THREATS TO FORMOSA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27441, 30 August 1954, Page 11

THREATS TO FORMOSA

Chinese Claims Held “Bluff”

(N JI. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 pm.) MIAMI, August 28. Mr Henry Cabot Lodge, chief United States delegate to the United Nations, said today he believed Mr Chou En-lat, the Chinese Communist Prime Minister, had been bluffing when he declared that his forces would seise Formosa,

Speaking at the annual convention of Amvets, an association of American former servicemen, Mr Lodge said—“lt was at the time of the recent rather curious festivities in Peking that Mr Chou En- lai said that the Chmese Reds

were going to take Formosa. “You may remember that President Eisenhower said that they, would have to over-run the United States Seventh Fleet in order to do so.

“Personally, I don’t believe the Chinese Reds can take Formosa or that they can ever come anywhere near doing so. Mr Chou En-lai’Sx talk was mere bluff “

A spokesman for the United States delegation at the United Nations (which Mr Lodge heads) was asked what Peking festivities Mr Lodge had in mind. The spokesman declined to elaborate. A Reuter correspondent said it was believed that Mr Lodge was referring to the recent visit to the Chinese Communist capital by the British Labour Party delegation, headed by Mr Attlee. Mr Lodge, who has said in the past that he would not shrink from using the veto in the Security Council to prevent Communist China taking a seat in the United Nations, criticised those who advocated Communist China’s admission to the world organisation.

“To admit the Chinese Communists before there is a peace in Korea is an insult to the entire principle of collective security which we in the United Nations are sworn to uphold, as well as being an affront to the memory of our dead,” he said.

“It would be proof that we did not mean what we said when we solemnly declared our hatred of aggression. To

admit this regime which uses war as an instrument of national policy, is to steer the United Nations on to a rock on which it will founder.”

Mr Lodge said there were those who declared that the United Nations could succeed by taking the “positively pernicious course of disregarding the charter and openly embracing the aggressor.” He said these people were “tragically mistaken.”

Mr Lodge charged that by building supply routes in Korea which the Supervisory Commission could ' not check, the Chinese Communists had been able to move Russian-built MIG jet fighter planes, “thereby in effect redeploying their air force and thus nagrantly violating the armistice agreement”. ■ Suggestion In Britain A London message says that the “News Chronicle” suggested today that Britain, Australia and New Zealand should offer to share the task of policing the Formosa Straits and should ask. the United States to resume the Truman policy of the “neutralisation” of Formosa—preventing hostile action on either side—instead of simply protecting Formosa from Communist invasion and allowing Marshal Chiang Kai-shek’s forces to do as they please. The “News Chronicle” also suggested that the Nationalist-held islands off the Chinese mainland should be demilitarised and the Nationalists and Communists should both be told that further forays would not be tolerated.