The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1950 CHINA AND KOREA

Wanganui Chronicle, 9 November 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1950 CHINA AND KOREA

CHINA’S decision to enter the Korean conflict lias provided the world with a major shock. Why should the Chinese, who cannot be comfortable with the Russians in Manchuria, undertake an engagement in Korea when the chances of success have materially deteriorated? Obviously there must be some inducement now which was not present in the earlier stages of the Korean conflict. It is possible that the Russians have made a bargain with General Mao, offering him inducements to send forces to Korea, but that is a possibility which cannot be regarded as a probability. The Communists of Peking have their hands full with the many problems which confront them in China proper and there is also the invasion of Tibet still to be completed. This latter task may not be regardetl as a major operation, but it is likely to provide a second area of friction with the Russians. Peking should then, by all the observable factors, be anxious to maintain as large a reserve of military strength against unforeseen possibilities. To dissipate that strength is so unwise a policy that anything which is in accord with it should not be lightly accepted. The Koreans have ever been a temperamental people, given to speedy acts of revenge. The Japanese, when meeting a national crisis such as a major earthquake, feared the wrath of the Koreans in Japan as much as the ancient Greeks feared the Helots when war threatened Sparta. There is no racial affinity between the inhabitants of either North or South Korea that should induce China to undertake an unlimited liability in the peninsula by entering the conflict now. With the foregoing considerations.in mind the attitude of the United Kingdom Government of walking warily and proceeding in a circumspect manner appears to be the most desirable course. It is natural enough for General MacArthur to attack any resistance point in Korea today, but the reports indicate that he has been content at the moment to consolidate his line on a defensive system rather than to move forward in strength. This, at least provides some breathing space and it is to be hoped that it will be usefully employed by entering into direct negotiations with the Peking Government. It is here that the contact already established by the United Kingdom Government recognising the Mao regime will prove to be useful.

The first question to ask in the present situation is “Why should the Peking Government, in its own interest, move into Northern Korea at this moment?” The probability is that it has done so in order to protect some interest of its own from being adversely affected. What interest is there likely to be which is strong enough to induce such action? The answer to that question is actually easy to discover. In China the lack of capital goods is the cause of the widespread poverty of the people. Manpower is over-plentiful, but power and tools of production are in under-supply. The Communist has been called into existence not so much by the idea of an egalitarian sharing the productive wealth produced by the community, but by the possibility of an enlarged production being achieved through the community enforcing better and more complicated techniques. For instance, the collective farm iclea was not born in Russia, but in capitalist Minnesota. It was the demonstration of the superiority of the method developed by the “factories in the fields” technique of the wheat belt of America which induced Stalin to consolidate the small peasant holdings into a large-scale ranch where massive machinery could be profitably employed. This experiment was so highly satisfactory in lifting (he productive capacity of the first area so treated that people were sent from all over Russia to the first “collective” in order to see what had been achieved. The God of the Communist is capital investment and he will enforce the harshest conditions that the public will endure in order to save for the creation of new capital goods. The Communist regime, because it demands such great sacrifices in the reduction of living standards in the hope of achieving future improvement must hare the public with it. It is for this reason that it pays.so great.attention to propaganda inside its own land. Its major fear is that the reward being so long deferred will make sick the hearts of the members of the public. A war inside a Communist country would be a major disaster because capital goods would .be destroyed and this propaganda would not be effective. During the Second World War the Germans could have had mass Russian support in their invasion of the Soviet territory had not Hitler mishandled the situation by insisting upon the Russians being treated not as a liberated people but as inferiors who should be denied status. An invasion of any Communist country would, most, probably meet with similar enthusiasm by many of the inhabitants. The Peking Government cannot be assumed to court an invasion of China by United Nations troops, by the Chinese intervention in Korea. The destruction of capital goods in China and in countries near to Tt must strike the Chinese people as a policy of aggression against their wellbeing and destructive of their hoped for future material improvement. There has been sufficient destruction of capital in the way of buildings, railways and factories already to arouse the apprehension of the Chinese who cannot be. expected to look upon the existing conflict in Korea with a dispassionate eye of an onlooker. It is, as the Communists of the Kremlin aver, an act of aggression by the West against the Orient to blow up a tunnel in a conflict which does not affect immediately either America or Britain. This matter, to be understood, must be looked at through Chinese eyes, a task which is not possible for everyone who reads the reports from the warzone. It would appear, if this reasoning is sound, that the ( hinese in going into Northern Korea arc concerned to preserve the capital investment within that area and particularly the electricity generating plants which supply not only Northern Korea but also provides power for the Chinese in Manchuria which, despite Russian dominance of that province, is still a major concern oil hina. Assuming that the preservation of power stations am plant is the purpose of the intervention of the Chinese, then a diplomatic approach is likely to prove to be more fruitful than any success of a military character in the field To follow up. the dip oniatw approach is, therefore, to be regarded as sound policy for the time being until it is proved to be of a contrary nature.