Court of Reason; 1; Red China: Should the US Change its Policy

National Educational Television presents Court of Reason, Residing Member Robert K. Merton, Chairman of the Department of Sociology, Columbia University. At Issue, Red Chinatown, should the United States change its policy. Good evening. The issue tonight concerns the posture of the United States toward communist China. Should we refuse any degree of recognition or should we re-appraise our policy?

Advocating one point of view on this question is Edgar Snow, journalist and author of the book, the other side of the river, Red China today, an account of his recent tour of communist China, where he remained longer, traveled farther and talked with more people from all walks of life than any other American writer. Advocating an opposed viewpoint is William A. Rusher, publisher of the National Review, who recently returned from a trip to the far east, where he visited Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. Visiting members of the court, who will examine arguments with me, are Harrison E. Salisbury, former Moscow correspondent, and now director of national correspondence for the New York Times. An author of the book, A New Rusher, I hope the question mark of the title was audible,

and John G. Stessinger, associate professor of political science at Hunter College, and visiting associate professor of international relations at Columbia. Mr. Stessinger, who lived in China from 1941 to 1947, is author of the book, The Might of Nations, World Politics in Our Time. The two advocates will briefly state their opposed positions, and then our general discussion will begin. We'll be hearing first from Edgar Snow. Before answering the question as it's been posed, we should examine the objectives of current United States policy. What are they? In 1954, the then assistant secretary of state for far eastern affairs, Walter Robertson, defined those objectives in terms still applicable today. Representative Kudair had asked Mr. Robertson during a house hearing.

Did I correctly understand you to say that the heart of the present policy toward China and for MOTA is that there was to be kept alive a constant threat of military action. These are the red China and the hope that at some point there will be an internal breakdown. Secretary Robertson replied, yes sir, that is my conception. Representative Kudair continued, fundamentally does that not mean that the United States is undertaking to maintain foreign indefinite period of years American dominance in the far east. Mr. Robertson answered, yes exactly. He further declared, our hope of solving the problem of China is through action which will promote this integration firm within. In a department policy issued in 1958 by the then secretary of state Dulles, he reaffirmed those aims when he described the people's republic as a passing phase in China and went on to say that it is our duty as Americans to do all that we can to hasten that passing.

As far as I know, that is still the hope and purpose of American policy toward China. The toward mainland China. Before asking whether these are suitable objectives, we might note whether they have been achieved. In the decade since Mr. Robertson defined our policy, there has been no internal breakdown in China. Mr. Dulles has left us, but the peaking regime has not passed away. Yet the United States has fulfilled one aspect of Mr. Robertson's objectives, military dominance in the far east. That is, off the continent until far as China is the continent. For the first time in our history, in fact, the United States is now at land power on the continent of Asia, a major land power, our forces hold military bases in Northeastern Asia and Korea and Japan in Taiwan, a major bond of contention with China, of course, as Chinese territory and in South Vietnam.

All of the military power of the West has disappeared. The United States remains the sole representative of Western power in Asia. What I'm asking is whether we should consider changing this power position. What this means is does this correspond to the real interests of the American people? In this past year, we are able to maintain trade and friendly relations with most of the countries which surround China. Disadvantages are that we are completely cut off from 700 million people of China and the very large territory that they inhabit and what amounts to the strongest power in Asia. Perhaps the main disadvantage is that long-term peaceful coexistence with China is probably impossible while the United States military power dominates the far east. It has not been proved that we could not maintain friendly relations with all the countries that border China if we restored normal communication with the mainland.

With a few exceptions, all the countries of Asia enjoy trade and cultural relations with China today, as well as the United States, as well as with the United States. A further disadvantage of the present United States policy is that it requires vast expenditures on arms to maintain United States dominance. From a political standpoint, this dominance depends solely upon the following army elites which rule a territory as protectors of American power. In South Korea, 600,000 troops on the American payroll and at a cost of 80% of the Korean budget adds half a million to a billion dollars a year plus civilian expenditures of about a quarter of a billion a year. In Taiwan, 400,000 troops maintained also at a cost of 80% of the budget. Today, the United States has invested five and three-tenths billion dollars in post-war Korea. It is generally considered that the present regime would collapse without any outside pressure if American protection were withdrawn.

We have spent 4.4 billion in Taiwan since the revolution. It is also certain that Jiang Kai-shek's regime could not survive without our presence. In South Korea, we are building an army of 200 to 300,000 men, and thus far have invested about $2 billion on this enterprise. I think few will dispute that damage regime would collapse without American presence and support, which of course now includes many armed men as well as military supplies. Yet, the Communist challenge is not, in my opinion, primarily military, and only a very small percentage in the United States expenditures is doing anything to solve the basic economic and political problems which create instability and far Eastern areas and other places where the communists are a threat.

