I regret to say that most of them are not. Only too many of them, including some illustrious names, are ardently urging appeasement of Red China. They are not cooperating with one another to make Mao Tse-tung's position more difficult and untenable. Instead, they are, in some cases, urging steps or attitudes that will bail him out of his difficulties. It is a sad commentary upon the unrealism of many prevailing popular Far East proposals. I am glad to note that Secretary Dulles is not among these unrealistic dreamers. In his San Francisco Lions Club speech, he declared that Red China is a passing phase, which it is.
There can be no more powerful voice than the collective voice of the members of the 14th Air Force Association in clearing up the bog that is in many people's minds concerning China, and in halting the trend toward appeasement, or unreality.
Long live the 14th Air Force Association, the precious memories of its valuable contribution to winning the last war against Japan in China, and the gratitude of the Chinese people for its services in the darkest hour of their national history.
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A spoiled son will not keep the family estate intact; a much sought after woman will not keep the house in order. —Chinese Proverb
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Editor's Note—This is an address delivered by Dr. Hollington K. Tong, Ambassador of the Republic of China to the United States, before the 14th Air Force Association, at its Tenth Annual Convention, New York, August 9, 1957.