In Time of Trouble

The U.S. State Department, in two speeches delivered in one night last week, cleared its voice, shifted its emphasis, and made what amounted to a dramatic shift in its Asia policy. It affirmed, as it never has so strongly since Chiang Kai-shek quit the Chinese mainland, that Chiang's is the true government of China. As the second wave of Mao Tse-tung's human sea ebbed bloodily in Korea's dark hills, the State Department also proclaimed that China's Communist government is no more than a Kremlin puppet. The dust had taken a long time to settle, but apparently it had, and the State Department could now see clearly. Said Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "We do not recognize the authorities in Peiping for what they pretend to be. The Peiping regime may be a colonial Russian government ... It is not the government of China. It does not pass the first test. It is not Chinese."

As the irresolution that had paralyzed U.S. policy in the Far East fell away, the United Nations caught new spirit, too. On U.S. urging, the Assembly voted 47 to 0 to impose an embargo on war materials to Mao's China. No nation opposed it. Even India, Burma and Indonesia, who were among the eight who abstained, on the misty notion that it might spoil chances for peace, announced that they would support the embargo in practice. The five nations of the Soviet bloc refused to participate.

Uncertain leadership had bred uncertain friends. By vigorous leadership, the U.S. had kept 46 allies and yet gotten done something of what needed to be done. In time of trouble, it was a useful lesson.

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