The Edge of the Cliff

"The house is burning down," said China's shrewd Premier T. V. Soong last week, "and I am too busy putting out the flames to plan rebuilding."

From wary Soong, this was a sensational admission. Chinese pessimism had given birth to a new fad: making book on the prospects of civil war between the

Government and the Communists. A Kuomintang party boss said the odds stood 49 for peace and 51 for war. A shade more optimistic, Sun Fo, President of the Legislative Yuan, rated it at 50-50.

As rival representatives vainly continued their negotiations last week, the Nanking dopesters tried to guess what was in Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's mind. His bigger, better-equipped armies might score quick victories if they were unleashed. The reactionary clique within the Kuomintang clamored: "If [General Marshall] would only let us at the Communists we could clean them out in three to six months." (U.S. officers in China regard this estimate as optimistic.)

But Kuomintang liberals used the contrary argument that war, even a quickly successful war, would only force the Communists underground, leaving China with disrupted communications and the necessity of maintaining a large, expensive army for police work. Said a leading Nanking official: "Open warfare or the continuation of ... a divided China will set the country back 30 years."

But if quick victory was chimerical, there were also deep doubts about coalition. Other nations' experience in coalescing with Communism was far from encouraging. Was China different?

When Chiang hiked his price for peace by demanding that the Communists withdraw from areas they had long controlled in North China, even his closest advisers felt he had decided on war. When he turned around and extended the two-week Manchurian truce by eight days, they were not so sure. Lo Lung-Chi, spokesman for the liberal Democratic League and one of China's keenest politicians, offered his analysis: "The Generalissimo is the kind of man who will rein in his horse at the edge of the cliff."

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