LATEST DEVELOPMENTS in the Quemoy crisis leave the situation as dangerous and confused as ever. Nevertheless, there seems at least a good chance now that the Administration will win its gamble in the Far East and the Chinese Communists will not force the situation to a showdown. For this we must be thankful, because a showdown would offer us the alternatives of large-scale war or an ignominious political defeat.
But even if Secretary of State DuUes should prove to be lucky, along with the American people, whose destinies are to an enormous degree in Mr. Dulles’ supremely confident hands, the United States re- sponses to the Quemoy “emergency” have been and are profoundly disquieting. In the first place, obviously, Mr. Dulles need not necessarily be lucky in this affair. But even beyond that, the Administration’s latest venture to the brink of war has been characterized by confusion, misrepresentation and irresponsibility.
For the sake of the record, let it be clear that the editors of The Commonweal have always urged a firm stand against Communist aggression in Korea, for instance, and everywhere else in the world. Often, indeed, the editors have stressed the need for military strength to support foreign policy decisions when government leaders were reducing our military capabilities in accordance with economy waves or “peace offensives.” Finally, this journal has not dismissed diplomatic risk-taking with any automatic rejection of “brinkmanship.” It is sometimes necessary and desirable for a nation to declare that it will risk war to protect an interest vital to itself or its allies. But there would seem to be two conditions for “going to the brink.” The objective must be worthwhile and the consequences of losing the gamble must be fully and deliberately accepted.
It is with these considerations in mind, then, that we say that our actions in the Far East have been and are not only frightfully dangerous but foolish and irresponsible as well. Quemoy and the other off-shore islands are not strategically vital to the United States or even to the Nationalist government on Taiwan, and these islands are strategically vital to the Chinese Communists on the mainland. The Peiping government must and will, sooner or later, win control of these coastal islands. Furthermore, the Chinese Communists can conquer these islands fairly easily, militarily speaking. They can be prevented only by full-scale United States intervention and a major war on the mainland, with United States victory very likely dependent on the use of nuclear weapons.
IT IS POSSIBLE, of course, that the Communist government of China does not really intend to fight for these islands. Perhaps the siege of Ouemoy is a tactic designed to enhance the prestige of the Peiping government and to pressure the West into accepting the Communist government’s demand for admission to the U.N. This is the conviction of Secretary Dulles, and if it is correct the United States ultimatum, that we will use force to protect Quemoy, will not be taken up. The United States will then have been successful in extending the intolerable Communist-Nationalist Chinese situation for a time longer; the denial of the facts of life in that area of the world will be carried on another little while—until the inevitable next crisis, involving another island, perhaps.
If the world is very lucky, the resumption of negotiations proposed by Chou En-lai may lead to peaceful adjustment of the Communists’ claim to the off-shore islands and perhaps even to a solution of the entire Taiwan-“two Chinas” problem. But there is not much reason to hope that the Chinese Communists will prove any less inflexible than they have in the past. Moreover, the present Administration is entangled in an inflexibility of its own, brought about by its promises and pledges of “being hard on Communists” and “unleashing Chiang Kai-shek.”
At any rate, it is also undeniably possible that our ultimatum will be taken up, that we will find ourselves confronted by a major war, involving atomic weapons and a tremendous sacrifice of American ships, planes and lives. And this in the face of overwhelming condemnation by the nations of the world.
It seems incredible that Mr. Dulles and President Eisenhower are prepared to plunge the nation into such a war for the sake of the island of Quemoy. But the alternative to war will then be retreat and a political humiliation, with a corresponding political triumph for the Chinese Communists. Should the U.S. ultimatum be taken up, this is a more likely outcome than war.
There is also the chance of an accident, or an error in judgment by the Communists or the Nationalist Chinese—or one of the United States field commanders who may or may not have the authority to use nuclear weapons at their own discretion. (The President said recently that he didn’t know for sure if they did or not.) A stumble into all-out war becomes every day an increasingly real possibility.
The present risk of war with the Chinese Communists is a monstrous and unjustified policy, not because it is a risk but because it is a risk which is needless and useless. For with all its catastrophic danger, the stand we have taken simply evades and postpones once more the basic problem of China.
