Stages of Battle

There are times when U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson seems not to care that U.S. public opinion--the ultimate determinant of national foreign policy--is not merely opposed to letting Red China into the U.N., but also strongly in favor of a continuing fight to keep her out.

Fortnight ago, Stevenson warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. might not be able to keep up the battle much longer. For evidence, he cited the progressively narrower majorities favoring the U.S. stand against the Peking government, which suggested that Communist China's admission to the U.N. "may be impossible to prevent." But Stevenson in reality told only the gloomier half of a complicated story. Red China and its sympathizers in the U.N. must cross four separate legal barriers to win entrance, and at each barrier the U.S. could put up a strong and quite possibly a winning fight. The stages of battle:

1) Ever since 1951, Red China's admission to the U.N. has been stopped by a General Assembly vote in favor of a moratorium on any discussion of whether the mainland Communists or the Formosa Nationalists properly represent the state and people of China. Although U.S. efforts to maintain the moratorium have steadily lost support (the last vote, on Oct. 8, 1960, was 42 to 32, with 22 abstentions), some State Department experts believe that the closure on debate can be indefinitely maintained. Next time the issue is raised, they argue, the U.S. delegation might well pick up a few votes or abstentions, which are nearly as valuable, from several new African states with private second thoughts on Red China. Such countries, although reluctant to vote against the Communists on a direct question of admission, might settle for a continued closure on debate as a handy way to avoid the issue.

2) When and if the General Assembly votes to end the moratorium, it would then debate and decide whether the Communists or the Nationalists are entitled to China's Assembly seat. On this issue, the U.S. would gain support from such countries as Iceland and Ireland, which have voted against the moratorium as an attempt to stifle debate, but which oppose U.N. membership for the Red Chinese.

3) Should the U.S. seem in danger of losing the debate on representation, Ambassador Stevenson could validly argue that the question belonged in the U.N.'s "important" category, requiring a two-thirds majority. Such a move might well stir up neutralist efforts to allow both Chinese governments in the U.N.--a prospect that equally horrifies Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, but has plenty of U.N. backing in the Afro-Asian bloc.

4) Even if the General Assembly approved membership for Red China, it might still not get China's permanent seat on the Security Council. In the Council, where major-power vetoes are binding, both the U.S. and Nationalist China could veto Red Chinese admission without any explanation.

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