CHINA WARNED BY MR ACHESON

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26064, 17 March 1950, Page 7

CHINA WARNED BY MR ACHESON

Communist Advances Condemned AMERICAN POLICY IN EAST SAN FRANCISCO, March 15. The United States Secretary of State (Mr Dean Acheson) warned the Chinese people to-day that they could only bring grave trouble on -themselves and their friends if they were ltd by the Chinese Communist regime into aggressive or subversive a'aventures beyond their borders. Mr Acheson was speaking on the United States’ foreign policy in Asia at a meeting of the Commonwealth Club. He said that the American people would remain in future, as they had in the past, the friends of the Chinese people. Any aggressive, subversive adventures outside China, however, would violate every tradition and interest of the Chinese people, their Asian neighbours, the American people, and all free peoples. “I say this so that there may be no mistake about the attitude of the •United States, and no opportunity to distort ana twist it,” said Mr Acheson. **l say it so’that all China may know who would be responsible for all that such adventures might bring to pass.” Mr Acheson prefaced his warning by saying that the world now faced a prospect that the Communists might attempt to use China as a base for probing for other weak spots which they could move into arid exploit. He said Americans fully understood that the present unhappy status'"of the Chinese people within the orbit of the Soviet Union was not the result of any choice on their part, but it had been forced upon them. He made it plain that the United States did not intend to engage in any aggressive adventures against the Chinese. Mr Acheson said that the American Government was entirely willing to

continue trading with China, but he Wanted to dismiss any impression that the United States would seek trade at any costs. z The recent Chinese-Soviet treaty of friendship and mutual assistance had given a new, clear indication of Russian intentions in China. Communist Menace ‘The Chinese people may welcome these promises and assurances, but they will not fail in time to see where they fall short of China’s real needs and desires.” Mr Acheson said. The people of Asia must face the tact that to-day the major threat to their freedom and social and economic progress was the attempted penetration of Asia by Soviet Communist imperialism and by the colonialism w hich it contained. ?The reactionary character of this effort is illustrated by comparing the miserable fate of the European satellites with the emergence of the free nations of Pakistan, India, Burma, Ceylon, Indonesia and the Philippines, *Jth the full consent and co-operation of those who earlier exercised control over them,” Mr Acheson continued. “We are opposed to. the spread of ooviet Communism because it is the means and tool by which Russia is to extend its absolute domination over the widest possible areas of the world.” The United States opposed the °fr Communism because it pert u tile rea l democratic revolution , at had begun all over the world tb Ug J )efor e Communism had been mought of as a world conspiracy. Acheson added: “We must- unceasingly, in all we do and say, affirm »U e positive goals of the free peoples, must not allow ourselves to appear merely negative, even though mat negation is directed against the most corrupting forces now operating 10 the world.”