A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THERE is not necessarily a grain of truth in the account being circulated by a Chinese Nationalist news agency on Formosa of the military alliance which (the agency says) was concluded last month between Communist China, North Korea and Viet Minh; but the story is circumstantial enough to be worth summarising. The alliance is said to be between the Communist Parties rather than between the Governments of, the three countries concerned. It provides for the establishment of a Supreme Headquarters at Peking, pledges the signatories to eschew any compromise with the Imperialists and to " press on regardless " to total victory, and provides for the unification of their " military systems and organisation." If any of the three countries is attacked or even forced to mobilise (I should have thought two already were mobilised), the others will " take military action " within 48 hours. M. Malenkov is to endorse the agreement as a symbol of the unity of Communist forces everywhere. Mao Tse-tung is chairman, with Kim Il-Soong, Ho Chi-minh and Chu Teh as vice-chairmen. The news agency says that the plan for this alliance was conceived in the Kremlin and con- veyed to Peking by General Malinovsky, Commander-in-Chief of the Far Eastern Red Array, on November 15th. The treaty was signed in Indo-China four days later and in Peking two days after that. Whether all this is true and whether, if it is true, it will make a great deal of difference to the existing situation in the Far East, the reader is as well able to judge for himself as I am. My only criticism of the scenario is that too many sinister Orientals do too many important things in too many widely separated places in too few days; but perhaps I am being pernickety.
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