China: A Stinging Victory

SOON after a triumphant Mao Tse-tung made his famous 1949 declaration in Peking that "the Chinese people have stood up," one of his closest aides sat down to draft a telegram to the fledgling United Nations in New York. The telegram demanded that the U.N. expel the Nationalist Chinese regime of Chiang Kaishek, who had fled with 2,000,000 followers to the island of Taiwan. In its place, the message went on, the U.N. should seat a new delegation from a new regime: the People's Republic of China.

Last week, 22 years later, the U.N. finally agreed by a decisive margin to admit the regime that it had once branded as an aggressor for its role in Korea. Scarcely anybody noticed that on the very day of the final vote Chinese and North Korean officials gathered in Pyongyang and Peking for a small but animated celebration. It had been 21 years since the People's Liberation Army, in a drastic miscalculation of General Douglas MacArthur's plans, had poured across the Yalu River to begin its massive, million-man intervention in the Korean War.

Choice Tribute

The China vote had a truly global impact. By admitting a government that represents roughly one-fourth of mankind, it gave the U.N. for the first time something truly approaching worldwide representation--even though the event once again cast doubt on the General Assembly, with its clutter of tiny nations or quasi-nations, as a responsible policymaker. The vote not only dealt a serious setback to Peking's oldest rival, Taipei, but it also gave Mao's regime a global arena in which to carry on its struggle against a more serious rival,

Moscow. It guaranteed that life would be more difficult for the U.S. and the Soviet Union, even though China cannot yet, or in the foreseeable future, claim to share superpower status with the two leviathans of the postwar world.

The vote, of course, did represent a defeat for the U.S., but hardly of fatal proportions; the U.S. lost largely because what it was trying to accomplish was close to impossible--and the Administration knew it from the start. Predicted a U.S. diplomat with considerable experience in Asia: "The main effect will be to speed up the process of China emerging outwards and to increase pressures on countries in the region for more trade, diplomatic and cultural ties with Peking."

The vote was the second major triumph in four months for Peking. The first was Richard Nixon's announced trip to the Forbidden City--a prospect that prompted Old China Friend Edgar Snow to marvel: "Vassal kings of the past brought tributes to Peking, but never before the head of the world's most powerful state." To Peking, the U.N. vote must have seemed an equally choice tribute.

It was in any case a clear victory for China's Premier Chou Enlai, author of that insistent 1949 telegram and architect of the outward-looking foreign policy that finally levered Peking into the U.N. For Chou, at 73, the vote was the capstone of a brilliant career. As the debate that ended in the expulsion of the Nationalists was drawing to a close in New York, Chou was entertaining the personal emissary of the U.S. President in Peking. When word of the outcome reached Peking (Henry Kissinger learned of it five minutes after he was aloft and homeward-bound in the presidential 707), Chou celebrated. At an embassy reception in Peking, a smiling Chou moved from table to table, shaking hands and lifting his glass of fiery mao tai to acknowledge congratulations. The favorable vote was "unexpected." Chou said. But, he laughed, "I'm happy, of course."

Swift Expulsion

What will the Chinese be like when they get to the U.N.? When a Western reporter asked a Peking official that question, he got a ready answer: "We will follow the policy of 'the pine and the willow'--as firm as the pine on principles, as flexible as the willow on details." For the moment, the Chinese appeared to be all pine.

Right after the vote, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant informed Peking by telegram of the General Assembly action. Four days later came a terse cable, signed by Peking's Acting Foreign Minister Chi Pengfei. A delegation would be coming "in the near future," it said; there was speculation, but no confirmation, that it could arrive this week. In no uncertain terms, Chi made it clear that Peking wanted the Nationalists ousted not only from the U.N. but also from the 13 specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization and the International Telecommunications Union. "I believe," Chi concluded briskly, that the expulsion "will be speedily implemented in its entirety." He is almost certainly right. Though the agencies act on their own, they usually follow the General Assembly's lead. Thus UNESCO (the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) moved swiftly at its Paris headquarters to give Taipei the boot by a 25-to-2 margin with five abstentions. Only the U.S. and Brazil resisted the tide.

