Peking Duck

Britain extends diplomatic recognition to other nations--as Sir Winston Churchill said, in justifying hasty recognition of the Chinese Communist regime eight years ago--"not to confer a compliment but to secure a convenience." But recognition saved none of Britain's $840 million of investments in China; and instead of an exchange of ambassadors, Britain has had to be content with a charge d'affaires who got a humiliating run-around in the waiting rooms of Peking bureaucracy.

To the many Britons eager to try again in the phantom hope of restoring a big Chinese trade, British Labor M.P. Harold Wilson, recently back from Peking and a two-hour interview with Premier Chou Enlai, last week reported a significant new bob and duck in the interminable reeling and trolling of the Communist line.

"If Britain were to vote at the U.N. for the admission of the Chinese government and the exclusion of the Chiang Kai-shek representative," Chou En-lai promised to behave better. "It mattered not whether Britain were voted down: probably she would be in a minority," Wilson was told. "But if at any rate her position were made clear, China would immediately agree to the exchange of ambassadors."

Further, reported Wilson, Chou said he had told the leaders of Singapore, "Mr. David Marshall and later Mr. Lim Yew Hock, that he hoped Singapore would, on achieving self-government, remain in the British Commonwealth., He had sent a similar message, through friends of Tengku Abdul Rahman, to Malaya." What was Chou's explanation for this attitude, since it was his Communist agents who, by riot and civil war, had noisily sought to drive the British "imperialists" out of Malaya? "In his view," reported Wilson deadpan, "for these countries to remain attached to their ancient allegiance would be the best guarantee that they would not fall under the influence of the U.S."

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