It is a far cry from the White Paper issued by the United States Department of State in August, 1949, to the Sino-American security pact signed at Washington on December 2, 1954. Five and a half years ago the United States was passively reconciled to the conquest of the Chinese mainland by the Communist hordes and waited with folded arms for the dust to settle. She was even on the verge of extending formal diplomatic recognition to the puppet Peiping regime early in 1950. In the intervening years, however, the Mao Tse-tung gangster regime showed its true colors by open aggression in Korea and ill-concealed intervention in Indochina and by a systematic campaign of vilification and hatred against Americans. The cumulative effects of Chinese Communist behavior in the last few years have caused a reappraisal of American policy vis-a-vis China and the whole complex of the Chinese problem. The change that has come about in Sino-American relations is symbolized by the treaty of mutual defense signed early last month by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on behalf of Uncle Sam and by Foreign Minister George K. C. Yeh on behalf of the Republic of China.
Militarily, this latest addition to the series of security pacts the United States has concluded with a number of Asiatic countries or countries with interests in Asia such as the Philippines, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the SEATO Powers, is the last link in a chain of island defenses which the free nations under American leadership have built around the Chinese mainland as an effective barrier to Communist expansion. It is indeed noteworthy that the treaty explicitly speaks of "resisting armed attack and Communist subversive activities directed from without against their (the contracting parties') territorial integrity and political stability." The fact that the Communists are singled out for specific mention as instigators of subversive activities and as enemies to be resisted shows that the United States is now fully convinced of the menace to peace and security in Asia posed by the Peiping bandit regime. Time was when the Chinese Communists were looked upon as innocent agrarian reformers by responsible American officials and certain segments of American public opinion. In contrast to that dangerously naive view, both the U.S. Government and people have now come to have a clearer view of the true nature of Chinese Communism, a view which is publicly and officially proclaimed in the passage of Article II of the treaty just quoted.
The political implications of the Sino-American mutual defense treaty are even more important than its military significance. The preamble has made the point perfectly clear when it refers to the desire of the contracting parties to "declare publicly and formally their sense of unity and their common determination to defend themselves against external armed attack, so that no potential aggressor could be under the illusion that either of them stands alone in the West Pacific area." Just as China had fought singlehanded against a mighty foe for more than four years from July 1937 to December 1941 before she was joined by the United States after Pearl Harbor, so this time she has also stood without an ally against a ferocious Communist aggressor for more than five years from the fall of Canton in October 1949 to the conclusion of the Sino-U. S. security pact in December 1954. The Republic of China is no longer friendless and isolated in her life-and-death struggle against the Communist oppressors of the Chinese people.
In the years when Free China was standing alone, there was constant pressure on the United States to abandon the cause of Chinese freedom in order to appease the Chinese Communists. But thanks to the farsightedness of American statesmanship Uncle Sam did not yield to that pressure, although it was exerted from both within and without the country in and out of season. As Secretary of State John Foster Dulles has explained, one of the main objectives of the new treaty is to make it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that Formosa and the Pescadores are not on the bargaining counter. In the words of The New York Times, "such a treaty means that the United States is not ready or willing to sell out its Chinese allies to obtain some sort of spurious 'easing of tension.' It must mean, of course, that the United States will continue to resist the propaganda for the admission of Red China to the United Nations as one means to procure that easement." In the same editorial entitled In Defense of Formosa appearing on December 3, 1954, the editor of The New York Times declares that "The United States is willingly placing itself on the record as believing in the future of a free China," and adds that "the 'flexible clause' of the treaty indicates the possibility that there will be areas not now free that will later come under free Chinese rule." Such a reading of the provisions of Article VI is certainly encouraging to those of our brethren who are being shut behind the Iron Curtain for the moment, and heartening to all who wish well of the Chinese people.
In view of the unanimity of favorable comments on the treaty in both the Republic of China and the United States, it is generally expected that the pact will be ratified by the Chinese Legislative Yuan and the United States Senate with little or no opposition. Early ratification is necessary in order to prevent the Chinese Communists from embarking upon further aggression in the Western Pacific before the treaty comes into force.
The Mirage of Two Chinas
President Eisenhower's "moderate progressivism" which has avoided war and depression and promises to avoid both during the remaining half of his term is not hostile ground for sowing the seeds of "peaceful coexistence." The receptive mood is liable to be intensified now that there is the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty.
The argument is for a fresh approach to the problem of two Chinas for fear that continued crisis in the Far East would carry with it a recurring threat of war and piecemeal defeat for the West. The appeasers claim that the fact that a permanent settlement of the China issue cannot now be attempted should not rule out efforts toward a more peaceful modus vivendi than has recently prevailed.
Such a compromising attitude was evidenced by the Committee on International Policy of the U. S. National Planning Association. The National Planning Association describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpolitical organization, established in 1934, that is "devoted to planning by Americans in agriculture, business, labor and the professions."
