U.S. REJECTION OF PACIFIC PACT CRITICISED

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1949, Page 7

U.S. REJECTION OF PACIFIC PACT CRITICISED

NEW YORK, May 19.-—The New York Times in a leading article today on the rejection by Mr Dean Acheson, the United States Secretary of State, of a Pacific pact on the lines of the North Atlantic Treaty, asks: “Are we to yield the field to Communism until all the separate Asian conflicts are solved in its favour? “The gravity of the threat cannot be ignored,” the article says. “If a Pacific pact modelled after the North Atlantic Treaty is not feasible, and there is good reason to believe that it is not, then some other measures must be devised and some other steps taken to hold our ground. If we cannot achieve the effective collaboration that made European inte- i gration possible we can at least avoid' a policy of hopefully doing nothing.” ’The article says that Mi- Acheson’s reason’s are convincing so far as they relate specifically to a pact, but that he is not on such firm ground in i saying that a defence pact “could not take shape until the present internal conflicts in Asia are resolved. “Leaving aside the controversial case of China, there is a grave threat in a condition such as exists, in Burma or in Malaya. It is doubtful that Mr Acheson and Pandit Nehru can establish satisfactorily where at a half a dozen points the threat is from internal conflicts and where it is from aggressive pan-Asian Communism.”

Listing the United States’s specific commitments to the Korean Republic, the Philippines, and Indonesia, the Times says: “We can make it plain that they will be honoured. The fact that we feel obliged to eschew and discourage any attempt to reach a Pacific pact should not deter us from insisting that we still believe in resistance to aggressive Communist expansion. Eventually that very resistance may develop in Asia the type of collaboration that has made possible our defensive measures in Europe.” A later message from Canberra states that discussions for a Pacific pact and for co-operation in the Pacific between the services had taken place on a number of occasions, said the Prime .Minister (Mr Chifiey) in the House of Representatives this afternoon. It was well understood that certain facilities Australia might have w'ould be available to the United States and that American services would be available to Australia. During the last month the Secretary of the Defence Department (Sir Frederick Sheddon) had been in America and had discussed matters with representatives of the United States Government. The United Sates took the view that it would not enter into any fixed agreement or commitments in the Pacific at present, but that its attention should be first given to Europe.