The Importance of Quemoy

With a crashing of heavy artillery and a booming of loudspeakers, China's Reds last week reopened their attack on Quemoy, the Nationalist island which thrusts like a dagger toward the Communist mainland seven miles away. After a few days of silence, Red guns had resumed their bombardment. Hour after hour the loudspeakers screamed across the sea to the dug-in Nationalists that the Reds would take Quemoy by Oct. 15. In Peking, Defense Minister General Peng Teh-huai ordered his troops to "be constantly prepared for combat" and promised, "We shall assuredly free Formosa from the yoke of American imperialists."

Why is Quemoy so important? What's been going on there? Last week, TIME Senior Editor John Osborne went to Quemoy, returned to Hong Kong and cabled:

ON Sept. 3. Quemoy was garrisoned and armed for defense and only defense. This was so by Washington's orders. Quemoy's artillery, provided and munitioned by the U.S., could turn the island approaches into a bloody hell, but it could not effectively shell the mainland. The Nationalist air force could patrol the coast and reconnoiter inland, but it was forbidden to machine gun or bomb anything it might see. All this was U.S. insurance against mainland Nationalist "provacation" of the mainland Communists.

Then, on Sept. 3, the Reds opened up and sent the first of 10,000 shells screaming over. This was the time, if ever, to "take the wraps" off the Nationalists and redeem the pledge given by Washington in early 1953. For 48 hours frantic messages flew between Taipei and Washington, and then it came : permission for the Nationalist air force to hit the attacking artillery and Communist shipping which might be massing to invade. The small Nationalist navy received similar orders.

As the Reds watched, LSTs began ferrying in big guns and shells. On Sept. 22, the 19 day of attack, the Communists opened a tremendous barrage--1,000 shells within an hour--but this time they got better than they gave. Outgunned and outshot, they shut up, for the while. Their 10,000 shells had killed some 100 persons, but had made absurdly few hits on installations of importance. It was not that Communist artillery was so bad; it was virtually blind. Contrary to standard procedure, up to Sept. 29 the Reds sent not a single plane over Quemoy to observe and control their artillery fire.

Why not? Some high-placed military men in Taipei advance this explanation: the Reds know that if they send planes over Quemoy, the Nationalists would try to stop them by bombing the mainland air bases. The Reds would then have to retaliate by sending their own planes to Formosa to bomb the Nationalist bases. This the Communists could not do without "running over"; the U.S. Seventh Fleet and its aircraft. In other words, no Communist could fly over Quemoy without risking direct conflict with the U.S.

Why are the Nationalists prepared to spend 50,000 of their 300,000 effectives to save the Quemoy islands? The islands are essential to the defense of Formosa--not in the sense that Formosa could not possibly be held without them, but essential if Formosa is to be used as a positive, aggressive advance base in the conflict with Communism. If the U.S. purpose is to accept Communism in the heart of Asia, Quemoy and the other Nationalist islands off the mainland might as well be written off. Formosa can go too for that matter. But if the U.S. proposes to keep alive an alternative to Communism for China's millions and keep that alternative effectively in their view, these islands are worth all the Nationalist lives and U.S. support required to keep them.

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