My feeling that is short is that the United States' objectives, as I have defined, I'm quoting Mr. Roberts and Mr. Dalice, are no longer suitable in a world threatened with total destruction. As an alternative policy, I suggest recognition of China's right to internal self-determination and abandonment of aims which maintain a constant threat of military action. Secondly, instead of unilateral American dominance in the far east, I would advocate efforts to promote a system of international preservation of peace. Thank you, Mr. Snow. That gives us an outline of part of your position. We'll be coming back to you. Mr. Russia? Mr. Merton, I certainly have no objection, quite the contrary, to a re-appraisal of American policy and the light of developments from time to time. I think policy should be re-appraised, and if they have proven themselves outwarn or outmoded, should be changed.

I don't think that the mere passage of time should result in the changing of a policy, if that policy has proven on balance to be a viable and useful policy, as I believe the present American policy is. At the margin, I would not even object to the changing of our policy toward China, although not I'd take it in the direction implied by the question before this panel, should the U.S. change its policy? Because here we seem to be talking about a change in favor of a softening or, as I believe you put it, some form of degree of recognition of the red Chinese, and that I certainly would oppose. In the case of red China, as in the case of communist Cuba, a regime that is bitterly hostile to the United States and to the free world generally, is in effect being quarantined, diplomatically, politically, some degree economically, and militarily. In the case of communist China, which is the one before us tonight, I believe that that policy, which is the policy of the United States government, is paying off handsomely.

I think that Mr. Snow, and before him, Representative Kudair and Assistant Secretary of State Robertson, accurately described the ultimate ambition of the United States as being the internal breakdown of the Chinese communist regime. Note what is happening there. The internal pressures, economic and political, are extremely high. Approximately 2 million, I believe, refugees altogether have in recent years fled from communist China to Hong Kong. Now, they were not all malcontents. They were not all, I think, or even primarily politically motivated. They were motivated by economic considerations, by hunger. And this is one of the heaviest internal pressures, which has been in part created by drought, to be sure, in part by crop failure, in part by the internal inconsistencies of communism, but also in part by our policy. Rifts are also now developing within the communist block, between the Soviet Union and Red China, and are likely to widen if and when the Chinese Communists get there very much heralded primitive A-bomb, and to that extent lessen their dependence on the Soviet Union.

Actual fighting has broken out between the Chinese Communists and the leading nation of the neutralist world, India, apparently with some motive of distracting internal attention from the problems of the Chinese communist regime, even in the United Nations, where one could expect universalist pretensions to some extent the number of nations opposing the admission of communist China has actually begun rising again after a drop during the 1950s. Meanwhile, by supporting the free Chinese government on Formosa, we hold up to the mainland Chinese, to the overseas Chinese also, and to the world at large, a striking example of what China can someday be. Why change a policy that has been at least in part responsible for dividends like these? By doing so, we would discourage internal Chinese resistance to the communists, thus helping to perpetuate the regime. We would strengthen Red China's hand against Christchurch in any communist block quarrels that may break out or that are now breaking out.

We would force the largely anti-communist overseas Chinese population into closer cooperation with the communists to dominate the mainland. We would profoundly disheartening the anti-communist regimes, which now exist in Japan, in South Korea, in nationalist China, in the Philippines, in South Vietnam, in Australia, and in other areas. We would immensely enhance the prestige of the Chinese communist regime in the world at large, and particularly in Africa, among the newly emerging nations where a competition between the nationalists and the communists has up until now, I believe, been led by the nationalists. And finally, we would not, I think, do a thing to pacify communist China, let alone slow down or control such allegedly imminent developments as her nuclear armament. Who could have been friendlier to Red China than India? And what reward did she receive? Republican and Democratic administrations alike. President Truman, President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, have agreed on the main outlines of the President-American policy in China. And I say to you, gentlemen, and to Mr. Snow, let's keep it that way.

Well, at the very least, it's clear that Mr. Snow and Mr. Russia see the same issue in significantly different ways. And I'd like to begin the questioning, Mr. Snow, by asking you to develop a little more than you were able to do. The grounds for your belief that the withdrawal of American troops from Asia, and as I understand it, the withdrawal of support for military establishments in Asian countries, would be a step that would materially advance the possibilities of some peaceful and effective relations with communist China. And what grounds do you make that suggestion? And secondly, what do you think would be the other consequences of withdrawing those troops? I did not advocate that we lock stock and barrel withdraw from Asia, even if that were possible, would not be desirable without something to take its place when it was an alternative.

