David Lawrence, the noted columnist, wrote in Washington Star on July 13: "There was a time in American history when ideals meant something-when moral force was regarded as a potent influence in shaping world affairs.
"But today there, is a tendency—as, for example, in handling the problem of Red China-to revert to the dark ages of diplomacy.
"In recent weeks, many prominent Americans inside and outside of government here have been claiming that the admission of Red China into the United Nations is 'inevitable.' This is always coupled with the alibi that, of course, the admission of Red China is not favored by the United States but that the course of events is sure to bring it about, anyhow.
"This is a strange concession and a symptom of defeatism. It is gaining ground among persons who call themselves 'liberal' but who do not champion the great moral causes which true liberals of the past have espoused. President Woodrow Wilson, for example, a Democrat and a true liberal, never gave ground when a question of moral principle was involved in international relations...
"The odd part of it is that there is more pressure' inside the Western countries and among the so-called 'neutrals, for admission of Red China than there is enthusiasm in Peiping itself to join the U.N.
"Perhaps the best way to size up what the admission of Red China means to the world is to talk to British officials privately. When they are asked what advantage there has been to Great Britain in giving diplomatic recognition to Red China, the answer is that nothing tangible has been accomplished and that, in fact, complications have resulted from the step."
Professor Ahmet Sukru Esmer wrote in Ulus of Turkey on July 11: "While opening the door of the United Nations to Communist China, America's arguments which have for years maintained Peiping outside of the world organization, will considerably lose their weight. What are those arguments? 'Communist China was an aggressor,' she was not 'peace-loving,' she had 'no qualifications, as provided in the U.N. Charter, to enter such an organization.' All of this is true. In offering to seat Communist China in the General Assembly, America would impliedly admit that Communist China deserves membership:
We are afraid that the tactics elaborated by Chester Bowles, the too subtle-minded Under-Secretary of State will, as a result, serve the purposes of Communist China's objectives."
"Laugh Off 33,000 Dead?"
The New York Daily News, the newspaper with the largest circulation in the United States, editorialized on July 10: "Should we consent to Red China's admission to the U. N. or give it diplomatic recognition, or both, we would laugh off our 33,000 fighting men killed in the Korean War, mostly by savage Chinese Red 'volunteers,' to say nothing of American warriors still rotting in Chinese Red jails.
"We would suggest that all News readers who feel as we do on this subject bombard their Senators and Representatives with demands that they oppose, in every way they can, U.S: recognition of Red China and Outer Mongolia or the admission of either of those areas to the U.N."
The Los Angeles Times said on June 22: "The argument against Red China was perhaps best put by the late Secretary Dulles, who pointed out that 'internationally the Chinese Communist regime does not conform to the practice of civilized nations; does not live up to its international obligations; has not been peaceful in the past and gives no evidence of being peaceful in the future. Its foreign policies are hostile to us and to our Asian allies.' In sum, the Communist regime simply does not qualify under the U.N. Charter as a 'peace-loving state.'''
The Chicago Daily News wrote on July 7: "The argument is constantly heard that it is 'unrealistic' to bar the world's most populous nation from the U.N. halls. But it would be far less realistic to offer U.N. membership to the nation that is still at war with the United Nations in Korea.
"It is entirely possible that the admission of Red China will at least be brought to the point of debate in the U.N. General Assembly this year, after a long period in which the United States has been able to prevent even that preliminary step. That prospect, however, should not frighten our diplomats to the extent of giving in without a fight."
The Columbia Record of South Carolina said on July 3: "Advocacy of a two-Chinas solution at this juncture is ill-timed and ill-advised and fraught with more perils than its authors imagine. Its creation is but another example of our Government bending its will to that of the wind of discontent in other lands.
"Now that Uncle Sam has become a man, he should put away childish things. A boy's will is the wind's will, but a man's will is his own."
The Tampa Times said on June 29: "No amount of rationalizing can wipe away the fact that we would be breaking faith with Nationalist China on Formosa were we to fail to take a strong stand against Red China's admission. That would be a step toward losing Formosa, which is an important bastion of our Pacific defenses. It would indicate to Pacific nations that Uncle Sam cannot be depended upon for the long haul. It could spray the seeds for eventual loss of our Far East allies, even the Philippines and Japan."
"Keep Mongolia Out"
The Scripps-Howard Newspapers, commenting on the suggestion to establish diplomatic relations with Outer Mongolia, said on July 7 this "would be a retreat in principle, an encouragement to the Communist bloc, a step toward recognizing the Peiping regime itself. And it could only cause our allies in Asia to doubt our determination to resist the spread of international Communism."
