Chinese Provocation
The case of the imprisoned airmen constituted a Chinese provocation at the very moment that the world was listening, with varying degrees of perception, to a more moderate but no less realistic voice of America. The alleged Russian discomfort on hearing the crash of this oriental spanner might not seem to be borne out by the virulence of the three days' debating in the United Nations General Assembly. Yet there was eloquence in the very absence of a line of argument for the Russian and satellite delegates, who shifted from one angry irrelevancy to another before recording their votes against an overwhelming majority. Peking, confined to its own publicity machine, has for that matter had nothing fresh to say about the actual case. Its concern with domestic reactions is revealed in the opening of a public exhibition (as in the ' germ-warfare ' campaign) of the crashed • US aircraft and accessory evidence' which, if it meant anything, has been in Chinese hands for nearly two years before an opportunity was chosen to make use of it. The possibility of receiving Mr. Hammarskjold in the atmosphere thus created must seem remote. But a Chinese rejection of the UN Secretary-General's dramatic proposal would be poor diplomacy in Asia.
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