TAIWAN AND U.S. DEFENSE IN EAST ASIA

(By Morris K. Udall, June 10, 1970)

Last year I attended an American Assembly meeting in Japan at which American-Japanese relations were discussed. A considerable part of the exchange dealt with mutual Japanese and American relations with the Peoples Republic of China. It was the general consensus at the meeting that there should be more contact between the people of China and the peoples of Japan and the United States.

The stated goal of the Nixon Administration has been to increase contact between the Chinese and the Americans. The Administration relaxed restrictions on travel to China in July, 1969. In the field of trade, restrictions were reduced in December, 1969. In January, 1970, it was announced that the Warsaw talks between the Chinese and the Americans would be resumed, after having been in abeyance for two years. Two formal conversations have been held since then on February 20, 1970, but the entry of American troops into Cambodia caused the Chinese to cancel the talks.

Essentially the United States negotiators, because of the general impasse regarding the Taiwan question, want to talk about items on the periphery of SinoAmerican interests. Trade, travel, and exchanges are illustrations of those. Conversely, Chinese negotiators want to discuss and settle the central question of ensuring their own security as a nation, including what is generally recognized by both the Nationalists and the Communists to relate to the province of Taiwan. It is to Chinese and American security that I shall address myself in this paper. The question of Taiwan is the fundamental problem dividing the United States and the Peoples Republic of China. Consequently, we must examine U.S.-China relations in that light.

For 21 years, the United States has followed a policy toward China based on the containment, isolation, and military encirclement of that country. This containment philosophy was transferred to Asia after having been successfully applied by Americans to the European situation. In 1947 the mysterious Mr. X (who turned out to be Mr. George Kennen), gave in a Foreign Affairs article historical and philosophical justification for the containment of the Soviet Union in Europe. That policy became operational in the Truman Doctrine which aided the Greek and Turkish governments in their fights against communists, and it had a large part to play in the formation of N.A.T.O. with the purpose of preventing further communist expansion in Europe. When the communists were victorious in China in 1949, the same general philosophy was adopted in regard to China and has in the main been the policy this country has followed ever since. It was due to the events that occurred in 1949 and 1950, both internationally and domestically, that our China policy was both formulated and remained essentially the same through five Presidents. Consequently, it is important to examine this formative period in U.S. policy in greater detail.

There is no question that fierce anti-communism dominated our foreign policy, and particularly our policy toward China, fueled by certain international events and by the domestic political events of those two years. The virulent antiAmerican posture of both the Soviet Union and Communist China enabled the late Senator Joseph McCarthy to stir up anti-communist feeling in this country. The hornets nest that Senator McCarthy disturbed in turn caused heavy criticism by Congressmen of our then Secretary of State Dean Acheson for his approach to the China problem. In many ways this domestic factor was a very heavy feather that tipped the scales between a policy of moderation toward China which President Truman and Secretary Acheson followed until the Korean War, and a policy of hostility.

A coalition of conservative Republicans and conservative military leaders, plus the very influential Henry Luce (born in China of missionary parents), formed the China Lobby to ensure that this country's policy toward China was a hostile one. The general fear in the United States of the advance of communism, through both foreign conquest and domestic infiltration, made this group an extremely powerful force in formulating and adhering to a policy toward China which is still hostile 21 years after its initiation. This group of men with their friendships and connections in Congress, with the press with academia, with business, and with the executive branch of the government, has had and continues to have a strong influence on our China policy.

Truman and Acheson retained a moderate approach to China, despite strong opposition from the China Lobby, until the Korean War. On January 5, 1950, the day after his State of the Union Address to Congress, President Truman issued a four-paragraph release in which, after declaring that the United States regarded Formosa as Chinese territory without qualification, went on to say:

"The United States has no predatory designs on Formosa or on any other Chinese territory. The United States has no desire to obtain special rights or privileges or to establish military bases on Formosa at this time. Nor does it have any intention of utilizing its armed forces to interfere in the present situation. The United States Government will not pursue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil conflict in China.

"Similarly, the United States Government will not provide military aid or advice to Chinese forces on Formosa ..."

The following week it was Secretary Acheson's job to further clarify President Truman's controversial statement included in his speech entitled “Crisis in China-An Examination of United States Policy." Secretary Acheson both described the communist takeover in China, as well as defined very precisely the United States defense perimeter in East Asia.

