FORMOSA: RIGHT OR WRONG?
SIR,—May I suggest that the Formosa dispute has never been adequately examined as a question of right or wrong?
I submit that it was very wrong indeed of Presi- dent Eisenhower to reverse President Truman's policy of neutralisation in the Formosa area. It was wrong to invade Formosa in order to make it a bastion in the American defence system, and it was wickedly wrong to provide the Chinese Nationalists with full-scale equipment of every sort for 'invasion and to provide bombers to enable them to raid the mainland. It was manifestly wrong to drift on for three years without making any attempt to reach a peaceful international settlement when it could have been tried without any loss of face, and it was stupidly wrong to turn Quemoy into a fortress which could only be defended by a nuclear attack on the mainland.
The American Government and our own have gone on drifting until we are faced with the question whether the Americans will join the Nationalists in 'an attack on the mainland of China, in spite of urgent warnings from the Russians that they will join the Chinese Communists in its defence. If we believe that President EisenhoWer's policy has been wrong from the start, and has gone from bad to worse, it is obviously our duty to make it perfectly clear (and to make it clear now) that if the Americans do attack the mainland we will have nothing what- ever to do with it. And, further, that we shall ask President Eisenhower to remove all his forces and wcapons from this country.—Yours faithfully,
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