Who Won?

What does the proposed armistice mean to Red China? From his listening post in Hong Kong last week, TIME Bureau Chief Robert Neville cabled this report:

PEKING calls it a Chinese victory. To many westerners here, it looks as if the U.S. is rescuing Red China from the brink of disaster--and in such a way that the Reds are able to present the armistice negotiations to their own people and to much of Asia as a great moral and military success for Red China and a stiff defeat for the U.S.

"Utter Defeat." The Red line was laid down this week by the loudest organ of Peking propaganda, the People's Daily: "Heavy blows dealt by the Korean people's army and Chinese volunteers have put the enemy in such dilemma that an armistice now becomes possible." The Red version of what happened in Korea is simple: The South Koreans started the war a year ago with an attack on North Korea. The North Koreans quickly counterattacked, whereupon "American imperialists," coming to the aid of their "Syngman Rhee puppets," drove into North Korea. At that point Chinese "volunteers" entered the war, quickly pushed U.S. forces back to the 38th parallel, whereupon the U.S. decided to sue for peace. Summed up the Communist Wen Wei Pao of Hong Kong: "The United States has suffered utter defeat. Although she tries to pose as the victor, it should be noted that she has to conduct negotiations at the time and place chosen by Korea and China."

Although there is some reason to believe that Red China will think long & hard before plunging into another such military venture as Korea, her expansionist activities in Asia are obviously far from over. Red China's leaders are still hailing the "victories" of the Vietnamese over the French in Indo-China. Red propaganda still shouts support of Malayan terrorists and Filipino Huks. "The Chinese revolution is far from complete," screamed No. 2 Red Liu Shao-chi, in a rousing speech to 40,000 in Peking this week. "China's Taiwan [Formosa] has not yet been liberated."

Declared China's "Peace Committee" (which is in charge of the current frantic campaign to force war contributions out of every man, woman & child in China to buy airplanes, tanks, artillery): "We should bear in mind that an armistice would leave the American aggressors still in occupation of Chinese Taiwan, still preparing to conclude a separate peace treaty with Japan, and still engaged in rearming Japan."

No Change of Mind. Red China last week celebrated the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. Red big shots wrote long, tortuous articles for the occasion. A new opera, the theme of which was the Communists' famed "long march," opened at the Peking People's Art Theater. At a rally in Peking, spotlights lit up giant portraits of the Red pantheon, including Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-chi, Chou Enlai, Chu Teh, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Said Liu: "Our party is the greatest, most glorious and most consistently correct party in the history of China. As Comrade Mao has said, 'The victory we have so far achieved is only the first.' " Planes roared overhead and scattered leaflets on the crowd below. The message: "Resist American Imperialism."

From the group of men up on that high rostrum there came not one hint they had changed their minds about anything or that in the future they intended to behave in any way differently than in the past.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.