Mr. Acheson in his memoirs describes Chiang's downfall in this manner: "Chiang Kai-Shek had emerged from the war as the leader of the Chinese people, opposed by only one faction, the ragged, ill-equipped, small Communist force in the hills. Chiang controlled the greatest military power in Chinese history, supported and given economic backing by the United States. Four years later his armies and his support both within the country and outside it had melted away. He was a refugee on a small island off the coast . . . To attribute this to inadequate foreign support was to miscalculate entirely what had been going on in China and the nature of the forces involved. The most inexhaustable patience of the Chinese had ended. They had not overthrown the Government. There was nothing to overthrow. They had simply ignored it. The Communists were not the creators of this situation, this revolutionary spirit, but had mounted it and ridden to victory and power."

He then went on to quote an interview which General MacArthur had given in Tokyo on March 1, 1949, which defined his view of an American defense perimeter in East Asia. MacArthur said, "It starts from the Philippines and continues through the Ryukyu Archipeligo, which included its main bastion, Okinawa. Then it bends back through Japan and the Aleutian Island chain to Alaska."

Secretary Acheson described in like terms his own concept of the U.S. defense perimeter in East Asia: "This defensive perimeter runs along the Aleutians to Japan and then goes to the Ryukyus. We hold important defense positions in the Ryukyu Islands, and these we will continue to hold ... The Defensive perimeter runs from the Ryukyus to the Philippine Islands." Looking at that speech in retrospect, he left out two very important parts of East Asia which were later to be included in that defensive perimeter-namely South Korea and Taiwan. The conservative Republicans in the China lobby fiercely attacked Acheson for this clarification of United States policy in East Asia. Senator William Knowland demanded Acheson's resignation. Senator Stiles Bridges demanded a vote of censure against the Administration, and others joined in the attack. The cry went up generally that the "left wingers" in the State Department had "lost China." That, of course, was presuming that the United States had had China in the first place!

However with the advent of the Korean War, both Secretary Acheson and President Truman changed their approach to China. It was initially recognized that if any outside force encouraged the North Koreans to invade South Korea in June, 1950, it was the Soviets, not the Chinese, who instigated it. However, President Truman, on the advice of Dean Acheson, reacted as if China, not Russia, were the aggressive force. By sending the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Straits, President Truman interferred in the internal conflict in China between Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Tse-Tung-action he had foresworn five months earlier.

The avowed aim of the Truman Administration was to limit the Korean War and prevent Chinese involvement. In October, 1950, the Chinese warned the West not to cross the 38th parallel-indicating that a hostile force on their boundary would be a grave threat to Chinese security. Nevertheless the U.S. chose to ignore the warning and the forces of General MacArthur proceeded right to the Yalu. First we interferred in the Chinese Civil War, and then we severely provoked the Chinese by placing troops on their very border.

The conventional wisdom has been and remains that Communist China's entry into Korea was a manifestation of pure aggression on that country's part. The U.S. pushed for and achieved condemnation of China in the U.N. While I understand and in part agree with our government's posture on China at that time, the point that has been missed is that Communist China most certainly felt threatened by our military actions in the Asian Theatre and we must take part of the blame for her entry into the Korean War.

Presently the United States has over 800,000 men militarily encircle half of China. On her eastern and southern border, from Japan to Thailand, the line of American military bases stretches from Okinawa through South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The United States is still intervening in the remnants of the Chinese Civil War, not only by supporting the Chinese forces on Taiwan, but also by giving logistical support to the Chinese forces on Quemoy and Matsu Islands just off the coast of the mainland.

Thus the situation has changed very little from the time twenty years ago when our original China policy was established and it is my fear that our current inflexible China policy carries with it the risk of another (avoidable) military conflict. I did say that there has been some talk on the part of the Nixon Administartion as to a change in China policy. And the President reduced the Taiwan Strait Patrol of the Seventh Fleet as an indication of his good faith. Yet as I pointed out, military assistance to Taiwan continues unabated. At this time approximately 10,000 American troops remain on Taiwan-there have been repeaed rumors that a large American air base is being built on that island.

Last fall the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Foreign Aid Bill authorizing 54.5 million dollars to provide an 18 to 20-plane squadron of F4 jet fighters to Taiwan. Fortunately during conference, that authorization was defeated by the Senate. But at the end of January, 1970, the Pentagon announced that Taiwan would be getting 34 F100A aircraft to modernize its air force. Although Congress refused to approve military authorizations for Taiwan, the Executive branch proceeded to give Taiwan the jet fighters.

