Chiang's Two-Edged Sword

Breathing fire like a paper dragon, Nationalist China still plans to use her veto for the first time in ten years in order to block the admission of 18 new members to the United Nations. This decision is known to have been taken despite two direct appeals from President Eisenhower to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. It has been taken, moreover, in the face of the clear wish of virtually every other country in the UN that the 18 new members, including Outer Mongolia, be admitted to the world organization.

In justification of its veto threat, the Chiang Government claims that Outer Mongolia is not only a fraud and puppet of Soviet Russia, but also a part of China and hence subject to the control of the Nationalists when the day of return to the mainland finally comes. Yet the claim seems to have little basis in legal fact. For the Nationalist Government of China recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia at the end of the war and established diplomatic relations with her in 1946.

More realistically, the Formosan government fears that the majority of those nations admitted in the "package deal" would be willing to vote to seat Communist China, and thus promote the "two China" sentiment which is growing so rapidly in Washington and at the UN. Every step forward for Communist China is a step backward, economically and politically, for the Nationalists. The veto is a calculated risk to dynamite acceptance of Red China by the world body.

Many diplomats, however, fear that Chiang's plans will boomerang. If Nationalist China does explode the "package deal," the indignation of Arab-Asian countries and many Latin American nations may be so great that there will be a serious effort to eject Nationalist China altogether from the General Assembly at this session. The US might be hard put to block expulsion, even though success in preventing the ouster would require only one-third of the sixty-nation Assembly.

For the last two weeks, Chiang has been holding his veto menacingly over the UN; this week the chance to use it will come. While Nationalist China would probably not be ejected from the General Assembly or from her permanent seat on the Security Council if she uses the veto, her loss of prestige and political bargaining power will certainly encourage the recognition of Communist China. Thwarting the expressed will of the other members of the United Nations in such a fashion is hardly the way for the Nationalist Government to support its pretensions to the role of a responsible world power.