Conference Issues in Korea

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 735, 14 August 1953, Page 20

Conference Issues in Korea

tinects ie recent commentaries on the international news, broadcast from the main National Stations of the NZBS

OW to reach a_ peaceful settlement of the Korean questioh will undoubtedly prove a very difficult problem to solve. Are North and South Korea to be unified, as Dr. Rhee has so often stated to be his objective-under his leadership of course?...I cannot imagine the North Korean Communist Government agreeing "peacefully" to such a soluti¢i. Nor do I think that a division of Korea into two states would satisfy Dr Rhee, even if the two could live "peacefully" together. Some pressure by outside powers might be necessary to pre ht a recurrence of war between them and such a state of affairs could not bé regarded as a peaceful settlement by anyone. It is too soon perhaps to speculate about the solution that will be reached, but it may weil be that some such solution as this will be the one adopted. If so, the cd-opera-tion of Communist China will be essential. But this is by no means the only important issue that will arise at the political conference. Another that is bound to arise, I think, is the question

of Communist China’s right to China’s seats in the United Nations and to her permanent seat on the Security Council. Russia will be represented at the post-armistice political conference, and her delegates. will certainly raise this issue even if nobody else does, and will press it at least as vigorously as they have done for ‘long past at meetings of the United Nations. Of course, -the political conference could not decide this issue,-but China may seek the support of those countries present at it when it is raised again (as of course it will be) at the United Nations meetings. No doubt, the attitude adopted by, those countries-United Kingdom and United States among them-will influence China’s policy regarding a Korean settlement. It may well be that Russia is even more anxious than ever to win China’s

support and goodwill. There have been some interesting reports recently about the political situation in North Korea. Russia’s influence appears to be waning and China’s to be growing. These reports, which have not been confirmed, may yet be true. The Communist Government of China has never, I believe, been a puppet of Russia. It has been willing enough to accept Russian aid, ‘but will always take an independent line when it feels itself strong enough to do so. I am sure that Mao Tse-tung’s Government must regard recent events in Europe as evidence of a weakening in Russian influence, and will not, I think, be slow to react to this. The reported conflict in North Korea between the Communist leader Kim Too-bong, who is strongly pro-China and a close friend of Mao Tse-tung, and the pro-Russia group led by the Prime Minister, Kim Il-sung, ‘may perhaps be regarded as evidence of China’s : jealousy of Russia’s influence and of a growing intention to adopt an independent line. Russia may therefore seek to strengthen the link between herself and China by pushing hard for admission of Mao Tse-tung’s Government to the United Nations. As a result serious disagreement could arise between the United Kingdom and ag United States... I think that the United States should adopt the United Kingdom’s policy on this issue, and not merely because

failure to do so may lead to a possible breach’ between them. Communist China may not ,.. be as close to Russia as is usually believed, but refusal to admit her t@ the United Nations will help to keep the alliance between the two Communist regimes closer than it otherwise might be. I would have thought that the United States would seek to divide them-not unite them. . . China, with a population of over 450 million-nearly a fifth of the population of the whole world-is far too large a nation to be excluded indefinitely from the United Nations, if that body is to be in fact what its name implies, and is to carry out its proper function. However we may regard Mao Tse-tung’s regime, it is in fact the effective Government of China- Chiang Kai-Shek’s certainly is not, and the United States is quite unrealistic in recognising it us the effective Government. .

-PROFESSOR

H. R.

RODWELL

August 1, 1953.

cad a .* R. MALAN’S gesture of offering Australia unasked-for help against India has been receiving support from South African papers. . . India is accused of. having imperialistic designs in the Indian Ocean, and the paper Die Transvaler says that India seeks to put her overloaded millions around the In-

DR. MALAN’S OFFER

dian Ocean-that is, Africa and Aus-tralia-and to want to be to the Indian Ocean what Britain was to the Atlantic and America is to the Pacific. I think

the first thing in looking -at this accusation is to realise that emigration

can never be even a palliative to Indias population growth. It isn’t that the Indian rate of population growth is so high-actually New Zealand’s growing faster-but the mass of population is so large to start with that the increase of India alone is 15,000 a day. Any emigration could only be a drop in the bucket. Moreover, there is every indication that India knows this, and is not looking to emigration to solve her difficulties. . . Dr. Malan is, I think, putting up a man of straw ... using Mussolini’s technique of diverting attention from difficulties at home by concentrating the fear of his people for some foe overseas. This has a double effect in that some Asiatic immigration is one of South Africa’s problems, and it is an easy step for Dr. Malan to cast his eyes further afield to India itself.

D. W.

McKENZIE

July 18, 1953.

THE GERMAN PROBLEM

: SUPPOSE we couldn’t expect a stranger piece of news from any Communist-controlled country than that which came from East Germany’s Prime Minister-liberty for every citizen to utter his opinions in public! This, from’ that part where certainly a few months ago there was persecution of religious leaders who dared preach their own, and not state, doctrines! Strange things

have been going on in East Germany % . the conclusion we've

all come to is that Communism has had a heavy moral defeat at the hands cf intelligent and resolute people, who prefer Western ways and ideas to those of the East. I think there’s possibly another defeat involved. Western plans may be in process of being wrecked, too -those plans which involved the creation of a "viable" (the word of the day) state in West Germany alone. And what’s the rock on which the plans of both East and West appear to be splitting? The desire above all else of the German people for unity. To anyone who knows the story of the unification of Germany last century, the division of that country into two parts must seem no permanent solution, but only a temporary device. This partition wasn’t laid down at Potsdam in 1945. It develaped out of the quarrels between Russia and the West. Germany recently has been approaching the stage of division into two’ heavily-armed camps-a situation with dangerously explosive possibilities. We’ve heard of attempts to form an East German army on the one hand, and we know of the proposed European Defence Community, which is so slow in coming into existence-that elaborate plan to arm West Germany and get her assistance in the anti-Com-munist front. Dr. Adenauer, the West German Chancellor, has been, and probably still is, very enthusiastic in support of the European army, but now he’s talking about German unity, and so is Herr Grotewohl, and so no doubt are the German people, and so may be four Foreign Ministers; and Russia and U.S.A. are outbidding each other in their sudden solicitous care for the East Ger-

mans.

FERGUS

MURRAY

July 25, 1953.