Evening star., 1949-04-28
Short of Wor-How?

It is futile to sugar the pill. The Com
munists In China are winning victories
OF the first magnitude. Although they
have not yet taken over the whole OF the
country, or even as much Of it as the
japanese once controlled, the chances are
that within the next year or two they will
have total military dominance-north,
east, south and west Despite Generalissimo
Chiang's emergence from retirement"
and his prediction that redoubled re-
sistance can win final victory" for the
Nationalists, the outlook seems about as
bleak as it could possibly be.
The disaster extends far beyond the fate
of the Nationalist government Inter-
nationally, 1t opens the way to many grave
developments. In the United Nations, for
example, 1t raises the prospect that China,
ruled by Communist puppet regime, will
exercise its Big Five veto rights on the
side of the Soviet Union. More important
still, with the Kremlin thus acquiring
gigantic new satellite, it raises the possi-
bility that the whole Of Asia will eventually
be engulfed by the Red tide.
Above all, since the outlook threatens to
cause profoundly adverse strategic
change In the Pacific-a change that could
seriously weaken us and other free nations
vis-a-vis Russia in the world balance of
power-our Government faces the dihicult
and pressing question of what TO- do to
cope with the situation. Historically, OF
course, our policy has been to oppose any
foreign domination of China as something
injurious to ourselves, and it is a policy
that still stands. The trouble with 1t,
though, Is that there seems little or nothing
we can do-short of war-to make It
effective at this stage. g.
There are some Americans who deny
this. They bitterly blame the State
Department and the whole Democratic
administration for the collapse of General
issimo Chang Kai-shek and for the present
desperate plight of the Nationalist leader
ship that has succeeded him. They say
that American aid to Chang, besides being
too little, was shipped too late. They say,
further, that we should act at once to
send all possible help in an effort to stop
the Communists where they are. But their
judgment seems very definitely to be based
more on emotion than on common sense.
At any rate, there are certain considera-
tions that argue most strongly against the
course they advocate.
Among those considerations are the
following: Cd Since VI day we have
extended to the Nationalists aid valued at
$4,000, 100000, plus surplus materials orig
inally costing 81 900 900 900; ca neverthe-
less, China has lost to the Reds over
one million men and about 95 per cent
of the supplies We have sent; 90 the
primary reasons for this have been govern
mental corruption, bad generalship, public
war WEAKNESS and low troop morale result
ing in mass surrenders without resistance
worthy of the name; and a. as matters
stand today, new large-scale American
help would in all likelihood be wasted:
worse, it probably would find its way into
Communist hands, and 1t would further
ALLEVIATE the large numbers of Chinese who
feel that our aid now can serve only to
Gprolong their misery. 4 - zs%
II these considerations are sound-@and
there is every reason to believe that they
are-then the help-China critics of the
State Department are far of base.
Actually, short of sending American armies
to fight with the Nationalists against the
Communists, there just seems to be nothing
that the United States can do at this time.
Certainly, if past experience is any critic
rion, the mere shipment of money and
arms would be worse than useless. Accord
ingly, assuming that military expeditions
are out of the question, what other course
can be followed than the wait-and-see
course being followed now?
True enough, that course is extremely
negative. 1t consists chiefly of hoping that
the Communists will find China too much
to handle, or that they will become
mavericks like Tito's Yugoslavs, or that
Russia's loss of the cold war in Europe will
automatically brighten the outlook for US
in Asia. Yet, though that is poor excuse
for policy, its critics have still to prove
that they have better one. As far as
the Chinese situation is concerned the
basic fact we must recognize is that we
are up tree right now and that there is
no eaSv wav down ~