Good & Faithful Comrades?

Last week, there were signs that Britain might be changing its policy of let's not be beastly to Red China. Among the factors that influenced British thinking: P: U.S. public reaction to Britain's continued trade with Communist China, including the U.S. Senate's unopposed action to ban aid to countries dealing with Communist nations (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

P: The American public's response to General MacArthur's appeal for firmer action against Red China.

P:The gallant, bloody stand of a battalion of Britain's crack Gloucestershire Regiment* in battle against the Chinese (TIME, May 7), which brought home to Britons, as nothing had before, that they were in fact at war with a regime they had been trying to appease.

Haggling & Higgling? Winston Churchill expressed Britain's growing unease. Said he in the House of Commons: "We now know that the Communists are killing U.N. soldiers, and our soldiers. We now know that they have established a reign of terror in China, with horrible executions and mob butcheries [see Foreign News] and a merciless purge characteristic of Communist tyranny wherever it is applied . . . We ought not, I say, to have any sympathies with Red China, and the more they are expressed and manifested in this House, the more harm is done to our relations with the U.S. After all, the U.S. is doing 19/20ths of the work and suffering losses of 50 and 60 to 1 compared to us." Demanded Churchill with Olympian anger: "[Is it] worthwhile to go on nagging and haggling and higgling with the U.S. over a lot of details . . . creating ill will . . .?"

Prime Minister Attlee's Labor government, whose ministers have been instructed not to criticize the U.S., last week: P: Prohibited further exports of rubber to Communist China (but not to Russia). President of the Board of Trade Sir Hartley Shawcross declared that China had already bought so much rubber this year "that her civilian needs can be regarded as satisfied for the current year." P:Supported the U.S. proposal, adopted this week by the U.N. Additional Measures Committee, for a general embargo on shipments of arms and war-essential materials to Red China.

P:Suspended its policy of promising Formosa to the Chinese Reds. Said Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison: "It would be premature to discuss the future of Formosa so long as operations continue in Korea."

Only Remedy? In fact, the embargo on rubber and other strategic materials will be only partly effective; Britain, the Commonwealth nations and many other nations except the U.S. will continue to sell China "non-strategic" goods which will help China's economy and therefore its war machine. The only possible remedy, which the U.S. is not yet willing to resort to: a U.S. naval blockade of the Chinese coast.

Despite last week's decisions, Britain still clings to the idea that China's conquest by the Reds is an unalterable fact and that therefore China should be in U.N., but for the time being it has given up trying to sell this idea to the U.S.

The British might go along a lot further with U.S. policy on China--if the U.S. itself had more of a policy. Last week the House of Commons cheered when Churchill said: "We are good and faithful comrades of the American democracy, and will stand with them, whatever may happen, as brothers in arms."

*Last week Lieut. General James Van Fleet awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, highest U.S. group award, to Sergeant Major Thomas Blackford, C Company, representing the 1st Battalion of the Gloucesters (see cut). Said the citation: "By holding their positions and fighting fiercely above & beyond the call of duty, this magnificent battalion was surrounded and cut off by overwhelming Chinese forces. . . . Their epic stand will go down as one of the most valiant in modern times."

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