Greymouth Evening Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1949, What China Means To N.Z.

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1949, Page 6

Greymouth Evening Star. THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1949, What China Means To N.Z.

’T’TIE shelling of British warships by the 1 Communist forces in China, with heavy loss of life, makes distressing reading. Time was when there was more respect for the British Navy and the British flag. From the account given by the British Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, a reasonable interpretation of this serious incident in the Yangtse would be that the Com-

munists have served notice on the Western Towers that their presence will no longer be tolerated. It may signify—quite probably it does —the closing of all doors to China, except the door remaining open to the Kremlin rulers.

The rapid and extensive success of the Communist operations to cross the Yangtse river and io dominate southern China opens a new chapter in Asiatic history. The future of eastern and southern Asia is being shaped, and this is a matter of vital interest, particularly to Australia and New Zealand. While Communist imperialism in Europe has been halted, at least temporarily, by the Marshall Plan, Western Union and the Atlantic Treaty, it is still, unchecked in Asia. The Communists have triumphed in China. They also dominate the .Government of Viet Nam, which maintains itself in opposition to France over a great part of Indo-China. Tn alliance with the Karens, they are waging an apparently successful civil war against the Government of Burma. They are active in Malaya and Indonesia, and have recently increased their activities, on a varying scale, in India, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Communist danger in Asia is real and urgent. We should not allow ourselves to be deceived on that point. There are some people who have been arguing for years that “tlie Chinese Communists are not Communists, really; they are agrarian Socialists with a much-needed policy of social reform.” This is the story fostered, of course, by the friends of the Kremlin. But Communism is Communism

wherever it raises its ugly head. Its record alone provides sufficient evidence. The need for reforms in. China is admitted, but the system that is now to be imposed there is the very antithesis of democracy. The Communists, as the only force working to a (©mtrally-dirccted plan, have seized their chance to'extencl their power in the world. The pity of it is that that chance was presented to them by an inept regime and

he hesitancy’'of the Western Bowers.. I

has to be recognised in this connection, however, that, the Communists, as much as the Kuomintang, were responsible for stultifying the earlier efforts of General Marshall and other patently sincere Americans to bring peace to China. The Communists did not want peace in China ; they do not want it anywhere, except on their own terms.

The containing of the Communist menace inside the boundaries of China must be the next large-scale objective of democracy in the world-wide cold war. The situation cannot be viewed with equanimity by the Bacific countries, particularly Australia and New Zealand. They face the grim, prospect, in the perhaps not distant future, of the teeming millions of the East being harnessed to the chariot. of Communist imperialism. Japan s abortive lunge points the way. It. can happen again, and, if it so happens, the pressure behind the first Asiatic aggressive bid will be as nothing compared with that which is to come.