Washington

on the World Today

ONE of the guiding principles of American foreign policy in the post-war years has been that Communist Russia would eventually reach a state of maturity where the desire to protect domestic achievements would outweigh the ambition to engage in risky foreign conquests. The corollary arguments were that in the meantime America and its allies must maintain a formidable defense system to deter the Kremlin and must assist in the development of effective economic and political systems in the underdeveloped countries subject to Communist penetration. It was the adherence of successive Administrations in Washington to these principles that subdued those who advocated a showdown or preventive war with the Soviets.

Now the same argument is under way in connection with American policy toward Communist China. Mao Tse-tung is more explicit in his support of wars of liberation than Stalin or Khrushchev. From his words, he would appear to be ready to run graver risks. His challenge comes at a time, moreover, when Washington’s confidence in foreign aid as an effective instrument to bring underdeveloped countries into the twentieth century has been undermined, because it seems to be too slow to meet the current threats and because the population explosion has eroded many of the economic achievements.

Peking’s challenge

The long war in Vietnam, the steady movement of Indonesia into the Communist orbit, the breakup of Malaysia, the Indo-Pakistan fighting, and China’s undeclared war on India suggest unparalleled dangers to the peace and to America’s Asian policies. On top of all these, Peking has produced a document directly challenging the United States and proclaiming undying hostility. Not for a long time has official Washington given so much attention to a single document. It has been compared to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Nasser’s A Philosophy of Revolution, and various pronouncements by Stalin and Khrushchev. But Khrushchev’s famous 1961 declaration in support of wars of liberation did not go so far or challenge the United States so directly as this new document from Peking, entitled “Long Live the Victory of the People’s War.” It is signed by Marshal Lin Piao, Vice-Premier and Minister of Defense. Some experts think, however, that it was drafted by Mao Tse-tung.

“It has become an urgent necessity for the people in many countries to master and use people’s war as a weapon against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys,” Marshal Lin says. He attacks the “Khrushchev revisionists" for fearing war and for aiding the United States. He declares that time will never vitiate China’s revolutionary spirit. Mao is given chief credit for defeating Japan in World War II because he “developed his thought on the establishment of rural base areas and the use of the countryside to encircle the cities and finally capture them.”

“Taking the entire globe,” the marshal says, “if North America and Western Europe can be called ‘the cities of the world,’ then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute ‘the rural areas of the world.’ ” He calls for the people “throughout the world to unite all forces that can be united and form the broadest possible united front for a converging attack on U.S. imperialism.” The United States, he says, “is the most rabid aggressor in human history and the most ferocious common enemy of the people of the world. . . . It can be split up and defeated. The peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and other regions can destroy it piece by piece, some striking at its head and others at its feet.” After calling the United States “a paper tiger,” the marshal declares that war entails only temporary suffering and “is repaid by lasting or even perpetual peace and happiness.” Indeed, “war can temper the people and push history forward. In this sense, war is a great school.”

The Washington Sinologists maintain that there is little original in the Lin document but that it does pull together in one piece the major principles Mao has espoused. Peking is clearly stating its aim of bringing within its orbit the entire underdeveloped world and removing both American and Soviet influence. The document explains China’s opposition to peace negotiations in Vietnam and its determination to keep constant pressure on India as the major democratic force in Asia, and it makes clear why Chou En-lai and others have spent so much time in recent months in Africa. The paper also is viewed as a policy statement in advance of the Afro-Asian conference in Algeria scheduled for this month.

Paper tiger?

If Washington were to take at face value everything in the Lin article, there would be very little reason to argue against those who think war with China is inevitable and that the sooner the better. But the most respected Washington experts state that while China is a formidable force in Asia and that while the Communist Party hold on the Chinese people appears to be unbreakable, Peking itself may be a paper tiger.

China’s aged leadership has acted with cageyness and great restraint. It backed away from a clash with the United States over Quemoy and Matsu; it has not risked war over Taiwan; it has not yet sent troops to Vietnam; although it has harassed India constantly, it has not run the risk of a prolonged and costly conflict involving the United States. Its successes in Africa have been small. Its influence is not total even in North Korea, North Vietnam, or Cuba. Soviet influence in all three countries appears to be increasing. China’s economic strength, despite its development of the nuclear bomb, is small compared with the Soviet Union’s. China’s chances of winning important converts in the Arab world were blunted with the overthrow of Ben Bella in Algeria.

No one in official Washington expects peace while China follows the Mao-Lin doctrine. Yet the American government at the present time is continuing to seek to avoid war with China if at all possible. It is not impressed by China’s military might or by its ability to create a powerful military instrument in the next few decades. China’s capacity for mischief, however, is not underrated. Nor is the weakness of the nations that are on China’s list for subversion and infiltration.

