Two Islands Apart

On the whole globe there can hardly be two more intrinsically negligible pieces of real estate than Quemoy and Matsu, a pair of barren islands off the China coast. Yet history has an old trick of throwing its spotlight on obscure spots and thereby illuminating vast, half-hidden conflicts.

In a speech last week (see below), Secretary of State Dulles, without naming the islands, clarified the U.S. position on Quemoy and Matsu. What he said was simple, almost trite: he warned the Communists again that if they persisted in regarding these islands as stepping stones to Formosa, and if they attacked them, the U.S., committed to defend Formosa, might accept the Communist definition of such an assault as the beginning of an attack on Formosa and retaliate accordingly.

Yet this simple expression of the obvious touched off extraordinary reactions. Asian anti-Communists were notably cheered by Dulles' speech. The anti-Communist Hong Kong newspaper, Sing Tao Jih Pao, said that Dulles brought "joy and comfort." Other Asian voices recalled the Korean truce, the Indo-China truce and the Tachen Islands evacuation, and said that Dulles' announcement on the offshore islands between Formosa and the mainland indicated that the U.S. had finally made up its mind to take a stand. The Dulles sentence that most impressed Asians: "If the non-Communist Asians ever come to feel that their Western allies are disposed to retreat wherever Communism threatens the peace, then the entire area could quickly become indefensible." This, as Asians knew best, was the real significance of Quemoy and Matsu.

Equally interesting was the British reaction to Dulles' speech. Almost all of the British press attacked it. More serious was the fact that Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was deeply disturbed by it and prepared to express his disapproval to Dulles when the two meet this week in Bangkok. British disapproval of this speech discloses more plainly than ever before the width and depth of U.S.British differences on East Asia policy.

The British want the Chinese Communists to have Quemoy and Matsu because they think the transfer of these islands will lessen the danger of a war of encounter. They want blue water between the Communists and what the U.S. is committed to defend. Actually, they would not be sorry to see Formosa fall because that would put still more blue water between the U.S. and the Communists.

Both British and U.S. leaders are worried about the danger of war in the East, but the two nations see very different perils. The U.S. is much less concerned about the possibility of a war of encounter. Its worry, as hinted by Dulles, is the thought of what happens if non-Communist Asians lose heart and collapse into Communism. Then, indeed, there might be a general conflict, with the Western powers attempting to rescue Malaya, Indonesia, Siam, Burma and even Japan. Quemoy and Matsu have one meaning in the U.S. nightmare, another in the British nightmare. Dulles' main task at the Manila Pact conference in Bangkok this week will be to state the Asian danger in terms that will bring Britain and other participating nations to understand why the long-range U.S. responsibility calls for present firmness even on such small parcels of contention as Matsu and Quemoy.

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