Among the 27 signers of the policy statement of the Association were Frank Altschul, chairman of the board, General American Investors Company; Solomon Barkin, director of research, Textile Workers Union of America, C. I. O.; John F. Chapman, associate editor, Harvard Business Review; George P. Delaney, international representative, American Federation of Labor; John Kenneth Galbraith, Department of Economics, Harvard University; Carter Goodrich, Professor of Economics, Columbia University; Luther H. Gulick, city administrator, New York; Kenneth Holland, president, Institute of International Education; John M. McClintock, assistant vice president, United Fruit Company; Philip E. Mosley, Russian Institute, Columbia University; Lithgow Osborne, president, the American-Scandinavian Foundation; Clarence E. Pickett, honorary secretary, American Friends Service Committee; Mathew Woll, vice president, Photo-Engravers Union of North America, A. F. L.
The Committee on International Policy maintained that such a more peaceful modus vivendi might be possible if the Peiping regime recognized that the United States would continue to protect Formosa against armed invasion and Washington, likewise, recognized that "most of our allies, if not we ourselves, are going to put their relations with the Government of Communist China on a more normal basis."
On the surface, the statement may appear to be both "moderate" and "progressive." The signers are presumably not only thoughtful men, but leaders of affairs, each in his own field. On closer examination, none of their causes alleged, aims postulated and methods proposed showed clear insight as thinkers or tight grasp as men of affairs.
Threat of war has not been caused by the continued crisis in the Far Fast; nor is continued crisis limited to the Far East. To feel that the crisis is over in Europe is to confess that one has been taken in by the peaceful coexistence line of propaganda of Moscow. The continued crisis in the Far East is caused by the aggressive expansionism of Mosow and Peiping. Had there not been the impasse in Korea, had there not been direct support by Peiping of Communist infiltration and subversion in Japan, had there not been the reiterated cry of "the liberation of Taiwan," had there not been continued threat of Communism in southern Vietnam, there would not be any continued crisis in the Far East.
The continued crisis in the Far East and piecemeal defeat for the West may be concomitant phenomena, but there certainly is no necessary causal relationship. Do these American leaders grant that, in any Far Eastern crisis, the West will necessarily be defeated? Were that true, there must have been some fundamental mistake in the policy and strategy of the West. To grant any such causal relationship is defeatism of the worst sort. The piecemeal defeat of the West, we submit, was the result of insufficient realization of the true nature of International Communism. Basically, Communism cannot believe in the co-existence of Communism and non-Communism. Until the West makes up its mind to combat Communism in the same spirit and with the same vigor as Communism has been threatening and fighting the West, the West will have to be prepared for piecemeal defeat.
The Committee on International Policy seems, while regretting that a permanent settlement of the China issue cannot now be attempted, to imply that a permanent settlement of the China issue can be effected under more favorable circumstances irrespective of other world issues. We doubt the soundness of such an assumption. Supposing the West were to succeed in solving the China issue to their own satisfaction for the moment, the effect would inevitably be to strengthen the hands of International Communism, whether led from Moscow or Peiping. The aggressors would be encouraged in their expansionism. Instead of piecemeal defeat, the West would seem to be courting for wholesale surrender.
The methods proposed by the Committee on International Policy for achieving a more peaceful modus vivendi with the puppet Peiping Communist regime are two: first, Peiping must recognize that the U. S. would continue to protect Formosa against armed invasion; secondly, Washington must recognize that most of her allies, if not herself, are going to put their relations with Peiping on a more normal basis.
Here is where the academic members of the Committee tried to be practical and business members of the Committee tried to be profound. The Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty was signed in Washington on Dec. 2 and a joint communique about the impending signature of the treaty was issued the day before. When the Committee on International Policy made its statement on Dec. 9, we assume that its members must have read about the recently signed treaty. To hope for Peiping's recognition of the obligations under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty cannot conceivably be practical even for academicians, nor can it be profound even for businessmen. The incessant barks of the Communist broadcasts on their determination to "liberate Taiwan" and the daily military actions on land, on sea and in the air should be canape, if not real food, for thought to the 27 signers of the statement of international policy.
The second proposal for Washington to recognize that "most of our allies, if not ourselves, are going to put their relations with the government of Communist China on a more normal basis" is a masterpiece of equivocation. It dealt with most of the allies of the U. S., not all of them. "If not ourselves", though negative in form, is positive in implication. "Are going to" is not only indicative of the present, but also points to a trend. Nowhere does the statement mention the debatable act of legal recognition; it wishes merely to "put their relations … on a more normal basis."
The Committee on International Policy of the U. S. National Planning Association saw a mirage of two Chinas, but didn't have the unanimity of conviction to come out foursquare for it. It is hazy in basic assumptions and wrong in diagnosis. The road they point to leads inevitably to recurring threat of war and continued piecemeal defeat of the West.
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It is easy to deceive the world and prevent others from knowing what one has done, but it is difficult to avoid the pricks of one's conscience.
Lu Hsin-wu