Whom would Peking send to the U.N.? Conceivably, Chou himself might want to make the grand entrance. Huang Hua, Peking's Ambassador to Ottawa and one of its foremost American watchers, is a likely candidate for the delegation, but not for its leadership. Urbane, soft-spoken Chang Wen-chin, who heads the Peking Foreign Ministry's department of Western European and U.S. affairs, could be the man. But at week's end the leading possibility seemed to be Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Chiao Kuan-hua, a onetime journalist who speaks fluent English. Chiao has most recently been in charge of China's negotiations with the Russians on the Sino-Soviet border dispute.

A week earlier, it would have seemed premature to dwell on how Peking might act in the U.N., or whom it might send as its representatives. There was virtually no doubt that Peking would be voted into the General Assembly and to a permanent seat on the Security Council. But there was a chance that the U.S. might succeed in its strategy of preventing the Nationalists from being expelled.

Power Politicking

In the Assembly, the U.S. and its energetic allies from Japan argued that the China issue was a matter of membership. Peking should be admitted, the Americans argued, but there was no justification for expelling the Taipei regime, even if both governments did claim to be the sole legitimate representative of China. The pro-Peking forces argued that it was merely a question of credentials. If both Mao and Chiang claimed to rule all of China, only one could be right. Accordingly, they maintained, Peking, obviously in control of most of China, should be given the seat; the Nationalists, losers in an interrupted civil war, should be tossed out. The U.S. countered with a warning that to expel a member, in any event, would set a dangerous precedent.

Both sides were ready to engage in big-power politicking. A reluctant Japan was pressured into co-sponsoring the U.S. resolutions and joining the pro-Nationalist lobbying effort. Wavering countries, such as Panama, which is involved in delicate canal-treaty negotiations, were brought into line with sharp reminders of their client status. Washington stumbled badly, however, when it leaked word that Secretary of State William Rogers had been privately warning delegates that a defeat on the China vote might endanger the $200 million a year that Washington contributes to the U.N. Arm-twisting is part of the game at the U.N.--and every other parliamentary body--but it is supposed to be done with subtlety.

Though they necessarily played a long-distance game from Peking, the Chinese managed to apply some muscle too. Having little else to offer, Peking bargained with promises of expanded trade or aid and improved relations. Iraq got offers of political backing against both Moscow and Washington. Britain might be permitted to upgrade its representation in Peking to full ambassadorial level 20 years after granting recognition to Peking. Tanzania and Zambia naturally sided with the Chinese, who are building a $400 million railroad linking the two countries. Latin American delegations were enticed with offers of trade and support in their effort to extend their territorial waters to 200 miles. Said one delegate: "The message was that 'if you fellows don't vote with us, we may not be able to expand trade with you.' "

The key element in the U.S. strategy was its resolution calling for any move to expel the Nationalists to be treated as an "important question," needing the approval of two-thirds of the voting members to pass the General Assembly. Though almost everyone agreed that Peking should be offered a seat this year, many delegations--or so the U.S. reckoned--would be extremely reluctant to put the Nationalists over the side at the same time. The question was: Could the U.S. muster the simple majority of votes necessary to pass the important-question resolution in the first place?

As last week began, the U.S. side was fairly confident. Chow Shu-kai, the Nationalist Foreign Minister, told a reporter: "We are confident we will win." Rogers reckoned that the U.S. could squeak through the crucial roll call with a slim two-vote margin.

But as the arm-twisting intensified, some of the delegations began to wriggle. Argentina switched sides three times in six days before finally siding with the U.S. Ghana's pro-Peking Foreign Minister W.E.A. Ofori-Atta was in New York when his government flashed word to drop the Albanians and "go with the Americans." The overruled minister hopped a jet and carried his case straight to Accra--to no avail. Other delegates simply enjoyed being coy. After Kenya's burly Ambassador Joseph Odero-Jowi emerged from a tete-`a-tete with Bush in the Indonesian lounge outside the Assembly hall, a reporter asked him how he would vote. The reply was that Kenya had always voted with the Albanians in the past. But, he smiled, "you still do not know how we will vote this time." (He went with the Albanians again.)

