The Next Step in China
The Chinese have very sensibly sought to improve their equivocal position at the United Nations by taking the offensive. They accuse Russia of violating the Sino-Russian Treaty of friendship and alliance of 1945 and of threatening China's political independence and territorial integrity, and their request that the matter should be placed on the agenda has received British and American support. ,Their case has been strengthened by the revival, by their Communist itclversaries, of claims to the sovereignty of Tibet, which, though the vast majority of the Chinese people do not know where or what it is, is still shown as forming part of Chinese territory on Chinese atlases. The consolidation, now in progress, of a " People's Govern- ment " at Peking has, however, brought one stage nearer the recognition—sooner or later inevitable—of the Communist regime by the Western Powers ; and it is sincerely to be hoped that the United States and Great Britain will find it possible to take parallel, if not joint, action in a matter whose settlement will alone make it practicable to put in hand the rehabilitation of our interests in China. At Shanghai these have been brought to a very low ebb, but the latest adviccs suggest that faint rays of hope are beginning for the first time to dawn on that distressed city. Though the effects of the Nationalist blockade are still crippling, the price of rice has begun to fall, the fantastic exchange-rate shows signs of readjusting itself and some of the more exacting regulations imposed by the Com- munists on foreigners are being relaxed. It is to be hoped that the impending return to this country of Sir Ralph Stevenson, the British Ambassador in Nanking, may help Mr. Bevin to reach a modus vivendi with the de facto rulers of China.
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