I have to say, first, it is impossible for the United States to change its policy toward China without changing its policy toward all of Asia and indeed without adopting a different viewpoint in world policy. One can only get a distortion if one thinks in terms even of so large a country as China, and the possibility of having an independent policy that is not related, I'm sure you'll agree, to the surrounding situation. I meant to say a key difference that I would have with Mr. Russia would be in the belief that it is possible to bring down the Chinese regime, and that by continuation of this kind of policy. That is partly as a result of my recent visit there.

One of the reasons the regime has lasted long and then successful is continuous pressure from the United States. It has tended to bring to the communist regime the support of all Chinese, whether they're nations or all communists, or even those who are anti-communists. If you haven't asked me if there's any welcome for Junkai Shek, I think there are many anti-communists in China. But I doubt very much if any who would welcome Junkai Shek, even those who hate the communists would say we don't want back the man who put the communists on our neck. The regime in China has a great deal of support on the ground that China has recovered its independence in the sense of its ancient position in the world. They rather enjoy not having foreigners around to tell them what to do, true they suffer from not having trade. It's a handicap for them. But now it's if they're doing everything by themselves is enormously strong moral factor in the country. I don't mean to say that they aren't having difficulties in that they won't continue to have them.

We say in the ruptured fist point, I don't want to lose the gist of what you're saying. Are you then turning the argument around and suggesting that non-recognition of China by the United States is actually strengthening the regime in communist China? I would say it has helped a great deal of the maintain it up to date. And I really believe that's true. But my ought to return to the question, my alternative would not be like stock and barrel of concrete withdrawal by the United States, but it would require substitution of present objectives and their replacement by objectives, I mentioned one. The recognition of the Chinese right to have their own government, that doesn't mean that they have any right to impose it on anybody else or to conquer the Himalayas, if that is believed to be an objective. But it does mean that we would not try to overthrow their regime anymore than we really trying to throw the governments out of Eastern Europe anymore, as more or less recognition and status quo.

Now, after all, the regime in China is surviving without any Russian troops, whereas if the Russians are withdrawn from Eastern Europe, there wouldn't be anything left of those regimes as they now stand. So it's a popular regime in that respect, and unless we're prepared to recognize that, then this situation will go on for a long time, and it probably won't go on for long. The approach, obviously, is to requires recognizing China as the government of the mainland and also making some kind of compromise over Taiwan. As it means to neutralizing and stabilizing the situation in Vietnam and Korea and admitting those nations into the UN and transferring, in a broad general sense, responsibility for maintenance and peace in the Far East. To the United Nations, well, obviously, this could only occur in connection with the General Assembly with Russia also. This is not something that can be achieved overnight. It has to be a step-by-step slow process, but in order to change policy, you have to have a refocus of objectives.

That is all I meant by that statement. I didn't mean that we should pull out without creating an alternative. The implication, Mr. Snow, from your statement is that, militarily speaking, we ought to stay on our own side of the river or at the ocean, that is. I think eventually we'll have to. Now, on the other hand, you imply that, quite clearly to me, that increased cultural, economic, political contact is desirable. Otherwise, the two sides stay on opposite sides of the river and the conflict widens. I'd like to search out a little bit more specifically what you mean by this. For example, President Kennedy could, without congressional authorization, do any one of the following four things. For example, he might be able to lift the Enemy Trading Act. He might lift the travel ban, which caused you so much trouble. Lifted both ways, for example, that Americans could travel to China, Chinese from the mainland to the United States.

We could ship wheat to the Chinese, like the Canadians do, or we could make some sort of a withdrawal of our support to the offshore islands. Here are four specific things which we might do. Which of these, or perhaps all of these, would you advocate? In other words, I'd like you to be a bit more specific what you mean by the international preservation of peace. It was a bit too vague. I think you probably know that at the beginning of the Kennedy administration, all these steps were considered. Right. And they were advocated by some advisors of the regime. In his inaugural address, President Kennedy, made the statement that it was a time to begin a new. I believe his words were, so let us begin a new remembering that sincerity must be proved on both sides. That is a not entirely accurate purpose, but something to that effect.