Ants on a Hot Pan

As it turned out, there was a lot that the U.S. strategists did not know. Soon after the delegates returned from the weekend recess for the opening of the second week of debate in the Assembly, it became clear that the U.S. position was in trouble. The first speaker, white-haired Rachid Driss of Tunisia, which has benefited more from U.S. aid than any other African country, was thought to be in the American bag. But instead of declaring for the U.S. position, Driss proposed a brand-new resolution calling for the seating of Peking, and of Taipei as the government only of Taiwan. On the left side of the Assembly, the Albanians were listening carefully. If a stalwart like Tunisia veered away from the U.S., many other delegations were doubtless wavering too.

By 4:30 p.m., the erosion of the U.S. position was all too apparent. The U.S. strategists--Bush, Assistant Secretary of State Samuel de Palma, Old U.N. Hand Richard Pedersen--huddled at the U.S. desk under the gold-ribbed Assembly dome. As the speakers droned on from the green marble rostrum, U.S. aides quietly fanned out through the Assembly hall and began drawing the doubtful delegates into the corners or the anterooms and lounges just outside the hall. Peking's New China News Agency later reported that the Americans and their Japanese allies had been "running hither and thither like ants on a hot pan."

All along, the U.S. had expected that the session would be adjourned by Assembly President Adam Malik, and that U.S. delegates would have another day to try to patch up their position. But that expectation collapsed at 6 p.m., when Saudi Arabia's windy Jamil Baroody strode to the rostrum and submitted his own motion for adjournment. Baroody, who voted with the U.S., was probably just trying to be helpful. But his motion required a vote (which would not have been the case had Malik simply gaveled adjournment). The alert proPeking forces saw a chance to keep the session going and thus force a vote on the important-question resolution before the U.S. could regroup. They opposed Baroody's motion and demanded that the vote be recorded. A hush fell over the Assembly as the tote board tallied the bad news: 53 votes for adjournment, 56 against, and 19 abstentions. The U.S., the tally showed, could not muster a majority. "Baroody is an unguided missile," lamented Bush afterward. "Once he started his thing, it was too late for us to get organized."

Three hours later, the important-question resolution was slapped down by a decisive margin of 59 votes to 55 (with 15 abstentions). With the "I.Q." gone, there was no holding off the Albanian resolution--or the expulsion of the Nationalists.

The pro-Peking delegates fairly gloated. Glaring over the speakers' rostrum at Bush, Iraqi Ambassador Talib El-Shi-bib mockingly suggested that if the U.S. still wanted to save a seat for Chiang Kaishek, "it is very welcome to take him and put him in place of the American delegation." With that, Nationalist Foreign Minister Chow Shu-kai stood up, walked to the rostrum and announced that he would "not take part in any further proceedings." Amid sympathetic applause, he then led his five-member delegation out of the hall. It was the most dignified gesture in a tableau that a British delegate later described as "obscene."

Gladiatorial Atmosphere

Bush released the delegations that had been committed to the U.S. side. When he wearily took the rostrum to make some last procedural motions, he was hissed and booed. "There was an ugly mood in there," he said. "It was a gladiatorial atmosphere, an emotional release at seeing the U.S. get kicked around." When the Albanian resolution came up, shouts of "Si!" and "Oui!" rose as one delegate after another flipped a switch and lighted up the green YES light next to his country's name on the Assembly tote board. Eleven of Washington's 14 NATO partners either sided with the Albanian resolution or abstained. The vote: 73 for and only 35 against (with 17 abstentions).

Fading Away

The U.S. delegation was bitter about some key defections. Cyprus and Qatar had made "commitments" to the U.S.; but when the big votes came up, they abstained. Apparently on last-minute instructions from his government, Oman's man simply strolled out of the hall and disappeared for a long, long dinner.

"They faded away in thin air," Bush sputtered. "They looked you in the eye and they told you they would support you. But they didn't."

