War Danger In Far East Is Emphasised

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1948, Page 6

War Danger In Far East Is Emphasised

WASHINGTON, March 10. Military aid to the Chinese Government would help to stop “Russian aggression’ ’in Europe, said Major-General C. L. Chennault, in testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives today. Major-General ChennaulV. who flew here from China at the Administration’s request, to testify on the proposed 570,000,000 dollars for aid to China, said that failure to aid the Chinese Government would inevitably set the stage for a third world war.

He 'said: “It is my firm belief that the Communists will not launch an attack in the West until they have secured their Eastern continental front. If China is Communist we will be confronted immediately with the necessity for deciding whether we will engage in a third world war or retire to the defence of the American continents.”

His conclusions were: 1, that world peace .is threatened by world-wide expansion plans' of Communist leaders; 2, that a strong independent anti-Communist Chinese National Government constitutes the only hope of halting the spread of Communism in Asia and of preserving world peace; 3, that after more than 10 years of continuous warfare, China has almost reached the end of her resources and must have military, economic, and financial aid quickly if the anti-Communist National Government is to survive: 4, that failure to provide adequate aid now will

constitute the greatest failure in the history of American foreign policy.

He told the committee that he had not made a careful estimate of the aid necessary ‘for China, but he was thinking of something like 1,500,000,000 to 2,000,000,000 dollars in the next three years. Major-General Chennault, who has now retired from the Army and runs an airline in China, said earlier that one of his aeroplanes on a flight from Mukden to Tsingtao had recently been attacked by two fighters with Russian red star markings. He said he believed that the fighters belonged to Russian forces based on Port Arthur.