On March 30, 1970, the State Department confirmed that the U.S. "secretly supplied Nationalist China with surplus military equipment last year, including war planes and four destroyers, worth $157 million.' In 1968 the official defense spending of the Taiwan government was $302 million. In 1969 the figure was comparable. Consequently with United States gifts of $157 million, in a secret arms agreement our government furnished the equivalent of one half of Taiwan's defense budget. This action was taken without the knowledge of Congress which has the Constitution-given power to appropriate money for such gifts.

Thus a reasonable man in Communist China might conclude that the U.S. foreign policy toward his country remains one of blind hostility and that his country will have to react accordingly. The risk exists, then, that we will find ourselves in military conflict with China. Based on the recent past, at least some of the blame would have to be placed at our feet if this conflict occurs.

Take a look at China's handling of her close to 3 million man army. There has been no sizeable shift in China's deployment of troops in the last few years. Those troops that have been moved have been transferred to the Sino-Soviet frontier. Approximately one-fourth of the army is deployed on the coast between Shantung and Hong Kong. It is situated in anticipation of an attack from Taiwan. Along the axis of the Canton Wuhan Railroad there is another quarter of the army. In Manchuria and around Peking the third quarter of the army resides. The fourth quarter is located in Tibet (3 divisions), Sinkiang (4 divisions), Inner Mongolia (4 divisions), Hainan Island (3 divisions), Western China (11 divisions), Szechuan and Uynnan (12 divisions). Along the SinoSoviet border there are approximately eight to nine additional divisions not included in the above figure of three million. It is generally agreed that the Chinese forces are deployed defensively and it would be very difficult for them to mount an offensive, especially on more than one front.

The Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance for 1969-70 states: "China's conventional arms industry would be in no position to produce weapons on a scale needed for war; neither could Chinese-produced nuclear arms be a substitute for them." High members of the Nixon Administration have indicated that essentially China's foreign and defense policy over the last few years has been very cautious and essentially one of nonintervention. While the Chinese have been supporters of various wars of liberation, at the present time they remain non-involved in the matter of sending troops to assist various communist

movements in Asia. Marshall Lin-Piao's famous speech in 1965 was widely quoted as being a Chinese Mein Kamp, yet essentially advocated not direct Chinese action and involvement in wars of liberation, but a fairly generalized support-logistical and otherwise of these wars of liberation. In many ways it commits the Chinese to nearly nothing, yet leaves their options open to provide support when necessary.

In a recent paper presented at an Asian scholars meeting in Washington, Professor Mark Mancall of Stanford University addressed himself squarely to that question "Monolithic Communism: The Falacy of the China Threat." Professor Mancall says: "While America's justification of its war in Southeast Asia has passed through many verbal permutations in the last three administrations, it has hewn to one major theme: the threat of an aggressive Communist China and the need to contain it through the maintenance of a balance of power in that region. Moreover, it has insisted upon this theme despite the failure of reality to match Washington's expectations."

He then goes ont to quote various Administration officials from Eisenhower's to the present ones indicating that we must maintain a strong presence in East Asia. Otherwise there would be a "grave imbalance of power." In 1965 President Johnson in a speech at Johns Hopkins University said, "Over this war-and all Asia is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China . . . The contest in Vietnam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes." Undersecretary of State Richardson evidently used the same argument to justify our actions in Vietnam and Cambodia in a recent meeting with a group of visiting professors and students. Professor Mancall further states: "It would be logical to conclude, given this argument, that American escalation in Southeast Asia, particularly since 1964, took place either in response to an escalation of Chinese activities in the region or as a preemptive measure to prevent Chinese escalation. However, the Chinese have rather persistently spoken loudly but carried a small stick. They have always talked of support, not intervention."

Mancall concludes by stating: ". . . the escalation of American involvement to well over 500,000 men was independent of any real Chinese threat in Indochina itself; nor did the Chinese respond at any time with a comparable influx of personnel into combat areas of North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia . . . Peking has wanted to maximize her influence in the region while minimizing the possibility of a direct United States-China conflict." China has displayed utmost caution in confrontation with the United States, while the U.S. has elusively sought to continually contain the so-called China threat which never really did materialize. One result has been a tragic war in Indochina. If we are to avoid future and wider war, it is time we reassess our China policy.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

I propose the following steps the United States Government could undertake in developing a genuinely new China policy.

