CHINA AND U.N. BIG CHANGES IN AMERICAN POLICY MAY BE COMING

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 16

CHINA AND U.N. BIG CHANGES IN AMERICAN POLICY MAY BE COMING

(By

HENRY L. TREWHITT.

» Newsweek Feature Service)

For more than two decades, the United States has managed to keep Communist China out of the United Nations. But the exclusion game has become more and more difficult to play, and it now seems inevitable that soon—perhaps even this year—more than 725 million mainland Chinese will be taking their place in the mainstream of international discourse

The negativism of the past has all but disappeared in Washington. The Government is engaged at many levels—in the State Department, the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and, indeed, right through the National Security Council to the President bimself —in a fundamental review of China policy. The implications are vast. They entail a change not only in the relations between China and the United States but also in the future power relationships of China, Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States in the western Pacific and on the Asian mainland. “There is a growing perception,” says one State Department analyst, "that we can’t get very far with the great problems—controlling strategic weapons, population control, ecology, trade—as long as onefourth of the world’s population is excluded.”

Turning point The turning point was the United Nations vote last November in which for the first time Peking’s entrance won a majority (51 to 49, with 25 abstentions). Immediate seating of Communist China was avoided only because the United States had managed to make the issue an "important Suestion,” requiring a twolirds vote. It is by no means sure that this two-thirds requirement will be in effect again this year. It is not at all certain, moreover, that American officials—who can count votes as well as anyone else —will continue year after year to twist arms and call in every possible national 1.0. U. in their stubborn determination to keep out the Chinese Communists. Indeed, since the Nixon Administration took office, movement in the opposite direction has been very apparent. President Nixon has pulled the United States Seventh Fleet out of the Taiwan Strait, and his Secretary of State, William P. Rogers, plainly told Chiang Kai-shek to forget his dream of invading the mainland. The United States, Mr Rogers continued, would maintain its guarantees to Taiwan but also would endeavour to improve relations with the Communist government. There have also been specific gestures towards the mainland. The Nixon Administration has begun to allow American students, scholars, scientists and even some ordinary travellers to visit Communist China for “legitimate” reasons.

Trade permitted

Americans are now permitted to buy mainland Chinese products abroad and bring them back to the United States arid foreign subsidiaries of American companies are allowed to trade with China. For example, Italian trucks with General Motors engines have recently been shipped to Communist China. And most recently, Mr Ragers offered to exchange unclassified scientific data with Peking. The Administration can hardly be considered suicidally far out in front of the country in its changing China policy. Already this year, two resolutions have been introduced in the Senate urging a seat for Peking, and they nave substantial backing. The spectrum of support is wide. Senator George McGovern recently kicked off his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination with a plea to seat the Chinese. And before his death, no less a conservative than Senator Richard Russell of Georgia expressed the hope that the Administration would “find some way to have some kind of relations with China.” And he added: “It is seldom that you cause war by talking to people, and you sometimes avoid it.” Beyond that, there has been a noticeable abatement of the almost religious fervour that once surrounded anti - Red China policies, especially during the 1950 s when John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State. The power of the China Lobby—which used to be able to deluge Congress with hardlining letters—is vastly reduced. Even Red Chinese aid to the enemy in Vietnam has failed to rekindle the qld virulence.

Alternative policies

In fact, the Administration has what might almost be considered a free hand in deciding its approach to the next bid for Communist Chinese entry to the U.N. At present, officials in Washington are mulling over three policy alternatives:

i. To continue all-out opposition and accept what

appears to be inevitable i defeat as the price of "principle.” ’ 2. To come out for a “two Chinas” policy, with both Peking and Taiwan ; to be represented in the U.N. (The difficulty here is that neither Chinese government seems under present circumstances likely to accept such a situation.) , 3. To reverse past policy and accede to the entry of Communist China, preserving only the strategic guarantee to , Chiang. i What seems most likely is ' a mixture of the second and

third options: a quiet but intensive effort to bring about dual representation and, failing that, acceptance of defeat with as much grace as possible and with a continuing resolve to protect the status quo on Taiwan. However, as one glum Washington official observes, “it takes two to tango,” and so far the Communist Chinese have made no answering gestures to the United States overtures. Indeed, there are good grounds to believe that Peking has decided that it will gain its ends in any event and that—regardless of what the United States does—the momentum is all in its own direction.