WESTERN TRADE WITH CHINA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 9

WESTERN TRADE WITH CHINA

“Perplexing” Issue ForJJ.S. • (Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 20. The Mutual Security Director (Mr Harold Stassen) said yesterday that the •sue of what to do about Allied trade with Communist China was “a very perplexing question.”

Mr Stassen made this statement on i televised discussion programme after Deing asked about a report issued by the Senate’s permanent Investigations Committee.

The committee, which is headed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, said that, in spite of American efforts to embargo world trade with Peking, the volume of such shipments had been ■l2 times greater during the first quarter of 1953 than for the corresponding period of 1952. “What this involves is rice, feathers, and so on.” Mr Stassen said. “We have stopped trade in strategic materials.” Asked whether he agreed with Senator McCarthy’s view that all such trade should be halted, Mr Stassen said: “You have to work with nations associated with you and try to get a common position. The United States has taken the position that we should not engage in any trade. The United Nations took the position that we should not trade in war-type goods and strategic materials.” He said that if the United States insisted that all trade should be stopped with the Soviet group, some of the Allies would be in a position to ask, “Where do we trade? How do.we stay alive economically?”

Mr Stassen said: ‘ ‘You have to recognise that other countries have views different from ours.” James Reston, diplomatic correspondent of the “New York Times,” in a dispatch from Hong Kong, says: “Trade goes on with China in goods on the United Nations embargoed list — no-one in Hong Kong denies that. The well-established British trading concern stays within the letter of the British but not the American regulations.

“These companies are aware of the fact that all the business they reject with Communist China is picked up by traders all over the world who are perfectly willing to evade or defy the policies the United States Government is seeking to promote. “This is a source of concern and annoyance to United States and British officials in Hong Kong, but so long as Washington and London follow different policies towards Peking, no-one thinks the situation will change very much,” Reston concludes.

He is reported to be pleased with the American guarantees he has secured, pledging protection and help in trying to secure the political unification of Korea. One of the most important matters still to be settled will be the plotting of the new line of demarcation. Since the original line was mapped out in early June, the Communist advances on th * east central and central front have made significant gains which they are expected to want recognised in any truce agreement. The plotting of this demarcation line, which will serve as the centre of the “buffer zone,” should not take long, as the line involved is only about 30 miles long and in places runs close to natural features like the Pukhan and Kumsong rivers, Allied observers stated.