Still, no one blamed the collapse of the U.S. strategy on the peccadilloes of a few Persian Gulf sheikdoms. Peking played a big role by maintaining that it would never come to the U.N. while the Nationalists remained. But the fatal blow may have been struck by the White House. Once Richard Nixon had announced his plans to travel to the Forbidden City, it was almost inconceivable that the U.S.'s allies would queer their own chances for a rapprochement with Peking by rallying round an outdated U.S. commitment to Mao's old foe, Chiang Kaishek. Then there was Kissinger's presence in Peking as the great debate proceeded. As France's Ambassador Jacques Kosciousko-Morizet put it at the U.N. last week: "In order to make the dual representation scheme a success, it would have been better to avoid a dual diplomacy."

Was the problem that Washington simply did not try hard enough? That would hardly seem to be the case, judging from the outraged--and ever so slightly hypocritical--howls from delegates whose arms had been twisted. Yet a senior U.N. official noted that if the vote had been a matter "of life or death, the U.S. could have squeezed the delegates much harder. That it failed to do so indicated that while Washington did want to win, it was not prepared to squander all of its political credit to do so. The fact that Nixon took no part in the U.N. effort reinforced the belief that while the U.S. was fighting to keep Taiwan in, it was not fighting with everything it had.

The suspicion was, of course, that the U.S. had held back because Nixon did not want to risk souring the Washington-Peking rapprochement, or his forthcoming trip, which is now expected to take place soon after the New Year. Kissinger, who spent six days in Peking on his most recent mission, had half a dozen hour-long sessions with Chou to plan an agenda for the presidential trip. Back in Washington last week, Kissinger told reporters that the Nixon talks would be limited to matters between the U.S. and China. Mindful of the suspicions that the Peking summit has raised in other capitals, Kissinger stressed that there would be no discussion of "third-party issues." Nixon would not mention China's differences with the Soviet Union. Viet Nam, too, was verboten. "We expect to settle the war either by the unilateral policies we are pursuing or in negotiations with Hanoi," Kissinger said. "We do not expect to settle it in Peking."

Pivotal Man

Kissinger found "a definite attitude on the Chinese side to make this trip a success." Both sides recognized "that there are profound philosophical and political differences," he said. "Neither side has pretended that we will solve all, or even most, of the differences between us." But there was "a possibility to make a new beginning. If it is carried out with wisdom and patience on both sides, it can mark the start of a new relationship between our peoples."

If Kissinger sounds hopeful, part of the reason is that he is an unabashed admirer of the pivotal man on the Chinese side, Chou Enlai. Chou (pronounced Joe) has been a member of the Chinese party Politburo for 43 years, a record of survival that not even Mao Tse-tung, with 37 years in the leadership, can match. Chou was the grandson of a landowner and the son of a minor official, but he showed an early talent for firebrand politics--first as a student leader in Tientsin, later as a Communist organizer in France. When he joined the Chinese Communist Party, it was in the hands of educated urban intellectuals like himself. By the time an earthier, peasant-based faction, led by Mao Tse-tung, made its bid for dominance during the Long March in 1935, Chou was already in a pivotal position of power. In the crucial vote Chou swung his support to Mao, and he has backed the winning horses ever since.

As the chief idea man, counselor and fixer for Chairman Mao, Chou is China's chief executive officer. Though his influence is powerful, he is "a builder, not a poet," as Journalist Edgar Snow says. Chou is usually described as a "moderate" or a "pragmatist." But he is also, in all senses of the word, an opportunist. To some of those who knew the patrician Premier when he was starring in student theatricals (once in a female part) in the Teens, he is a skillful dissembler, not to be trusted in any circumstances. But most Westerners who have met Chou would agree with Henry Kissinger, who said last week: "He is not a petty man. He has large views. He is one of the most intelligent men I've ever met."

Middle Kingdom

It was Chou who was largely responsible for putting the pieces of Chinese foreign policy back together after the Cultural Revolution. Less than three years ago, when the Red Guards were still running amuck, Peking simply had no conventional foreign policy. All 42 of its ambassadors round the world had been called home save for Chou's longtime lieutenant, Huang Hua. He was then Peking's man in Cairo, responsible for the Middle East and Africa.

Up until the winter of 1969, when the dust from the Cultural Revolution had settled sufficiently for Chou to launch Peking's unprecedented diplomatic drive, the Chinese had not established much of a diplomatic track record. Partly, that was by choice. The old, exclusive Middle Kingdom notions lasted a long time. It was not until 1860 that China even deigned to set up an office to deal with foreign affairs.

