Between Friends

A black Buick sedan drew up before Britain's Foreign Office in Whitehall. Out stepped Dr. Cheng Tien-hsi, Nationalist China's urbane and scholarly ambassador, summoned to hear a judgment from His Britannic Majesty's Government.

With Confucian calm, the elderly (65) ambassador entered the high-ceilinged office of youthful (39) Minister of State Hector McNeil. The Briton fingered his necktie in awkward embarrassment, choked up as he began to read a formal note announcing Britain's recognition of Communist China (see below) and the dismissal of the Nationalist Chinese envoy. Cheng interrupted with a gentle gesture of gnarled ivory-hued hands. "We can talk of business later," he said. "Let us first talk as friends."

"And None So Poor ..." As a friend, inspired by British generosity to China through the United Aid to China Fund, Cheng had once composed a poem in honor of the fund's president, Lady Cripps:

Millions of Changs and Wangs with open arms

Albion's maiden envoy will embrace, Whose rare benevolence and natural charms

Profoundly touch the heart of an ancient race.

Poetry came to Cheng's mind again as he and McNeil chain-smoked each other's cigarettes--the Chinese offering American Lucky Strikes from a woven-grass case. Between puffs, Cheng sadly recalled how once it was the Western fashion to praise Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalist China for resisting the Japanese. What was it Shakespeare's Mark Antony had said over murdered Caesar?

But yesterday the word of Caesar might

Have stood against the world. Now lies he there,

And none so poor to do him reverence.

McNeil repeatedly addressed Cheng as "Mr. Ambassador." At length the Chinese politely asked: "After this, how can you still call me Mr. Ambassador?" Painfully, McNeil answered: "Once an ambassador, always an ambassador." The Chinese musingly released a barbed shaft: "In my country we have a similar saying, 'Once a friend, always a friend.'"

When they finally got down to business, friend McNeil explained to friend Cheng that Britain would maintain de facto contact with the Nationalists in Formosa. Cheng and his staff would have three months to vacate the stately embassy in London's Portland Place before the Communists moved in. Then, if they needed sanctuary, the Nationalist representatives might stay on as exiles in Britain.

It was time for friends to part. Cheng promised to send McNeil an autographed copy of his book, China Molded by Confucius. McNeil insisted on escorting Cheng to the Foreign Office door.

"If You Worship Caesar . . ." Next day, in his embassy's tapestry-hung reception room, Cheng spoke less subtly but no less wisely. Britain's recognition of Red China, he said, "is equivalent to burying us while we are still very much alive . . . Homage to force and violence is very dangerous . . . for if you worship Caesar you will have Caesars--and what is worse, their bad imitators . . . One day you will need us again . . ."

He had one last ambassadorial duty to perform. On orders from Formosa, he gave -L-20 toward medical expenses for ailing Lien-ho, the giant panda presented to the London Zoo in 1946 by Nationalist China as a token of friendship.

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