This was understood to apply to our foreign relations in the East as well as in Europe. At that time, the Chinese, I was in China shortly after they were doing that bird and afterword, and the Chinese were really expecting a new approach from Kennedy, and were prepared, I believe, to respond to it. The four steps that you mentioned could all have been taken without congressional authority, special authority, authorization, and they would have had a great impact on China. It would have been very difficult for Mao to have gone on maintaining his position in the Russian Chinese argument. Imperialism has not changed. But none of the steps were taken. The Kennedy administration continued the old policy, and in fact intensified it by increased aid to DEM in South Vietnam, greater intervention. In fact, the intervention that saved DEM from the internal revolution there. You might go on and ask beyond that why I worked these steps taken, that wouldn't have cost anything.

I believe that Mr. Russia would agree with me that those steps were taken. It had a very demoralizing effect on the Taiwan government. It would mean to many people that this is the beginning of the end of the United States' support for Taiwan, and that would cause a rush in the general direction of compromise with Beijing. This then means that we would again have to change objectives to open up a new alternative even to that extent, and we have not done so. And I don't think we will do so. Can I ask you about another factor in this overall situation, which we haven't gone into very much? Would you just mention very briefly the attitude of Mao toward the Russians? In other words, the Soviet Chinese quarrel over ideology and policy and things of that kind. How do you see that as affecting the problem of the United States and her relations with China? Does this make it more difficult for us to deal with the Chinese, or does it offer some possible openings for us?

If the Russians can't get along with the Chinese, if the Indians can't get along with the Chinese, is there some reason to suppose that we might be able to do a little better than either of these countries? Well, there's a very good question, very difficult, impossible for me to answer. In fact, all of the questions related to the effect on the United States of the Chinese Russian dispute, in particular, certainly must be opposed without any dogmatic answers. It is possible to say that this, you know, Russian defense is being exploited by the Russians at this moment to enlist them now and simply and support against China to the advantage of the Russians. To what extent do they want to enlist? They really want to bring about a change of regime in China, suppose Mao is overthrown.

Would the person who replaced him be more tractable, as far as Khrushchev is concerned? Would that be to the advantage of the United States or not? Is that what we want? A government in China that is more amenable, more sympathetic to the Russian leadership? Is it more to the advantage of the United States? We look at it strictly in terms of power politics to have two communist leaderships in the world? Is this any guarantee that communism will be weakened? What was the effect on the position of the miserable infidels when we had Byzantium and Rome for several hundred years, a thousand years or more? It didn't stop Christianity from occupying most of the known newly discovered world, and so on what could go on to make it clear about that sort of thing indefinitely? I was wondering about one specific question, Adam. That is Mao's position in the argument with the Russians, which is pretty precise and pretty definite that it's not possible to deal with the United States.

It's not possible to negotiate that these issues are non-negotiable. In essence, this seems to be the essence of his position. Doesn't that make it almost impossible for China, even if we were to begin to make moves in their direction, not they have to defend the heights of their position by showing how impossible it is to deal with us? It would be very difficult for Mao to maintain that the thesis that imperialism never changes if we were to take a number of steps which proves exactly the contrary. We have done nothing but try to make life miserable for Mao and all his followers for the past 12 years. True, he's done nothing to make life comfortable for the United States. But we are off base and he's still in his own territory. We are on Taiwan, it's Chinese territory, and China, I mean obviously the Peking regime, is the government of the great majority of the people. We have basically no more justification for being in Taiwan than who's to have had for being in Cuba.

The Chinese are bound to see it this way, whether communist or nationalist, as far as the mainland is concerned. We are definitely, of course we've got the power and we can decide things in that part of the world. Maybe it would be chaotic if it weren't there. But without running too much, I would say no. I think that it is within the possibility of the United States to change Chinese thinking by a change in the United States concept. How about the A-bomb when the Chinese get nuclear weapons as everybody is predicting sometime this year or in the near future? Is that going to be a factor in Chinese attitudes? Well, as Tim Rusk said today, I agree completely, we'll have a great political and psychological effect. And we'll make it more and more absurd as time goes on for the United States to maintain that it alone can decide what kind of political life will prevail in East Asia. Mr. Rusk, you seem to be a question that could just as well be directed toward you as in suggesting that our recent and current policy regarding the Communist China has paid dividends as you put it, but on the whole it's been to your mind, it's been effective.

