Fairbank Urges U.S. To Support China U.N. Seat

Admission of Communist China to the United Nations is the only way for her "to grow and eventually accept restraints on her revolutionary ardor," John K. Fairbank '29, Francis Lee Illggisson Professor of History, says in an article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books.

China, according to Fairbank would have to participate peacefully in international politics as a member of the U.N. and "learn to net as a full member of international society for the first time.

He explains that China has bad little experience dealing with allies on an equal basis or with non-Asian powers on an equal level. Noting that china has always been the "center of civilization" in East Asia, Fairbank says that it has served as the cultural and political model for smaller states like Korea and Vietnam.

Chinese culture, isolated for centuries from Western influence, emphasizes a hierarchical, Glitist society and rejects the notion of national self-determination, he points out. Because of this difference, he says, China and America regard each other as "backward, evil and deserving destruction."

"Our line of approach,' Fairbank proposes, "should seek to undermine the militancy" of the Chinese. He feels the U.S. could take advantage of several important factors, including the need of the Maoist regime to bolster national morale and the "accumulated fatigue of the revolution," by agreeing the China's admission to the U.N.