RECOGNITION OF CHINA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 794, 8 October 1954, Page 18

RECOGNITION OF CHINA

POOP Extracts from a recent commentary on the international news broadcast from the main National Stations of the NZBS

T is possible for the United States Government to justify its policy of protecting and assisting the Chinese Nationalist Government by appealing to the fact that the Communist fegime is a usurping government, which has achieved its present position of power by the use of force. It is merely aiding the legitimate government and this, it might be said, it is entitled to do. It recognises the government of Chiang Kai-shek as the lawful government of China. The Nationalist Government was the legitimate government of China and foreign countries were entitled to assist in the quelling of minor disturbance if so requested. But once the Communist forces in the north were seen to be more than mere bandits-with more than the life span of the average petty war lordthen foreign governments were bound to recognise a state of insurgency. If any government should continue to furnish aid to the established government in a state of civil war, it might find that its protege should be defeated. Any continuance of military aid in such circumstances obviously appears like aiding

and abetting an attack on the newly established government. And this, in my view, is what has happened in the case of American assistance to Chiang Kaishek... A successful civil war necessarily involves at some time or other the somewhat embarrassing question when to recognise the new government. If recognition should be premature, you run the risk of committing an unfriendly act against the established government. If, on the other hand, it should be unduly delayed — even more if it should be withheld altogether-the new government will regard the continued recognition of the former and now discredited régime as an unfriendly act towards it. It requires careful judgment to void falling between two stools. Recognition should be accorded when it is clear that the insurgent authorities exercise complete control over the whole of the

national territory, or nearly all of it, without any reasonable likelihood that they will be dislodged by the former government. In the Chinese civil. war this point appears to have been reached late in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek was forced to leave the mainland and retreat to Formosa. The British Government, following its careful policy in these matters, recognised the new government January, 1950. The Soviet Union's recognition some years before was far too premature and can only be regarded as part of its policy of assisting communist insurgent groups abroad. On the other hand, the failure to accord recognjtion on the part of many countries, like the United States of America and New Zealand, has not contributed to world peace. Recognition of a government is one thing; its admission to the United Nations is another. China is an original member of the United Nations; she is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council and as such must concur in every important decision of that body. The question is: which of two rival Claimants is to be regarded as the proper representative of the state of China? In normal circumstances the answer would be obvious-surely, the government entitled to recognition under international law, But. conditions are by no means normal. The General Assembly of the United Nations in a historic debate in December, 1950, declared that the Chinese communist government was an aggressor because of its intervention in, the Korean conflict between the United Nations forces and the North Korean Government. Persuasive argument may be put forward to show that the United Nations command was ill-advised in attempting a forcible unification of Korea by pursuing the enemy north of the 38th parallel. But whatever provocation the Chinese communist government may have had, the fact remains that while the Korean conflict was being waged the United Nations could not have admitted it to take the seat of China. But now that fighting has ceased in Korea and a settlement has been reached in IndoChina, the time seems ripe for a reexamination of this attitude. In some countries, especially in the United States (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) of America, the question of admitting the communist government to the United Nations in place of the Nationalist government arouses passionate feeling. Only this week an influential American Senator has expressed his opinion that the United States ought not to stay in the world organisation if the Chinese communists should be admitted. We can only hope that ‘the American Government will resist the pressure of this sort of public opinion and realise that an intransigent policy of exclusion serves to destroy the very principles for which the United Mations was founded.

DR

G. P.

BARTON

September 18, 1954. |