Outer Mongolia's admission to the United Nations is another skirmish, and not the end of the battle. Only in the final reckoning with Communism can the status of Outer Mongolia be finally determined.
China's attitude is fully revealed in the voting procedures of the Security Council. This country did not content itself with abstention. Its delegate was not present, and it thus cannot be claimed that China accepted Outer Mongolia negatively or by indirection.
Outer Mongolia is a creature of the Soviet Union, and therefore cannot be adjudged an independent nation. Whether it can aspire to independence after Soviet control is broken remains to be seen. That is the Chinese position and it has not changed in any way.
Many misconceptions have arisen in connection with China's decision not to veto Outer Mongolia.
It is not true that China surrendered to heavy pressure from the United States, and it is not even true that the government once made a firm decision to cast the veto. The government's position was always predicated upon what would be best for China and the Free World.
There was strong compulsion toward use of the veto. Popular opinion at home would have enthusiastically supported such action.
The government was faced with a total retreat from principle, with maneuvering that disgraced the noble aspirations of the United Nations Charter. Obviously, an international organization that continues to pursue such a course of conduct will not be worth anything.
China's leaders and intellectuals of all callings had the perfectly reasonable thought at it might be better to have done with as ions in the name of practicality, that an honorable, independent course might be better pursued outside the United Nations.
The catch is this:
If China should resign from the United Nations, the Peiping regime would shoot its way in the back door as our representatives departed by the front.
Without question, only the presence of the legitimate government of China keeps the Communist Chinese from membership. Having grown to 103 members, the United Nations has changed a great deal, and some of the neutralist bloc have little interest in the China problem.
Supposing Communist Chinese were admitted—what would be the effects?
Almost certainly, the United Nations would enter upon a period of total paralysis.
As shown in their long-continued talks with the United States, the dictators of Peiping will yield not at all on any subject. Only when they have their own way is it possible to do business with them.
Secondly, the Communist Chinese would attain a considerable accretion of prestige. This would have incalculable effects all around the world, especially among the large and important overseas Chinese population of Southeast Asia.
In deciding what should be done, the Chinese government had to consider the interests of the whole Free World rather than its own inclinations. The evidence strongly suggested that a veto would be too costly, except as a last resort and for the highest of stakes.
Storms are yet to come. But quietly proud and determined to defend right and justice with all its energy, China has a realistically good chance to thwart Communist conspiracies and maneuverings to seat Peiping.
Friends were gained in the dignified decision not to veto—but at the same time, not to retreat from the basic principle of China's position. They will help assure the perpetuation of China's membership for this year and time to come.
As always, the truth is very simple: Peiping's admission to the United Nations would destroy the organization. For so long as the United Nations has the slightest value to peace and international service, China must make contribution to its perpetuation.
Regional Peril — and Promise
The pace of Asian events is picking up.
General Maxwell D. Taylor has been to Vietnam and has made his report to President John F. Kennedy on what is to be done about that embattled country.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk has been to Japan, where he dealt with economic matters, and to Korea, where he reassured the military junta that U.S. friendship remains as steadfast as ever.
Korea's military strongman, General Park Chung Hee, has conferred with President Kennedy in Washington.
And the Philippines has held its presidential election.
With the possible exception of the Garcia-Macapagal contest, Communism is a basic factor in all these activities.
It has been feared that Vietnam was on the brink of a Communist coup or invasion. The resumption of fighting in Laos lent emphasis to the dangers of the Vietnam high plateau and the swampy delta land southeast of Saigon.
The stresses and strains of Japan's economic boom poses difficulties in a land that permits a legal Communist party and that has a sizable number of active, far-left Socialists.
No matter how solidly pro-Western and democratic the ruling party of Japan may be, a recession—or even failure of the standard of living to advance rapidly—could have disastrous results.
It is the American-Japanese objective to keep the economy humming, although that is not easy, considering conflicts between the economies of the two countries.
Especially important are the developments affecting Korea, a country which holds the northern anchor of Free Asia's defense line but which experienced two revolutions in a year.
No one doubts the strong anti-Communist sentiments of the present Korean government and the Korean people.
But you can't eat anti-Communism - which is to say that Korea has a very serious, very difficult economic problem.
A unified Korea could be self-sufficient. There is very little chance that the southern half can come anywhere close to it as a separate entity. The population is too large, the resources too inadequate.
This means United States understanding of the necessity for indefinite continuation of large-scale aid—but with reforms to make this assistance more effective than under the Rhee and Chang regimes.
Ever and always beneath the swiftly running currents of Asia is the tragic existence of the enslaved mainland of China.
If this were not so, the problems of Vietnam, of Laos, of Japan, and of Korea would pale to insignificance. There would be no division of Vietnam and Korea, no war and impending appeasement in Laos.
Free Asian countries and the United States eventually must face up to this fact and do something about it.
Until Chinese Communism is destroyed there can be no peace and no stability in this part of the world.
That is the lesson of the faster pace of regional events. If others do not act first, the Chinese Communists will have the initiative and all the advantages that go with it.
Independent survival inevitably must dictate the solution long recommended by the government of China: national recovery at the early possible moment.
China’s Cause and Kinmen
As tourism increases, so does Taiwan's share of visiting VIPs.
We are glad to have them.
They come to study our land reform, our burgeoning industry, our gains in health and sanitation, our military forces, and our educational, social, and cultural institutions.
For the time being, Taiwan is China. There is no other China that is open to and freely observable by those of the democratic faith.
Interestingly, the prime attraction of free China is the offshore complex of the Kinmen Islands—known to the west as Quemoy.
Few VIPs return to their own country without a visit to Big Kinmen, a look at the mainland, and assessment of the defense position that is aptly compared with Gibraltar and Malta in World War II.
To say the visitors are impressed is putting it mildly.
Most of them go home to write and talk of these redoubts as symbols of Free, World determination to resist Communist aggression, to yield nothing further.
For the free Chinese cause, this has a great deal of value.
We become something more than a fair-sized island off the south China coast, waiting for the march of history to decide our fate.
Once a visitor has seen the majesty and the might of Kinmen's tight-packed defenses, we become again the Chinese people, determined never to surrender to the forces of slavery, determined to return to continental China and develop it as the prosperous country and great power that it is destined to be.
For those who have seen the rock-hewn emplacements of Big Kinmen, the smaller islands, or the chunks of rocks that comprise the Matsu group to the north, free China comes to be identified with "the unconquerable."
In this alone, the investment in the off-shore islands has more than paid its way. Additionally, there is the dividend of not another square inch or a human soul for the insatiable appetite that we call Communism.