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> The U.S. should stop frowning whenever its allies try to establish relations with Peking. While Britain's and France's recognition of China does not seem to have done them much good, it is still valid to assume that the more contact Peking has with the West, the better. There seems to be no need for such expressions of "concern" as were heard from the State Department earlier this year when Canada announced its decision to negotiate recognition with Peking.
Beyond such steps, of course, remains the most troublesome issue: Taiwan. Washington steadfastly maintains that it is committed to Chiang Kai-shek's government, and by implication to his claim that he still heads the Republic of China. The U.S. is indeed committed to Chiang's regime by ties of history and honor. But it need not and cannot much longer sustain the fiction that Taiwan is China.
In his contribution to Agenda for the Nation, a Brookings Institution study of U.S. issues prepared last year for the incoming Administration, Reischauer says it is high time to admit that "continental China ruled from Peking is the true, historical China." The U.S. stand, he suggests, "should be that we recognize the existence of two separate political entities, whatever their names; that both merit representation in the United Nations; that we would not oppose reconciliation between Taiwan and the mainland if it should come; but that in the meantime the unit ruled from Peking is obviously the country assigned the permanent seat in the Security Council."
A Dramatic Opportunity
Senator Edward Kennedy has proposed a slightly different solution: both Chinas to be seated in the General Assembly, leaving to future discussion the allocation or abolition of the Security Council seat held by Nationalist China since 1945. The trouble with a two-China solution is, of course, that both Peking and Taipei bitterly denounce even the slightest suggestion of it. To skirt the problem, James Thomson has evolved a solution that he describes as "a step into ambiguity." If successful, it would temporarily shelve the Taiwan issue in its present form. Thomson advocates a tacit mutual acknowledgment of Peking's residual sovereignty over Taiwan, along with a similar acknowledgment of Taiwan's full autonomy. Such a vague status could be preserved until Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits could attempt to defuse the issue themselves.
The strongest case for an adjustment in U.S. China policy can be made in a larger, global context. Given the steady widening of the Sino-Soviet rift, the world power equation has changed dramatically. With the passing of monolithic Communism, interesting possibilities open up for U.S. diplomacy. The U.S. has tended to look "pro-Russian" in the Sino-Soviet conflict. If that becomes a permanent label, it will only serve to exacerbate Peking's paranoia about collusion between "imperialist" Washington and "revisionist" Moscow.