1. Recognize as President Truman did prior to the Korean War that the fight over Taiwan is a dispute internal to all Chinese. I realize that there would of necessity be a transitional period between the phasing out of our present policy and the implementation of this new one, but we should state this policy as our objective. I was delighted to see that the distinguished Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator J. William Fulbright, in a recent article said, "I think there is nothing for the United States to do as to the status of Taiwan except to leave it to the Chinese to resolve-or to leave it unresolvedin their own way." He went on to state that, "It is by no means clear that the Chinese themselves can resolve this issue, but it is quite clear that if it can be solved, it is only the Chinese that can solve it." Essentially then, Fulbright calls for non-intervention in the Chinese civil conflict, precisely what President Truman advocated prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in mid 1950. 2. The United States should withdraw American forces from Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits and terminate military aid to Chinese nationalist authorities. This action would be the first step in implementing the policy enunciated abovea withdrawal from the Chinese civil conflict. Very possibly the controlling function that the Taiwan Strait patrol of the Seventh Fleet has been undertaking for the last twenty years could be performed by the Chinese Nationalist Navy which includes ships of the same caliber as in the U.S. patrol.

3. In order to add credibility to our change in policy toward China we must end the current policy of military encirclement and trade embargo of China. This

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step would be in keeping with the Nixon Administration's avowed aim of a lower profile in Asia. As was stated earlier, we have military bases and troops in every country in China's border from Japan to Thailand. Such stationing of troops seems unnecessary in an age in which our primary defense is strategic nuclear weapons. I question the necessity of having military bases on China's borders. It provides too much a provocation to China-a provocation not worth the risk of a Sino-American confrontation.

4. After the above steps had been taken by the United States, we could then make a meaningful attempt to establish economic, social, cultural, and diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China on the basis of the principles of equality, mutual respect, and nonintervention in each others' affairs.

In essence, the above constitutes the policy whinch recognizes the fact that the Peoples Republic of China is the sole legitimate government of mainland China. Although a new departure for the United States, this policy is followed by many of our allies. Most importantly, it is a policy based on the actual facts of the situation, and not a perpetuation of the myth that surrounds the present policy. While we have no guarantee that China would react favorably to a new policy, there have been indications from the Chinese that if this kind of policy is adopted by the United States Government, there could be a very rapid establishment of diplomatic relations between our two governments.

President Kennedy in his famous address at the American University in 1963 quoted a Chinese saying: "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." Sino-American relations have for the last twenty-one years been frozen in the concern that developed in the early 1950's and the era of the late Senator McCarthy. It is time to break with the past and take that one bold step along the path of reconciliation between two great powers-the United States and China. With the policy stated above, we can start down that long road. Peace in Asia and peace in the world make it imperative that we move now.

CHINA AND THE UNITED NATIONS

(By Jonathan B. Bingham, July 8, 1970)

BACKGROUND

The problem concerning Chinese representation in the United Nations arose after the Communist regime of Mao Tse-tung gained control of the Chinese mainland in late 1949 and the National regime of Chiang Kai-shek established itself on Taiwan (Formosa). Both claimed to be the only legitimate government of China. Each government claimed the seat of China, which was an original member of the United Nations and a veto-possessing permanent member of the Security Council. The Nationalist government continued to occupy China's place as it already had a representative at the United Nations whose credentials had been certified earlier.

During 1950 the Soviet Union made attempts in the Security Council, the General Assembly, and other organs and subsidiary bodies of the United Nations to unseat the Nationalist representative and seat the representative of Communist China. All of these attempts failed.' Subsequent efforts to unseat the Nationalist representative have also failed.

The manner in which the United Nations should decide the representation of a member nation is not spelled out in the United Nations Charter. Usually the rules of procedure of each organ stipulate that credentials are to be examined by a Credentials Committee whose report is passed upon by the parent body. However, whether a case of contested representation such as is involved in the case of China is a matter of credentials to be decided by a procedural vote. or whether it is a substantive question (thus requiring a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly and the concurrence of all permanent members in the Security Council), has become part of the controversy.

Although each organ or subsidiary body of the United Nations decides matters of representation independently, the action of the General Assembly has been guiding. On December 14, 1950, a resolution of the General Assembly recommended that when a problem of representation arose "the attitude adopted by the General Assembly or its interim Committee concerning any such question

1 Although the Executive and Liaison Committee of the Universal Postal Union seated a Communist delegate provisionally, the decision was later reversed.