Where Neutralism Ends

In the U.N. General Assembly, where neutralism is increasingly accepted as the power of negative thinking, Nationalist China's Foreign Minister reminded the world last week that involvement is not a dirty word. Said youthful (44), energetic Shen Chang-huan, a University of Michigan graduate and longtime foreign affairs specialist: "There is nothing wrong when a new and emerging state adopts a policy of neutrality or nonalignment. There is too much to do at home and too little time in which to do it to allow involvement in power struggles. But I submit that neutralism does not mean the repudiation of moral judgment on what is right and what is wrong, what is justice and what is injustice. On issues such as Tibet and Hungary--issues that involve such Charter principles as self-determination of peoples, human rights and fundamental freedoms --no country can claim neutrality."

Peace at Any Price. If the neutral nations are today courted by the Communists, continued Shen, it is only because their "nationalism is useful as a preparation for eventual Communist takeover.

The Communists do not in fact believe there is such a thing as neutralism. Mao Tse-tung, chieftain of Chinese Communism, puts it thus: 'Neutrality is camouflage; the third road does not exist.' "

The real danger for nations that walk the third road, warned Shen, is the notion that they can preserve peace by placating "the strong and predatory." Thus they may force the U.N. into the same ignominious fate as the League of Nations, which capitulated repeatedly to the prewar Japanese militarists, to Mussolini and Hitler. "The League," said Shen, "was too much in love with the easy doctrine of peace at all costs. It did not hesitate to bring pressure to bear on the victims of aggression to surrender peacefully' so war might be avoided. By so doing, it actually aided and abetted aggression."

The U.N. itself is doomed, argued Shen, if Nationalist China is ousted and replaced by the Chinese Communists, who by their own actions are "clearly disqualified" for membership. Without facing the thorny fact that Russia and its satellites are, by this reasoning, equally disqualified, Shen insisted: "The U.N., created to preserve the peace in conformity with law and justice, is now in danger of being perverted in the interest of powerful warmakers who have no respect for the principles and purposes enshrined in the Charter. Appeasement is very much in the air."

Moral Confusion. The most striking example of what Shen was talking about came from Mali's Borema Bocoum, who invoked "objectivity and realism" to demand that Red China be "restored to its proper place in the U.N.," then protested that any proposal for free elections in East Germany is "spurious" and "designed to breed confusion in people's minds." In a classic example of nonaligned non sequitur, Bocoum proclaimed: "The idea of self-determination is valid only for peoples who are fighting for their independence and sovereignty."

Little Thailand evidently recognized the moral confusion of this view. One of the few Asian delegates to recognize Russian-style colonialism, Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman declared pointedly: "We uphold the principle and practice of self-government, not only for Asians and Africans but for every people in the world--not excepting the more advanced peoples of Europe, including the Germans."

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