Without going into that for a moment, it's obvious that's a thorough disagreement with Mr. Snow's reading of the evidence. What of a Communist China that has nuclear weapons? Do you still see the policy justice effective under those conditions of ignoring the existence of a nation of 600 million and more possessed that nuclear weapons? I think that to describe American policy toward China as a policy of ignoring 600 million people is to do it a terrible injustice. I think it is no such thing. The government of the United States knows that those 600 million people are there. It understands the history that has brought them to their present domination by a Communist regime. But I take it that the government of the United States agrees with the comment of the New York Times on Mr. Snow's most recent book that he never comes to grips with the evidence suggesting that his general estimate of the regime may be seriously wrong.

And I think the government of the United States on the basis of the fact that it maintains its policy would concur in that criticism of Mr. Snow's position. The Chinese communists will, we may assume, at some point in the future, have some form of nuclear armament. So will France, so very possibly may Israel and other countries. If we can't get France to abandon its nuclear armament, I fail to see what likelihood there is that we can get Mao to abandon his once he gets in it. Still less that we are likely to get him to abandon it by leaving our strategic geopolitical position in the Far East to some degree, turning it over to the United Nations.

I didn't quite follow Mr. Snow's precise recommendation, but in any case a some form of withdrawal of the American position in the Far East. I don't see that that is going to tempt Mao from what we know of him to become more tractable in the wielding of his nuclear weapons. It seems to me that the true defense against the Chinese communists possessing nuclear weapons is to move as promptly as we can and perhaps more promptly than we are toward the disestablishment of that regime toward the widening if this is possible. This is a big if of the Chinese communist and Soviet split and to the perfection of our own defenses against nuclear weapons. The nuclear age is here, it seems to me.

And while I would like to feel, I imagine all of us would like to feel that by doing something different, we might as Mr. Snow suggests, persuade Mao, or at least people around Mao, that he's been wrong in his contention that imperialism never changes. Nevertheless, I would put my own reliance in far different directions. I'd like to latch on to the nuclear discussion, Mr. Russia. I think it is a fact that after the Russians developed their missiles, we did step up our cultural, academic, journalistic contacts with the Russians, the hope, which is not always justified on the first to admit, are that contact between people necessarily makes these people like each other more. But it's a hopeful assumption. I think to some extent we paid off, at least we haven't fought the Russians. On the other hand, the Chinese still have no missiles. They're predicted very soon. We have already fought them once in Korea. And I'd like to ask the question, whether it isn't possible that if no contacts at all exist, as none have existed during the last 13 years, the conflict inevitably will widen through ignorance, self-righteousness, and dogmatism on both sides,

and that therefore it might not be advisable to have some limited contacts between the United States and Communist China. Mr. Stessinger, you let off with a dazzling series of sequences there, which I could not follow logically. I'm not at all clear that the government of the United States, when it adopted the Cultural Exchange Program, was doing it in order to bring about some change in its relationship with the Soviet Union newly equipped with missiles, and I am still less clear that having embarked on a Cultural Exchange Program, it was that program, even in small part, that had anything to do with the fact that we are not yet at war with the Soviet Union. If I understand Premier Khrushchev's remarks addressed to Chairman Maul, it is the fact that the paper tiger has nuclear teeth, and not that it has van Clyburn, that has persuaded Mr. Khrushchev to remain at peace with the United States. And I don't think that by shipping Mr. Clyburn or some equivalent to be king, we are going to get much further along the road to true peace in a nuclear age with Communist China.

Mr. Roshchev, could I direct your attention to one aspect of our present policy toward China, and see whether you share any of my concern over it, it seems to me that we have isolated Communist China in so far as we have been able to, we have quarantined it militarily, diplomatically, and by every means possible. And in this process, we have tended to heighten perhaps a natural isolation that already exists in China. Now, it's not only ourselves who have been engaged in this policy, we have had much good deal of support in the Western world, and now rather fortuitously, or maybe not fortuitously, we have the Russians joining in with a somewhat similar policy of quarantine toward China. And I wonder what you think of this as being a factor in stimulating in China a further sense of isolation from the reality of the world.

It seems to me that in the propaganda and indeed some of the positions that the Chinese take, there seems to be a complete unawareness of the realities of power and the realities of positions taken in our part of the world, and perhaps even in the Soviet part of the world. Well, if I may break down my response to two parts, Mr. Salisbury, I think I agree with you in part and disagree in part to take the latter, which is in a way less important. I don't believe that the Chinese Communist regime is suffering from ignorance. I don't believe that regime of that size, with the intelligence facilities that it's disposal, with the allies that it has, with the enormous embassies that it maintains and the nations that recognize it around the world, is primarily affected by its lack of insight into what is going on. Now, when you come back, as you did at the beginning, to the point that our policy in Western policy generally has tended to isolate them, and this was a point I think that Mr. Snow made earlier, it is true that a quarantine policy has first the effect of hardening the interior resistance, heightening the interior excitement,

