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When Douglas MacArthur went to Formosa in August, the dismay of the U.S. State Department was audible all the way to Mao's palace. When MacArthur decided to warn publicly against the loss of Formosa, against "those who in the past propagandized . . . defeatism and appeasement in the Pacific," he was silenced by presidential command. By last week the net result of the U.S. action on Formosa had been to suspend the Nationalist sea-air blockade and thereby to open the ports of Red China for copper, oil and armaments from the West.
Mao was not appeased. He struck on Oct. 26, and when the U.N., the U.S. and the British tried further appeasement, Mao flung back taunts and prepared for his great effort.
Mao's army has the immediate advantage of numbers. In the year since the conquest of China, Mao has built up his forces steadily. They are 2,500,000 strong, divided into four huge field armies. Their rigidly enforced discipline is the marvel of China. They are intensively trained by vigilant officers, intensively indoctrinated by even more vigilant political commissars. The best is Lin Piao's army; it overran Manchuria and North China, now leads the assault in Korea.
The Army Comes First. Stalin has supplied Mao with arms as well as thousands of Russian advisers. The Chinese Red air force counts some 500 planes, including MIG-15 Soviet jet fighters. Behind the Chinese horde stands the full military, diplomatic and propaganda might of Russia. Red Russia and Red China are formally allied by treaties signed in Moscow last February by Mao and Stalin. Their actual bonds are closer: identity of aim and lifelong Communist discipline.
As has always been the case with Mao's brand of Communist warlordism, other parts of his program have lagged far behind the growth of military strength. Most of Mao's social and economic promises to China's people have been put aside. Although many Western observers expected a rise in living standards to follow the end of the civil war, the opposite has happened. Living standards in most of China have fallen since Mao took over, largely because of the disruption and liquidation of the merchant (distributor) class. Railroads and other public services are much more efficiently managed than during the civil war. Inflation has been checked, largely because taxes are more ruthlessly collected. Official bribery has undoubtedly decreased (because Communists are by nature more susceptible to the corruption of power than to corruption by money). No significant systematic land reform has taken place. There have been some paper land-reform measures, plus a sort of reform by political boodle, i.e., some supporters of the Reds have grabbed property owned by enemies of the Reds. The Communist propaganda hold on the lower and middle schools is increasingly effective. Many of the people are bitterly disillusioned with Communism, but they have no program for resisting or combatting it.