FORMOSAN FLASHPOINT
THE Asia Firsters are still vocal, of course, but it must be a long time now since all but the most foolish in Washington abandoned the hope that Chiang Kai-shek would one day return as liberator to the mainland of China. From that point it inevitably followed that the developing aim of American policy would be the isolation of Formosa and the prevention of such clashes between Chiang's men and Mao Tse-tung's as might involve America's armed forces in the area. But neither now nor in the future could there be any question of abandoning Formosa itself and the neighbour- ing Pescadores. Whatever their importance in the 'island chain' of America's defence (and that has been much exaggerated recently), they would clearly have to be defended against Communist China's aggression, and Chiang Kai-shek's ageing forces supported in their occupation of them. Provided that Communist China could be persuaded first that it was under no danger of attack from Formosa, and second, that an assault from the mainland against Formosa would certainly precipitate a major war, then the problem of Formosa could be left to time and the United Nations.
If it were simply a matter of the Communist mainland on the one side and Nationalist Formosa on the other, then the situation would be clear-cut and without ambiguity. But in fact it has been made dangerously complex by Chiang's occu- pation of a number of off-shore islands, some of them as close to the mainland as the Isle of Wight is to Portsmouth, which must beyond a doubt be described as 'Chinese.' The need for America to clarify its position grew exceedingly urgent as the Communists began to press home their attack on certain of these islands, an attack which brought alarmingly near the possibility of a local conflict exploding into a major war. What President Eisenhower had to do in his special Message to Congress was to state precisely America's commitment in the area and to draw for Communist China's benefit that line which must not be crossed.
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