and giving the threatened regime a sense of peril, which gives it a certain brittle staying power. And this is happening, by the way, in Cuba, too. I have no doubt that lots of people are as proud that Castro has made lots of people down there, or as proud that Castro has made the world look at Cuba. As Mr. Snow says, many Chinese are proud that German Mao has given them a government of what he calls their own. But in any case, it seems to me that this is simply the political price that one pays for the created tensions within the regime, which ultimately will produce insupportable stresses, and I think are doing so. Mr. Snow described the regime as popular, and said he'd been there and seen it. Well, that may be, but when I think of the hut of the refugees huddled on the hillsides of Hong Kong that I saw just last year, I cannot believe that those people were very proud of, or pleased with the regime.

And I repeat, there have been about 2 million of them all together, and if they were the ones who got away, I think it's safe to infer that there are others who didn't. Now, the policy, certainly, if we were going to simply declare that every day is made, and that we are to try to be friends with all, we would break down that sense of brittle isolation, and the political initial charge of energy that goes with it. But India, heaven knows, tried hard enough to coexist with China. And Chinese troops have been, at least until very recent weeks, and may still be today, on Indian soil, and I am afraid I predict indeed quite confidently that India has much more to hear from her dear friends.

Mr. Russia seems to me that, in effect, you've put two questions to Mr. Snow, and I think we'd all like to have his response. The first is a question of what significance do you, Mr. Snow, attach to the sheer flow of refugees out of communist China? What do you have to say about that? Well, I don't know where Mr. Russia got the figure 2 million. I believe the population of Hong Kong is about 3 million, isn't it? I can answer the question where I got the figures, sir. I was talking about the total number that have fled to Hong Kong over a period of recent years, not the present Chinese refugee population of Hong Kong. And I got it from Professor David Rao, Yale University, who has recently written a book on modern Chinese political history, and it is my way of thinking at any rate, a very considerable authority on Chinese culture. He meant that 2 million refugees have come out of China since the communist came to power?

When I talked to him, I said, in recent years, which roughly covered that period of time, on my mind at any rate. I'll answer this. The touch point is very briefly. It's rather complicated, but actually there are about 3 million people in Hong Kong. Population of Hong Kong has increased by, I think, about 800,000 since the revolution. If you go over the 12 years, it works out about 80,000 years. There has been a greater refugee flow in the Hong Kong recent months, certainly, and I don't know what to say. Certainly, it's my impression. But it doesn't come to, I think, about 3 million in the whole period. I didn't even say it's 3 million. Well, it isn't. I mean, 2 million. It isn't even a million. But in any case, I just like to point out that there's no place else for the communist, for the refugees of China to go. China is 700 million people. And a flow of one-tenth of one percent is nothing for a nation like that.

You'd figure it was just a mere trickle. If you consider the number of refugees that have come to the United States, call them immigrants, some of them are refugees, they vastly outnumber and percentage anything that's come out of China. These are not killed from fathers, Mr. Snow. These are... You're your subset that most of them have come out for economic reasons. Yes, they're hungry. Most of these people come to the United States. I beg your pardon. This isn't a question of benefit. Don't mean to say that there are no political refugees among them. There are many. There is starvation in quantum problems. There may be. And that is the great fault of the five Jews. No, but I've seen the people who come up. I have seen Hong Kong too. And not quite as recently as you have, but I've seen refugees in Hong Kong for many years. And I've seen starving people in China for many years. And if someone who was alone before you went there... No, Mr. Snow. I've seen people actually dying on the streets in China, but I didn't see it on my recent trip. Don't they die there anymore?

No, I don't say they don't die. There must be a way of... They're dying at about the same rate. And running away from China at about the same rate? No, Mr. Snow. Well, you really don't know anything about the inside of China. Oh, Mr. Snow. I have tried to remain on ground, which I have seen. The National Review of Hong Kong. I have seen Mr. Snow, the refugees in Hong Kong, and they were not just trying to better themselves. Mr. Russia. The people of concentration camps on the world. Mr. Snow, the one weapon I don't have is a gavel. And I'm not at all sure that it would serve a news conference. Could I... No. Could I get to this question, obviously, at the very least we gather. There is a thorough disagreement on the significance that each of you attaches to the flow of refugees with regard to the stability of... This is really a red harem. People talk about it who know nothing about it in terms of the situation. But I would like, if I may interrupt you to go back to your other question in the question of Indian China. I believe it was the point.