The Charleston News and Courier said on July 8: "Outer Mongolia is purely an interior Asia puppet state of the Soviet Union. Recognition of that Red puppet by the U.S. would be interpreted in Asia as a sign of American withdrawal and defeatism.
"The importance of stopping U.S. recognition of Outer Mongolia is tremendous because it is the first step toward appeasement in Asia. For that reason, the News and Courier urges readers to write their Senators and Representatives in Congress and 'call on them to protest any such defeatist action."
The Columbus Evening Dispatch of Ohio wrote on July 10: "Reportedly at the suggestion of Chester Bowles, Under-Secretary of State, our government is 'studying' the desirability of recognizing Outer Mongolia and backing an application from the remote land-locked Communist satellite state for admission to the United Nations.
"The reason assigned for this departure from long-time U.S; policy is that it would give the U.S. an important listening post midway between the two principal Communist nations, Russia and Red China, and would 'encourage evidences of Mongolian nationalism;'
"The value of such a listening post is nebulous indeed in any realistic view. As to the possibility of the rise of an effective nationalism in Outer Mongolia, there isn't any and can't be any in a nation of less than a million people who are mostly illiterate nomads who don't know, or really care, whose or what kind of rule they are living under.
"The hard fact is that Outer Mongolia, although nominally one of Russia's phony 'peoples' republics,' is a complete and abject Soviet puppet.
In view of such half-baked ideas as giving membership in the U.N. to Communist Outer Mongolia, it is no wonder Khrushchev is confident that one day he will 'bury' us,"
Great Leap Backward
Recent peasant refugees from the Chinese mainland reported that the Chinese Communists have now abandoned the basic principle of their rural "communes" which used to be so proudly described as "Communism in its purest form." The farmland is no longer worked by large peasant labor-gangs under communal direction. Instead, it has been broken up into family-sized plots to be worked by individual peasant families.
Examining the report, Joseph Alsop, a columnist, wrote in the New York Herald-Tribune on July 19: "Nothing could be more contrary to the original theory and intention of the communes. They were at first intended not merely to liquidate the last vestiges of the peasants' 'individualism,' but also to do away with that other reactionary hangover, family life itself.
"For the peasants themselves, it must be added, this great leap backward is unlikely to bring much improvement. Although the commune lands have been broken up, the apparatus of the commune remains untouched. The commune is now the landlord. The peasant is now a serf. He is in fact worse off since he is both tied to the land and required to give the commune landlord far more of the crop;
"Technically the new arrangement is not share-cropping, since a fixed rent in grain has been set for each peasant plot of an acre or two. The quantity is higher for good land, less for poor land; but the rent must be delivered in full even if the harvest is poor. The rents reported appear to amount to between two-thirds and three-quarters of the normal main crop of grain—-which makes the old-style feudalists look like soft-hearted philanthropists."
Taiwan, Tourist Paradise
In its August issue, the Esquire magazine says to its readers: "For the most completely Chinese environment available to you until Mao drops dead, though, we commend to you the only part of China still welcoming foreign visitors, the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan, roughly the combined size of Massachusetts and Connecticut, with half of Rhode Island thrown in.
"Taiwan is an island of waterfalls and mountain lakes, of rice paddies, citrus groves and pineapple plantations, extinct volcanoes and one or two active ones, of rain forests and peaks reaching above the clouds and dusted with snow in the winter, of neat brick farmhouses and ancient Buddhist temples, and over all the landscape a fresh greenness that looks almost as though it had been painted on the fields and the hillsides.
"Back in the days when we first prowled the Pacific, we'd picked up the impression somewhere that Taiwan was pretty much of an armed camp—a staging area for Nationalist Chinese Army, and that was about all; and there was the feeling, too—possibly helped along by some well-planted Communist propaganda—that Taiwan was a police state.
"That might have been true eight years ago, but today it couldn't be more inaccurate. There are plenty of troops around, sure, but they represent only an insignificant part of the scene.
"The police-state angle probably did have some validity a few years ago, when Taiwan feared seemingly imminent attack by the Reds from the mainland, and visitors were obliged to work their way through long tangles of procedures, and sometimes subjected to pretty rough Customs examinations when they got here.
"But all that is happily past tense now. You get your visa at any Chinese consulate in five minutes flat and at no cost, and Customs formalities as we came into the country consisted of assuring the officials that we had no more than five hundred Taiwan dollars ($12.50) and that we promised to take our transistor radio out of Taiwan with us, and not try to sell it to somebody."