Test of Strength

The 26th General Assembly of the United Nations opened last week in an atmosphere of urgency rarely shown by that body in the past. In its first formal order of business, the Assembly elected Foreign Minister Adam Malik of Indonesia its President, and admitted three ministates, Qatar, Bahrain and Bhutan,* raising the number of member nations to 130. Then the delegates got down to business: a procedural test of strength over two U.S. resolutions to admit China to both the Assembly and the Security Council but retain a seat in the General Assembly for the Nationalist regime on Taiwan. The U.S. resolutions were up against a rival Albanian motion to throw Taipei's delegates out and seat only the representatives from Peking.

The delegates voted without knowing the outcome of the power struggle apparently under way in Peking. Outside the U.N., both Maoist and Nationalist sympathizers made their own show of strength, marching and chanting in support of the opposing motions before the delegates. The U.S. is pressing for adoption of its two-China policy for several reasons. While no longer insisting on the formal pretense that Chiang Kai-shek's regime on Taiwan is the legitimate government of China, Washington is reluctant to let a longstanding ally down--or to be seen to do so--and is also concerned that the U.N. might set an unfortunate precedent should it expel a well-behaved charter member. More important, the U.S. wishes to prevent any bandwagon rush to Peking, thereby giving many smaller nations time to adjust to the new triangular world in which the U.S. will be conducting big-power diplomacy with both Moscow and Peking. As it turned out, the U.S. lost one procedural vote and won another.

In the first test of Washington's policy, the U.S. attempted to combine on the agenda its own China resolutions with the Albanian resolution in order to make doubly sure that all three would be discussed at the same time in the General Assembly. When the vote was taken in the General Committee, which recommends the Assembly's agenda, the U.S. was defeated 12 to 9 (with three abstentions). The U.S. had expected to win that first test, but as Ambassador George Bush said, the vote "doesn't change a thing." To offset the defeat, he could point to Japan's decision, reached only 24 hours before, to co-sponsor the U.S. resolution to admit Peking but retain Taipei's seat.

The second test came when Albania attempted to keep the U.S. resolutions off the General Assembly's agenda. There the U.S., by a vote of 65 to 47 (with 15 abstentions), succeeded in keeping its resolution on the agenda, though the vote was scarcely a victory. It revealed that 47 nations are absolutely committed against even discussing the U.S. resolution. Nor could the 65 ballots be seen as definite votes in the U.S. camp. Several countries, including Italy, voted for putting the U.S. resolution on the agenda only to make it emphatically clear afterward that they will not support the resolutions when the time comes for a final vote. Moreover, the 15 abstentions suggested that quite a number of countries, among them France and Britain, were dubious even about discussing the U.S. proposals.

Uphill Struggle. They fear that if the U.S. succeeds in keeping a seat for Taipei, Peking will not come to the U.N. at all this year--and the overwhelming majority of members want China seated as quickly as possible. In any case, they reason, the U.S. move even if successful would only delay the admittance of China for one year.

For the present, the question of who will represent China remains up in the air, but obviously the U.S. faces an uphill struggle in trying to keep Taipei's seat in the U.N. With the agenda settled, the crucial vote on whether to expel the Nationalists or not will probably come in late October, after the General Assembly completes its customary wide-ranging general debate.

*Oil-rich Qatar and Bahrain, which gained their independence from Britain's protection last month, are located on the Persian Gulf. The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, now emerging from its self-imposed tradition of isolation, adjoins Tibet and India.

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