Mr. Russia used the question, the Chinese troops. I mean, the state of the Chinese troops on Indian soil. As far as I know, there has been no international determination of where the boundary in those areas is. The Chinese claim that they're on their soil and the Indians claim that they're on theirs. I will take a position. If you know they're on Indian soil, you have more information. I quite agree that the question is vexed. But I think that the way in which the Chinese are so characteristically these communists trying to settle the question is very typical of their way of settling them. The question is vexed. Therefore, they invade. Now, what a way to solve an international problem. I am not going to defend the Chinese position on this nor the Indian. I am too little about it. I've got stacks of documents and maps from both sides. I've never been there. I don't know. Well, your book announced that the Chinese would not even attack the Indians. You know, that turned out to be a little premature. Mr. Chief Justice, could I break in here for a moment and ask Mr. Russia a question? It has been tormenting me for three years. I was an AAUN observer in Geneva during nuclear test band negotiations some time.

And AAUN? American Association for the UN. Now, you may remember that about two years ago, there were rather close to a nuclear test band. And 12 scientists, six of whom came from the US and six from the Soviet Union had agreed that if 180 control stations could be strategically dispersed throughout the globe, no one could cheat and set off illegal explosions with a proviso, however, that eight of these stations be placed, if possible, under UN auspices, on mainland China. Now, the question which I'd like to ask in which I can't answer for myself really is, can Mr. Oothan, the Secretary General, ask Mr. Mao Zatong, dear Mr. Mao, Chairman Mao, would you be good enough to set up eight UN control stations on the mainland to see that you don't cheat when you get your bomb? But I'm sorry, we can't let you into the UN, because you're an aggressive nation who is unperished. In other words, is a nation, can you expect a nation which is not recognized under international law

to obey that international law? Well, the question, Mr. Stassenger, seems to me not so much, whether or not you can ask them to obey, I presume that you can ask anybody to do anything you want to, or you want him to do. The question that really vexes, and as you put it, torments about red China, is whether or not, if you ask them, they will exceed, and whether or not Mr. Oothan could really get a more leverage or effective leverage on Chairman Mao of the Peking regime by the artful technique of bringing him into the United Nations. I myself would think that when it becomes in Mao's interest to have a nuclear test ban, he will have it, and not one minute before, whether he is in or out of the United Nations, whether it is Utah, or President Kennedy, or Fidel Castro, who asks him,

and that until that time, it is pointless to attempt to use the perfectly true desirability of getting complete international agreement on a test ban as an argument for admitting red China to the United Nations. Mr. Snow, would you speak to the very same question that was put to Mr. Russia? What is your judgment as to the effect on the probability of getting ascent to a test ban on nuclear testing if communist China were admitted to the UN as compared with its present situation? The Chinese regime, the Peking regime, has offered to make a pact with nations of specific, including the United States, prohibiting nuclear weapons, including testing. That's all right. This is on the record, I think, several times.

Whether they're sincere, I don't know. They haven't got any bomb. Maybe they would take a different view if they had one. Well, our time is drawing almost close, and I wonder if there are any general remarks you want to make, Mr. Snow, and you later, Mr. Russia, on points that you may not have been able to cover earlier? I would like to make a kind of covering statement for the remarks that I have made about China. In case anyone should not understand my point of view on China. China has a long history, and this includes some political experiences that we haven't had in the West. They have survived and made many contributions to the world. They don't have a democracy. They haven't had one as far as I know in history. There have never been a time when an opposition could legally come to power. I look upon China against its own history. I don't expect them to behave like Americans. I would not want the Chinese regime to be instituted here in America if it were possible, which is certainly not.

No, any coming to this regime. No, any regime which would take away from the American people, the rights that they have won over centuries beginning in Europe, if we are going to insist however that China and every other nation first attain that degree of perfection, and political imitation of the United States before we get out of the jungle of nationalism that the world is in today, I see very little hope for our survival. All the things that the measures that Mr. Russia advocates with its complacence and such security in terms of his own future and those of his children horrify me, because they mean a continuation of confrontation in Mao with the same childish approach that lies behind the slogans that picking itself is using. Thank you, Mr. Mao. Mr. Russia, you have any concluding remarks?