The only previous appearance of a Communist Chinese delegation in the U.N. occurred in 1950, when Peking sent a nine-man team led by General Wu Hsiu-chuan to New York to "discuss" the Korean crisis. One U.N. veteran who heard the general's shrill tirades remembers Wu as "the loudest man we've ever had here." Peking's leaders have never exactly venerated the institution. Leery of its peace-keeping attempts, Chou has derisively called the U.N. "an international gendarmerie." In a recent interview in a Japanese newspaper, the Mao regime's leading intellectual, Kuo Mojo, called the U.N. a "dangerous slaughterhouse," citing its interventions in the Congo and Korea.

Mixed Cast

In view of such statements, there is understandable nervousness about what will happen with "China in the bull shop," as a U.S. State Department wag puts it. Sinologists are sharply split. Harvard's expert on Maoism, Benjamin Schwartz, expects the Chinese who come to the U.N. "to speak quite toughly." Harvard Sinologist John Fairbank thinks the Chinese "will try to be attractive and persuasive. They will be good performers." But as Harvard's East Asia Expert James C. Thomson, a former White House aide, points out, "We have never seen China in such circumstances. China's ingenuity will be taxed when it has to deal simultaneously with the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, Poland, Albania. This is a mixed cast and requires a new kind of orchestration." A U.N. official who belongs to a working group that U Thant has set up to prepare for China's arrival foresees severe problems. "We have to face the fact that the Chinese probably will not accept the rules of the. game as they have been established. They may even weaken the Security Council and the U.N. temporarily. Chinese entry is good and necessary, but it will create more problems than it solves, at least at first."

With the importance it attaches to symbolic details, Peking could prove prickly on U.N. housekeeping matters. Tradition prescribes that a new delegation becomes responsible for the bad debts of a departed one. But it would be surprising if Peking agreed to cover the $30 million in past-due assessments and dues left unpaid by the Nationalists when they walked out. In the Secretariat, the jobs of 52 Nationalist Chinese international civil servants are protected by U.N. rules. But since China is allowed up to 78 employees under the quota system, Peking will be able to place as many as 26 of its own people right away, and will probably try to replace the holdovers as soon as possible.

The Chinese will almost certainly bring new energy to the U.N., though not everyone will find the change refreshing. They can be expected to use the organization to the fullest to prove, as Chou has repeatedly said, that "the time is over when one or two superpowers could force their will upon the world."

The Chinese promise to be especially active in the Security Council, where they will hold one of the five permanent seats. The Americans, the Soviets and the Chinese will form a tense triangle. The British and the French, who hold the other two permanent seats, could make it a four-way stretch as the Common Market acquires political muscle to match its economic strength. The principal effect of China's presence on the Council, however, may well be to immobilize it. On rare occasions, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have found it useful to agree. With another wild card on the Council in the person of Peking's representative, the two superpowers may be tempted more often than ever to bypass it when they have diplomatic business to transact.

The Chinese presence will crystallize new relationships among the crowd in the General Assembly. Following the old Maoist principle of "uniting with the many to oppose the few," Peking will try to solder together its own U.N. bloc. One U.N. veteran speculates that the Chinese will start out in the posture of "a slumming big power, hunkered down with the poor countries." As the Soviets can attest, that is a difficult stance to maintain. How, for instance, will the Chinese line up on the economic and aid issues--as a donor country or a have-not recipient? If they can keep their act up (or down) long enough, however, the Chinese could cause real trouble, leading an anticolonialist drive on the white minority regime in South Africa or joining the Cubans in promoting Puerto Rican independence. In some cases, a Chinese presence might improve things--not necessarily by design. With Peking currying the allegiance of the wilder Marxist groups in the Arab states, for example, the Soviets might decide that it is time to stop stirring up trouble in the Middle East and seek a settlement.

