U.S. Administration’s Stand On China Policy

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28270, 7 May 1957, Page 8

U.S. Administration’s Stand On China Policy

[Specially written for the N.Z.P.A. by FRANK OLIVER]

WASHINGTON. May 5.

The Eisenhower Administration is fighting a strong rearguard action in defence of its China policies. There is certainly a slight retreat, but it is not even inch by inch, rather fractions thereof. Conversation in Washington is mostly about Mr Eisenhower’s Budget and the generally unlamented departure from the political scene of Senator McCarthy, but one can still catch remarks about permitting the press to enter China, and the Paris negotiations to revise East-West trade lists. The general feeling is that the press will succeed soon in getting permission for correspondents to visit China, but that the restricted trading list will remain very restricted. The reason for this is that in the United States the press is infinitely more powerful than are the forces seeking the relaxation of trade barriers. So much is it so that a long-range guess is that the American press will eventually, whether it seeks it or not, force some form of diplomatic recognition of Red China. Mr Dulles’s Ban The Dulles ban on visits to China by American correspondents finally raised a hornets' nest, and he was forced to make his concession that he might consider allowing a selected few to go. They would pool their material for the benefit of the entire American press. This managed to irritate the press almost as much as the retention of the original ban. Those papers which maintain a corps of correspondents want their own individual reports.. When the question of so-called trial by newspapers and the tendency of the American press in that respect was recently discussed. an American authority on the subject described the difference between Britain and America in this matter by saying that in Britain the press is scared to death of the Courts, but in America the Courts are scared stiff of the press. Strangling Regime As far as can be seen, the United States trade policy in the Far East still has as its aim the strangling of the Red China regime in its early years. It appears to be self-defeating in that it tends to strengthen rather than weaken the ties between Moscow and Peking. ’ The Administration, of course, has considerable backing for its China policies among the Rightists of its own party in Congress, where there is even talk of putting restrictions on trade with Jugoslavia on the grounds that its Government is Communist. The State Department attitude is that if the ban on press travel to China is lifted, then American traders and missionaries will want to go; and how can they be discriminated against? That road

would lead inevitably to recognition and a relationship at least as normal as between this country and Russia. Predictions are that Mr Dulles will put up a considerable fight in what looks suspiciously like a losing battle, and that before many months pass the American press will have its correspondents in China. • ‘Bankrupt Policy” A Some sections of the press, notably the “Washington Post,” have been describing America’s trade policy vis a vis China as a bankrupt policy, but Mr Dulles is given a far better chance of maintaining China trade barriers for America's allies as well as itself than of keeping the press out of China. In brief, little is expected to come out of the Paris negotiations. It was a little over a year ago that the Eisenhower-Eden talks indicated the revision of the trade list so that the advantage to the Free World could be balanced against the restrictions on China, but it is widely agreed that the results so far have been zero. Some sections of the press here express the belief that the American proposals for the Paris discussion are meaningless and that there is a feeling in Washington that talk of liberalising the China list hides the intent to trade off useless concessions on the China list for tighter restrictions on Russia. One newspaper goes as far as to say that it is suspected that America’s real goal is a double killing—tighter lists for both China and Russia.