I certainly have never been one who's supposed for a minute that the Chinese people could be expected to achieve anything like American New England town meeting democracy in the foreseeable future. Even when the argument that they could introduce so instantly was used by the Institute of Pacific Relations and other entities with which Mr. Snow is all too familiar to bring about the downfall of the Nationalist regime on the mainland. I have never expected that. I do not expect it now. I say that the policy of the United States, the policy which has been followed by both Republican and Democratic administrations with respect to mainland China, realistically regards the regime that is now there as the intransigent enemy of freedom for its own people, for the peoples of Asia, for the peoples of the world, including the people of the United States. And that it is taking, and it seems to me, given the dimensions of the problems successfully, steps to overpower that regime to bring it against tests it cannot meet and to do so, if possible, before that regime gets within its power, thanks to modern science, they means to destroy both itself and others.

Thank you, Mr. President. All power goes out of the barrel of the gun. Oh, power, but not all troops. And that right part, tight tone of agreement between Mao, Mr. Snow, Mr. Russia. I want to thank those present. And now, gentlemen, we do still have a few minutes left to review the arguments as they were presented by the advocates this evening. Salisbury, what in your judgment were the strongest points made by either argument and either advocate and what further observations you had to make? Well, it seems to me that Mr. Snow's principle line of argument is that our policy has been frozen for years in the Far East, that it has not produced the results which we hope from it, which were the disintegration of Chinese communist regime. And if I follow in correctly, he believes that we should launch on a new policy, which might begin by making some rather minor concessions in the nature of our sanctions against the Chinese,

and then hopefully work towards some sort of a global agreement that would include the Russians, the Chinese, and everybody in one great big sort of peaceful meeting. I think it's certainly a worthy objective, but one that strikes me as being unrealistic, and I don't see anything in the interim between this. He also, I seem to me, made it look a little bit pessimistic so far as the results of this Sino-Soviet dispute, our concerns as far as Mao's policies is concerned. Mr. Russia, on the other hand, seemed to me to be equally pessimistic, or at least the results of his line of reasoning seem to be equally pessimistic. He feels that our policy is fine, that it's producing great results, that the Chinese regime probably is showing the effects of this pressure, and that perhaps we should bring more pressure to bear on it, but I don't see much sign of a hopeful solution in his line of argument.

In other words, there's not very much hope in either of these lines of argument from my viewpoint. I'd like to sum up briefly, Mr. Chairman. I think there were some gaps in both presentations. Mr. Russia's presentation, I would have liked to hear a little more about the inconsistency of the US government in recognizing, for example, Communist Czechoslovakia after a violent overthrow in 1948, which seems to be inconsistent with our policy toward China. Also, no modern totalitarian regime has ever been overthrown from within, therefore I'm more skeptical than he on the overthrow of Communist China. Similarly, I think Mr. Snow left a very important gap, and that is the question, wouldn't the admissions sail an unperged aggressor into the UN, or the recognition of an unperged aggressor by the US, lead other potential aggressors, like East Germany, to quotes Liberate West Berlin, the North Vietnamese, to take another walk south, or for that notably North Koreans, to take another walk south.

To sum up with one final statement, it seems to me that we face a truly tragic situation of two valid positions, many of which on both sides are irrefutable, and the tragedy is that you have to balance it, and that there is no clear cut choice between good and evil and right and wrong. I added up that the arguments in favor of some limited recognition or rapprochement are stronger, but this is precisely the tragedy, and what I deplore is that when a clear cut choice between good and evil does not exist for the United States, we tend to get paralyzed, but this is precisely the challenge of the 60s that we have to be able to make decisions, it seems to me. In diplomacy, where a clear cut choice simply does not exist, we have to learn nuances and subtle choices, and this China story, I think, illustrates that necessity. I will seem a little superfluous to try to sum up the discussion after two colleagues have done it so effectively, I'd like to call attention only to one of the many points, but I know we're not raised simply because even this ample time proved insufficient. It was quite striking that neither Mr. Snow, who was written at such length and so perceptively about the matter, nor Mr. Russia, whose journal this matter has been discussed almost weekly, neither one had occasion to bring it up.

And that is the United States relations to Taiwan, and the apparently unnegotiable matter of Taiwan so far as communist China is concerned, and the question as to whether any of the suggested alternatives that Mr. Snow could even begin to be considered until this one basic dispute were settled. We didn't get to that, I think this simply indicates that once again, that on the court of reason, the now approved insufficient to hear a reasonable man out to their full argument. I do want also to indicate that in the court of reason, we are not a verse to spirited conversation. We want now to thank the visiting members of the court, Harrison E. Salisbury of the New York Times, and John G. Stessinger of Hunter College, and our advocates, Edgar Snow, author of the other side of the river red China today, and William A. Russia of the National Review.

Thank you, and good night. Music Music Music

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