The Chinese will undoubtedly want a major voice in the choice of a new Secretary-General; some Sinologists are convinced that they will want a more activist type, in the mold of the late Dag Hammarskjold, and one skeptical of the superpowers, rather than a more passive leader like the departing U Thant. Certainly the Chinese would like to reverse the 1950 resolution branding them and the North Koreans aggressors and, for good measure, to force the U.N. Command out of South Korea. One of the most fascinating issues to confront them will be the question of the divided nations. There is a strong likelihood that in 1972 both East and West

Germany will seek admission to the U.N. --separately. Will the Chinese veto both on the grounds that it could set a precedent for the readmission of Taiwan as part of a divided China? Further, what if the two Viet Nams and the two Koreas were to seek General Assembly seats as separate entities? The betting is that Peking would veto South Viet Nam and South Korea--and that would no doubt mean the exclusion of the northern regimes as well.

Beyond the U.N., Peking's admission is already having wide-reaching effects. Belgium quickly announced that it would establish diplomatic relations with Peking, becoming the ninth NATO nation to do so. That pushed the list of governments recognizing Peking to 63, giving the Communists a solid lead on the Nationalist regime (58).

Next to Chiang Kaishek, the man most bruised by the vote was Japan's Premier Eisaku Sato. He was already in political trouble for having been caught flat-footed by Nixon's overtures to Peking and the economic shokku. Now he was catching it again for his support of the U.S. effort at the U.N. Many Japanese, eager for a U.S.-style rapprochement with China, believe that Sato was cast as the dupe in yet another deal worked out by Washington over Japan's head.

Secondary Explosions

The U.N. vote set off some secondary explosions in Seoul, where Chiang's situation has special meaning. The South Korean Assembly passed a resolution reminding the world that Chung Hee Park's regime was the "sole sovereign government" of all Korea, and that nothing could be changed by any "conference that might be held among big powers." The resolution also insisted that the U.N. forces in Korea (40,000 G.I.s, plus a handful of British and Thai troops) "must never be withdrawn."

In Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, China's U.N. victory was seen as an important new element in a broad mosaic. Taking the long view, the Asian leaders see a new, cooler Southeast Asia prospering under a four-power equilibrium maintained by the U.S., China, the Soviet Union and Japan. Some Malaysians fret that the equilibrium could be upset if China comes out of the Nixon summit with some sort of "sphere of influence" in Asia. But others reckon that the U.N. membership will have a restraining effect on whatever ambitions China harbors.

It would be naive to expect that the

Chinese are going to be cooperative --in the U.N. or out. Says an Administration official with firsthand knowledge of the Peking leadership: "These people are very tough, very dedicated and very able. They didn't go through what they did for 50 years to turn into Ivy League professors or people with small-town American values."

Small-Power Diplomacy

Another intimate of China's leaders. Journalist Edgar Snow, agrees. Writing in LIFE last July, Snow warned against any notion that "the Chinese are giving up Communism--and Mao's world view --to become nice agrarian democrats. A more realistic world is indeed in sight, but popular illusions that it will consist of a sweet mix of ideologies, or an end to China's faith in revolutionary means, could only serve to deepen the abyss again when disillusionment occurs."

It is easy, as Harvard's Schwartz points out, to "overestimate or underestimate the positive effects or negative effects of Chinese membership. The U.N. has never had that much real power." The effect to watch, over the next two or three years, will be the one that the U.N. has on the Chinese themselves. The Soviet Union and the U.S., after years of tinkering, have established the machinery of coexisting; both have lines out to other states in bilateral and multilateral ways. China has little of this, but the U.N. may serve as its school. Of course, Peking sees the U.N. not as a school but as a stadium for its special brand of small-power diplomacy. Charged with the Chinese presence, the U.N., with its galleries of mini-and non-nations, could become a very pesky place for the U.S. Conceivably, an exasperated Administration will some day be tempted to pull out and have done with the U.N.

But that would be shortsighted. As China becomes more active in international affairs and deals with real problems, it can no longer settle for simply striking a pose and feeding a shrill ideological statement to Peking radio. It will have to make decisions and take actions, and more often than not that will mean compromise. In the long spell, practical politics in the pursuit of attainable goals could be the death of dogmatism in China. But, as University of Michigan Sinologist Alexander Eckstein notes, "We are still far from out of the woods with China." In other words, the men from Peking should be good for several spectacular seasons at the glass-and-steel soapbox in Manhattan.

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