Toward a Two Chinas Policy

A TIME-BOMB is ticking in East Asia, and threatens to set off an explosion that will devastate the morale of non-Communist Asians and undermine still further their confidence in US commitments. Ironically, the United States itself is preparing to pull the firing pin. A new kind of China lobby, made up of self-appointed pundits and a clutch of erratic professors, is pressing for the immediate establishment of full diplomatic relations with the troubled Communist regime of Mao Tse-tung in Peking.

This proposal is dubious on its face, in view of the political confusion now existing in mainland China; and it is profoundly immoral, in that it seeks to pave the way to Peking by abandoning our solid diplomatic relationships and our strategically important defense treaty with the independent Republic of China on Taiwan. This betrayal of a faithful ally is justified by its proponents as fulfilling a tacit pledge in the Shanghai Communique of February 1972, which was signed by the Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, now dead, and President Richard M. Nixon, who was ousted from the White House 18 months later.

But this document embodied no binding legal commitments, and how these two men could possibly require the United States to do something now that is so plainly contrary to its interests in East Asia cannot be explained-except, perhaps, as one last parting shot by the main sponsor of detente with Peking and Moscow, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. The American people are insufficiently aware that all of our Asian friends, and especially the Japanese, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, oppose this step, and are desperately afraid lest Washington commit this foolish mistake.

I base my approach to China on certain general concepts as to the proper modalities of US foreign policy. In the first place, it is essential, in thinking about an appropriate strategy for the United States and the strategic balance which we seek in the world, to return to some positive