Appeasement in Peking

We propose to keep on the closest terms of friendship with other countries itnless they themselves create difficulties.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Red China last year massed 60,000 troops in Tibet and pointed their spearheads across the Himalayan passes toward India; it started building military roads right up to India's frontier; it laid down air bases within easy range of New Delhi and the teeming Ganges plain; it sent armed reconnaissance squads to undermine India's shaky border states-Nepal. Bhutan and Sikkim; it printed borderland maps that showed Indian districts as part of Red China. Nehru's reaction to all this (and to Red China's open call for "Asian unity" under Red China's leadership): an Indian army buildup a few hours ride back from the frontier and an urgent appeal for "consultations" with Peking.

For four months starting last Dec. 31 these titans of Asia conferred in Peking. From the beginning little word leaked-out about the talks. Chou En-lai called the Indian delegates in for tea and gave them a list of instructions (e.g., you must not tell the Indian press what is going on). Red China haggled endlessly over details and often boycotted the talks without notice-particularly when India's truce-supervising General Thimayya made some decision in favor of the U.N. in Korea.

Last week after four months silence, Nehru's government happily announced that at last it had won a "trade pact" with Red China. The terms: India to withdraw a tiny garrison it has maintained in Tibet for years to protect Indian merchants and pilgrims; India to let Red China set up "trade missions" (with diplomatic immunity) inside India at New Delhi, Calcutta, Kalimpong; Indians to seek entry into Tibet only along six specified passes and not to seek entry at all into the "closed territory" of Sinkiang. India also for the first time recognized Tibet as an integral part of Red China.

And in return? Nehru & Co. expressed great pleasure at the trade pact's preamble, to wit: respect for each other's "territorial integrity" and "noninterference" in each other's domestic affairs. Nehru expected that Red China would thereby relax its border pressure, and Indians happily believe him. "Another step to consolidate our friendship with China," said the Indian Express. "A triumph of diplomacy," glowed the Hindustan Times.

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