The plight of the underfed

The plight of the underdeveloped world is, indeed, a constant source of concern in Washington. In many departments of the government men and women are trying to devise methods of attacking what appears to be the most troublesome threat to peace next to Communist China. The only encouraging aspect of the studies that have been made is that China’s food shortages and population growth prevent it from becoming the major power it seeks to be.

One of these studies was written in 1964 by Lester R. Brown of the Department of Agriculture. His report, entitled Man, Land and Food, has now been followed by another, entitled Increasing World Food Output. Brown’s major conclusion in his new study is simple and stark: “ The less-developed world is losing the capacity to feed itself.” Not only is there no overall improvement; the problem is becoming worse because of the population increase. We are confronted with a classical Malthusian situation. It obviously makes more countries ripe for revolution. The crisis has been delayed in the last few years because the United States and Canada have assumed a steadily increasing share of the burden of feeding the underdeveloped countries.

Brown reports that food output per person in Asia, Africa, and Latin America “dropped sharply” during World War II, improved somewhat in the 1950s, declined again in the 1960s. Before the war, the less developed countries exported about eleven million tons of grain annually to the developed countries. During the first years after the war, the less developed countries were forced to import four million tons of grain a year. As their populations expanded, the demand for food expanded. By the late 1950s they were importing thirteen million tons of grain per year. Now they import twenty-five million tons a year.

In the past, man usually increased his food supply by expanding the area under cultivation. “But today many densely-populated, less-developed countries have nearly exhausted the supply of new land that can readily be brought under cultivation,”Brown says. He believes that if the population explosion continues as predicted, the underdeveloped countries in the next thirtyfive years “will need to develop an additional food production capacity equal to current world capacity.”

Increasing the yield

The developed countries have met their food needs in recent years by increasing the yield per acre. In North America, for example, yield per acre has increased 109 percent in twenty-five years; in Asia the increase has been 7 percent. According to Brown, the central question is, “How quickly can the less-developed countries make the transition from the area-expanding method of increasing food output to the yield-raising method of increasing food output?” Put another way the question might be, How rapidly can the less developed countries check their population growth? To increase food production requires higher literacy levels, enormous investments in fertilizers and farm machinery, and new freedoms for the farmer.

Brown estimates that food output per person in Asia has dropped 4 percent since 1961; the decline has been sharper in China. It is a limiting factor in Peking’s military and foreign policies. And it is a severely limiting factor, as Walt W. Rostow has argued for years, in China’s industrial development. Despite improvements in total agricultural production since the disastrous crop failures of 1959-1961, per capita food consumption in mainland China still is less than it was in 1957.

Washington experts have no way of knowing what China’s food stocks amount to, but they doubt that they are large or that they can be easily increased. Moreover, they say that China, once the third largest rice exporter after Burma and Thailand, is now well down the list, with the United States having replaced it in third spot.

Another reason for China’s grain imports is logistical. It is difficult to persuade the peasant to part with his produce and difficult to transport it to the coastal cities. Yet the cost of the imports is exceedingly high. Nearly 40 percent of China’s scarce foreign exchange has been used for food and fertilizer imports, when the regime would unquestionably prefer to use the money for industrial products.

As the United States has stepped up its food exports under the Food for Peace program, American food stocks have declined. The wheat carry-over is down to about 900 million bushels compared with a 1957 1961 average carry-over of 1.2 billion bushels. The corn carry-over is about 1.1 billion bushels compared with a 1.6 billion average for 19571961. It is by no means impossible that in a relatively few years the American government, instead of imposing restrictions on farm production, will be forced to encourage production. With severe food shortages threatening half the world, it is as necessary to have food reserves as it is to have reserves of aluminum, copper, and guns. Canada for years has considered its excess farm production an asset rather than a liability, and it is now benefiting from the riches it has accumulated.

Mood of the Capital

President Johnson is a man of many moods and temperaments. During the Dominican Republic crisis last spring he appeared to be wildly charging off in all directions, holding press conferences and making speeches on the spur of the moment, seeking to justify his actions with public explanations.

When later he considered the problem of building up American forces in Vietnam, those who spent long hours with him in the Cabinet room maintain that he was a leader who was at once restrained and bold in his consideration of the alternatives before him.

The same manner was apparent when the fighting developed between India and Pakistan and when China began making its demands on India. Instead of debating the issues in public, the President sought seclusion and spent much time with his diplomatic and military advisers.

As a result, Washington and the country read the frightening headlines with more calm than would otherwise have been the case. It was a time for secret diplomacy, and the President was right in seeking a solution without fanfare.