U.S.A. AND FORMOSA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 813, 25 February 1955, Page 5

U.S.A. AND FORMOSA

Sir -As usual, Mr. Dumbleton in his Lookout broadcast of February 5 showed a refreshing realism. But in his treatment of the United States position in Formosa there was a serious gap. It is true that the promise of the Cairo and Potsdam declarations to restore Formosa to China has never been put into treaty form. Nevertheless, the United States Government treated it as Chinese territory until the middle of 1950. For instance, on February 5, 1950, after Chiang Kai-shek had been driven from the mainland, the President, Mr. Truman, stated: "The United States has no predatory designs on Formosa or on other Chinese territory. . . Nor does it have any intention of utilising its armed forces to interfere in tthe present situation. The United States Government will not pursue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil conflict in China." The Secretary of State, Mr. Dean Acheson, likewise stated that to deny that Formosa was Chinese territory was a mere "lawyer’s quibble." On February 9 there was a further statement that for the United States Government to seek by any means, including a plebiscite under the United Nations, to set up a non-Chinese administration in Formosa "would be almost universally interpreted in mainland China and widely’ interpreted throughout Asia as an attempt by this Government to separate Formosa ftom China in violation of its pledges and contrary to its long-standing policy of respecting the territorial integrity of China." It was not until June 27, when the 7th Fleet was despatched to Formosan waters, that the United States Government found it convenient to shift its ground and maintain that the fate of

Formosa had still to be determined. It rests with American lawyers to quibble away the inconsistency of United States support for Chiang Kai-shek, as head of the Chinese State, on territory which the United States denies, and Chiang claims, to be Chinese territory. The United States position in Formosa has no international validity. It was a unilateral American action, frankly based on what are claimed to be-the needs of American security. On the basis of Unitec States statements, it constitutes interference in the internal affairs of China. It seems strangely like hypocrisy for the United States, supported by its allies, armed with atomic power and threatening massive retaliation, to pose as the apostle of peace while it sits tight on this position. In a world threatened with nuclear war the needed restraint should not all be imposed on one side by the threat of the other to loose war without any attempt to deal with the real causes of tension. At the worst, a few weeks of local, non-nuclear civil war-and it is surely agreed that Chiang Kai-shek depends completely on American support-would be better than a day of nuclear war, perhaps on a world scale. Tension will not be relieved by stand-pat on Formosa nor by SEATO pacts, which to Asians-and_ increasingly to Africans and many Latin Ameri-cans-naturally look like attempts to stop them from: settling their own affairs. + i The cease-fire proposal, covering only the coastal islands, was a rather transparent smoke-screen. A more real contribution to peace would be for such countries as New Zealand to stop bolstering the fantastic American conception of the needs of American security and rather to press for a Geneva-type conference to deal with Formosa on the basis of past pledges and placing the de facto government in the Chinese seat in the United Nations.

WILLIS

AIREY

(Auckland).