Thunder over Formosa

While Americans were wondering just what to make of the anti-U.S. riots on Formosa last week, the press elsewhere around the world offered instant X rays by the dozen. From the propaganda potshots of Peking and Moscow to the emotional outbursts of Manila and Bangkok, few verdicts were favorable to the U.S. The most damaging to U.S. internationalism were the well-meant missiles of friends and allies that homed in on the very self-doubts that the violence had triggered in the U.S. press.

The Imperial Purple. In the Far East, where the press is still quick to smite down anything that seems to smack of colonialism (and anything white men do is likely to be interpreted as colonial), newspapers were less concerned with the broad, strategic repercussions of the riots than with their ostensible cause: the acquittal by a U.S. court-martial of a G.I. charged with killing a Chinese. The extra- territorial privileges enjoyed by American citizens on Formosa are "unendurable," said Singapore's leading Chinese daily, anti-Communist Sin Chew Jit Poh. Manila's biggest paper, the Sunday Times, agreed that this was "the root cause of trouble."

In Japan, where anti-American sentiment has been fanned by the jurisdictional dispute over another G.I. who is charged with manslaughter, Hokkaido Shimbun said that the riots were "primarily attributable to American racial prejudice and superiority complex." The usually pro-American Mainichi Shimbun exulted: "The incident proves an old saying: 'Even a worm one inch long is one-half inch of spirit.'" In Bangkok the middle-of-the-road daily Satirapharp cautioned: "The incident on Formosa has taught us that we must not let too many Americans come to our country."

More surprising, at a critical juncture in Washington's debate over foreign aid, was the skepticism on the question of U.S. military and economic assistance in countries that reap only benefit from such programs. To the independent Times of India, the riots were "one more illustration of the truth that dollars can ensure neither appreciation nor loyalty." Said the Times of Indonesia: "Having succeeded to the imperial purple so long worn by the British, the United States today has also inherited its concomitant--resentment, envy, and the readiness of others to take offense at the drop of a hat. It's time for Washington to do some soul searching." (This, if put more charitably, comes close to a general U.S. reaction--the ruefully philosophical recognition that the U.S. is now a big power and therefore must expect to be kicked around as a matter of course.)

The Price of Leadership. In both Britain and France, at the height of the dispute over U.S. embargoes on trade with Communist China, the press was quick to view the violence as evidence not only that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek will bite the hand that feeds him, but has very few teeth left. Said the neutralist newspaper Le Monde: "The Nationalists have lost almost all hope of winning back China. This sense of frustration naturally nourishes the feeling of latent bitterness against the Americans." If the riots "lead to fresh thinking about Formosa," said the Manchester Guardian, "they will have done some good." The U.S.-baiting weekly Spectator argued: "American diplomacy has been playing at blind man's buff in Southeast Asia. The time has now come to bring the game to an end."

Despite its strategic differences with the U.S. over China, the British press could not conceal a feeling of pedantic sympathy--much like that of a father who sees his child burned in the very fire he had warned against. "Americans lack Britain's long colonial experience," said the imperialist Daily Express, with a nostalgic sigh. "To be misunderstood and misrepresented is often the price of leadership." The most pointed alarm, however, was one of a different tenor, sounded by London's Liberal News Chronicle: "Anything that encourages the U.S. to withdraw into 'Fortress America' is bad for the free world. The policy of backing the discredited Chiang may be stupid, but riots like this encourage isolationism, not realism, in the United States."

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