The Wooing of Mao

By every kind of wigwag and smoke signal in the language of diplomacy, the Administration seemed to be trying last week to tell Chinese Communist Boss Mao Tse-tung that he had nothing to worry about from the U.S. The policymakers were convinced that the U.N. forces would win in Korea if Chinese or Russian Communists didn't butt in, and apparently they hoped that a little cajoling might keep them out. Whatever their reasoning, their pronouncements sounded like an attempt at appeasement.

To catch Mao's ear, Harry Truman chose to talk mostly about Formosa--instead of Korea. The Chinese Communists had protested belligerently to the United Nations about the "aggressive" U.S. Seventh Fleet lying in the Formosan straits. Said the President at his press conference last week: of course, the Seventh Fleet would be pulled out as soon as the Korean war was over. In English or in Mandarin this seemed to mean: stay out of Korea, fellows, and when the ruckus there is all over, Formosa will be left out in the open, where you can grab at it.

But did his remark mean that? A day later, in his fireside chat to the nation, Harry Truman went back to the subject. The U.S. has no designs on Formosa, he said. It is a "territory in dispute," and its future should be settled by "international action," after the Korean peace. U.S. policy towards Formosa was still to "neutralize" it. Translated, this seemed to mean: we don't want Formosa, but no one is going to get it until the U.N. decides what's to become of it.

Meanwhile, Dean Acheson had his message, too, and it also sprayed balm in the general direction of the Communist scalp. The Government is trying in all its words & deeds to make its peaceful intentions toward China clear to the Communist leaders, he told reporters. President Truman has said so, declared Acheson, and we are making it clear through the Voice of America and otherwise.

It was left to Ambassador Warren Austin at U.N. to bow most deeply toward Peking. In a radio broadcast, the Chinese Communists had raged that two U.S. F51 fighters had strafed their Manchurian border airfield. At Lake Success, Austin said yes, it was just possible that one F51 had accidentally shot up the field, and the U.S. would gladly pay indemnities. Indeed, the U.S. was as anxious as anybody for an investigation and it would abide gladly by the ruling of a U.N. investigating commission.

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