)The Silence of General Nam
The assumption, on which the United Nations' case at the Kaesong negotiations rests, that the Chinese genuinely desire an armistice, has not come nearer to proof in the past week. The only concessions made by the Communist negotiators have been in the form of undertakings to abstain from military activity in ihe demilitarised area round Kaesong—in fact, undertakings not to do what they had promised not to do. Their blank insistence on the 38th Parallel as the only possible axis for a buffer zone between the opposing forces has no more positive meaning than the complete silence which General Nam 11 managed to maintain for two hours at last Friday's meeting, after being invited by Admiral Joy to reply to a number of suggestions for breaking the deadlock. These talks are military talks ; and the line of the 38th Parallel is militarily an absurdity. When, if ever, adarmis- tice is arranged and political discussions begin, there may be a lot more to say about the Parallel, but for the moment there is nothing. The United Nations' fdrces will not abandon the general line of their present defences, running for the most part north of the Parallel. The Communists know that as well as anyone else. They must therefore begin- discussions on this assumption or else break off and attempt to push the United Nations' forces southward. General Ridgway, in his important statement in Tokyo on Tuesday, clearly accepted the resort to force as a present possibility. He did not even question the Communists' right to concentrate their forces during the lull in the fighting`—as they have often done before. But he showed no uneasiness as to the military outcome. The policy of alternating lulls and rushes, which the Chinese and North Korean forces followed in the six months preceding the opening of the Kaesong talks, was a failure. And, again, both sides know it. The Chinese have no doubt many peculiar and subtle objections to admitting it. But the United Nations' case for hanging on until their opponents can authorise General Nam Il to begin genuine nego- tiations is still valid.
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