The Two Chinas

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31384, 1 June 1967, Page 12

The Two Chinas

The admission of Communist China to the United Nations will presumably again come before the General Assembly near the end of the year. References to the subject made when the Security Council met, for the first time this year, to consider the crisis in the Middle East, throw uttle light on the probable outcome. Representatives of member States which support the seating of Peking did not neglect the opportunity to challenge the right of Nationalist China’s representative to preside; and ironically, the rotation of the office had brought him to the chair just when a majority might have been found in the council to support the transfer of United Nations membership from Taipeh to Peking. But the Security Council has no jurisdiction in that matter; and until the General Assembly decides otherwise, Taipeh’s delegate represents the legal Government of China in the world body. To question his position, therefore, would serve no purpose except propaganda.

There has always been an air of unreality about the recurrent debate on Chinese representation. The Peking Government has repeatedly said that it would reject an invitation to join until the organisation had been “purged”—in other words, taken out of the control of “imperialists” and “revisionists”. The Soviet Union would come, in Peking’s thinking, into the latter category; and in view of the bitter ideological quarrel between Moscow and Peking, it would be unwise to regard the Soviet delegate’s refusal to recognise a Nationalist Chinese chairman as anything more than a propagandist gesture. When the time comes, the battle of the two Chinas will be joined again in the Assembly—whether one Government or the other should be seated, or whether the admission of both would prove a practicable alternative. It is remarkable that the Assembly has never voted on the two-China proposal, probably because Peking and Taipeh each deny that there could be a place for both. Those at United Nations headquarters who are in touch with Peking say that Chairman Mao’s Government remains as adamant as ever, and there is certainly no disposition in Formosa towards surrender or even compromise.

It is tempting to speculate on Moscow’s apparent preference for a Peking delegation to the United Nations. In Communist China the struggle between the Maoists and the so-called revisionists is obviously far from over. But if the Russians desire a return to Communist solidarity, it would be logical for them to hope for victory for the moderates in the power struggle—those elements, that is, which accept Communist dogma according to Moscow. No doubt discussion during the year will reveal what chance exists, if any, for a solution of the China problem. There must be a growing appreciation in the United Nations of the folly of continuing to exclude about a quarter of the world’s population from representation on a body supposed to function as a universal organisation.