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But China considers Taiwan its highest-priority problem—so the basic conflict is serious. The most likely solution is that the U.S. will agree to withdraw its insignificant force of some 9,000 military personnel from Taiwan, as China insists. The U.S. has long since stopped any regular naval patrols in the Taiwan Strait. It will not renounce its treaty obligation, and Peking could quietly agree not to attack the island, at least for the near future. This would amount to what has been euphemistically called "a one-China policy—but not now." The Chinese are not likely to attack Taiwan anyway; any such attempt would be a bloody and costly venture. China hopes that Chiang's regime will simply wither after the Generalissimo's death. Whatever the tactic, the long-range future of a non-Communist Chinese government on Taiwan is not bright. U.S. ADMISSION AND RECOGNITION. Bluntly,
Washington now considers Taiwan's position in the U.N. expendable and untenable. The U.S. is unlikely to vote for the admission of mainland China to the United Nations or the expulsion of Taiwan from the Security Council. But it can reasonably drop its insistence that China's admission is an important question requiring approval by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly. As a merely procedural question, admission would require only a majority vote. Since a majority (51 to 49) voted last year to admit China and that sentiment is clearly growing, the outcome seems certain. Taiwan has threatened to leave the U.N. should that happen. If it were clear that Taiwan would not do so, the U.S. could vote against—but not fight—an alternative Albanian resolution that calls for a simple majority vote on substituting Peking for Taiwan. Under these circumstances, it would likely carry. The U.S. decision on what it will do is expected to be announced this week—and was undoubtedly revealed to Chou by Kissinger.
The U.S. is one of 63 nations that still recognize Taiwan as the legal government of China. When Nixon meets Chou and Mao, he will—in effect, if not technically—be recognizing the Peking government. Some continuing diplomatic tie seems inevitable if the talks go well. It could begin below the ambassadorial level—but with skilled diplomats in the posts—to avoid immediate protocol problems. The difference between this and full-scale recognition would be mainly illusory.
How Others See It
As difficult and significant as those issues may be—and any one of them could conceivably disrupt a Nixon-Chou dialogue and negate the long and patient maneuvering to achieve a working relationship—a more important and less fathomable question looms. What of the Soviet Union? It is a far more formidable force in world affairs than China, and it must distrust any degree of Sino-American cooperation. The main motivation for China's new outward diplomatic push seems to be its desire to join the big-power chess game and check its glowering Communist neighbor, which last week made its naval presence known in the Indian Ocean by sending a warship into Singapore's harbor. The most evident thing that the U.S. is giving China is big-power status —well before it has developed the economy, technology or political muscle to merit it.