Asia

Among the most dismaying monuments to America's entry into world politics is Asia in shambles. There, the State Department must not only deal with familiar topics of international badinage, like colonialism, trade relations, and the other problems dissected time and again in diplomatic histories, but with shockingly new troubles as well. Communism has combined with nationalism to befuddle those accustomed to the old routine (not least among them the seniority-ridden Old Guard) and the task of conceiving new policies has fallen to the Administration.

Asia presents two crucial problems; what should the United States do to at least neutralize, if not win over, countries that have already gone Communist, and how should it prevent now friendly or wavering nations from succumbing to Russo-Chinese blandishments? There is no separating these problems, and any policy which attacks them piecemeal is ill-fated indeed.

What sort of policy should this be? The GOP majority has two suggestions. One is to abandon Asia, quarantine it from US troops, and supply only what cash and armaments a comfortably low tax rate can make available. This means leaving Korea, lessening assistance to the French in Indo-China and the British in Malaya, and adopting the Asians against Asians doctrine promulgated recently by General Eisenhower. It means a refusal to share in the risks of collective security, even though demanding anti-communism of the countries America would abandon.

This cavalier solution would amount to leaving Asia to the Communists, for weak countries cannot fight with dollars, untrained troops, and especially without the active support of the United Nations to redress the disparity in strength. That they who advocate this policy believe that nations either in the process of birth or taking their first steps would risk their national lives by hooting at, say, China when the United States and the UN has discarded them, is a sickening commentary on their approach to foreign policy. Scrapping collective security would only imperil the United States far more than at present. There is no need to belabor this point further.

The GOP's second solution is the opposite of its first, all-out war on China. Besides emasculating the United States' other military positions, this plan would consume bushels of money and hordes of men in an invasion which, against the numbers and modern equipment of the Chinese, would be fruitiness. In the battle's midst, the public would sicken at the drain of blood and dollars, and the campaign, if not already shattered by a Russian advance elsewhere, would grind to a farcical halt.

In addition, the stereotype of Anglo-American imperialism would gain new vitality, for after all, wouldn't an invasion mean an attempt to force American policies down Asia's throat? Interference of this sort would only solidify Asiatic sentiments against the United States, and rob it of whatever prestige it still retains.

Common to both suggestions, gracing them with what the Asians fear most from America, is use of Chiang Kai-shek's troops. Employing a discredited army and a has-been who is considered reactionary and dictatorial throughout the Far East, would be the worst blunder conceivable. Not only would it smack of overweaning meddling, but it would burden the United States with the worst sort of albatross, and demolish this country as a force in Asia for years to come.

These are the GOP solutions, then, bankrupt solutions, devoid of any long-range considerations, and devoted primarily to buttering up voters by away of their pocket books and their love for their children. Its philosophical basis is the archaic notion that the West can enforce its image of Asia by the sword, and a childish insistence on "getting it over with."

What is so superior, though, about Stevenson's program, the same program, it appears, that lost is China? We say "it appears" because the GOP assumes the very point of contention by asserting that America could have altered events in the Chinese civil war. The disintegration of Chiang's battered army, corrupt and ill-led as it was, was preventable only by an outlay of American manpower and purchasing power which the American public at that time raucously refused to yield.

The superiority of Stevenson's program rests in its comprehensiveness, in its fitness to the whole problem. Unless one wishes a monolith like the Cominform, the United States' best defense against Asiatic Communism is strong independent nations in the Far East. Conveniently, this is a highly moral goal to assume as well, and Americans, for good or ill, demand above all a morally acceptable foreign policy target.

To secure this, Stevenson, if elected, must deal both with China and the non-communist nations. First, he would try to resurrect another Tito (or failing that, sit tight until the Mao regime collapses and then rush in to help the next regime). This requires a mixture of firmness and flexibility, applied over a long period of time. Currently, Korea is a showcase for that sort of policy, where the UN fights if it must but never passes by a chance to negotiate, where it clings stubbornly to a hand-full of basic principles, but compromises on less essential points. If the Korean Truce-War appears a stalemate, it is simply because such a policy requires infinite patience, a quality which Stevenson has, happily, in abundance.

Next, Stevenson would further, as unobtrusively as possible, the desire of countries like India to build themselves into independent strong nations regardless of world tension. As a solution to this difficulty, Stevenson has stressed Point IV as the only way to make technical assistance, money, and advice available along with a strictly hands-off policy towards the recipients' internal and external politics.

Crucial, as well, is maximum aid and encouragement to Japan, for as democracy's best advertisement in the Far East, our former enemy can influence many wavering states toward America. The defeat of the Japanese Communists, for instance, made a very large splash in Asiatic puddles. By Japan's example, then, and by Point IV and rigorous collective security assurances, typified by America's stake in Korea, the Stevenson administration can effectively counter the promises and the force of Communism.

We have no claim to expertise here, of course, nor do we claim that what Stevenson believes will necessarily be adequate. Yet, we can say that alternative plans, the work of the Republican Party, have been consistently irresponsible, short-sighted, and obstructive. We can say that the State Department's present policies and Stevenson's continuation of them are so far the soundest and most unexceptionable we have heard. Among all the plans presented, then, our choice is unhesitatingly the Democrats'.