Three Giants

The West had almost lost itself in a happy daydream of satisfaction as Western Europe at last seemed to move toward a sound defensive posture. But last week a cold blast from the Far East brought it back to reality with a start.

Communism was on the move in Asia, massively and triumphantly. Ho Chi Minh moved into Hanoi as the non-Communist forces retreated sullenly before him, bickering in a fashion which suggested that, before long, Ho might also be moving into Saigon and all of Indo-China.

But the biggest triumph was Red China's.

The Chinese bargained with Soviet

Russia over territory and prerogatives and won (see below). Whether the Russians yielded to Chinese strength or merely found it expedient to appear to do so, the unblinking fact was on paper that Russia made all the concessions: it returned a military base and agreed to withdraw its troops, gave up economic privileges, and by handing over its share in joint companies tacitly abandoned--for now at least--its grab for the resources of the outer Chinese province of Sinkiang.

No Red satellite had ever won such concessions, or even the appearance of them, from the harsh bargainers of the Kremlin. They testified that the Red dynasty of Peking, in only five years of power, had achieved the strength and status of partnership with Red Russia. The evidence was in the language of communiques ("increased defensive potential," and "accumulation of necessary economic experience"). It was evident even more in the way the accords were struck. Four years ago, Mao Tse-tung himself meekly trooped off to Moscow, signed, under Stalin's eye, the treaty leaving the strategic Port Arthur region in Russian hands. This time Mao did not go to Moscow. Three of the top Russian rulers, headed by No. 2 man, Nikita

Khrushchev, traveled 7,000 miles to negotiate in Peking.

As if to solemnize China's new status, India's Jawaharlal Nehru went northward to pay his court. As the leader of the world's second biggest nation (350 million), Nehru would call on Mao Tse-tung, the leader of the world's largest (600 million). With Russia, the third largest (210 million), they comprised nearly half of mankind. The significance was not lost on Nehru. His visit was a "world event in a historic sense," said he grandly, "one of the biggest events of the year and of the decade. All other things are trivial."

Westerners, looking at the huge bloc which China, Russia and India make on a map, contemplating with awe the swarming myriads of Asian manpower, could not deny it. Khrushchev, before returning to Moscow last week, conveyed the measure of it with an old Chinese saying: "When the whole people sigh, there is a storm; when the whole people stamp their feet, there is an earthquake."

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