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Show deLlnd lite JdeadlineS "Peace and Prosperity" and whether we can have either, still are the biggest issues in Washington Wash-ington as they are throughout the rest of the country today. Russia's unrelenting efforts to get the U. S. to agree to a summit sum-mit conference are second only to the "recession issue" as the chief topic of conversation. And the act Communis China and her puppet, North Korea, have been putting on during the talks at SEATO in Manila has drawn more attention to that area of the world than at any time since the Formosan crisis or the end of the war in Korea. This has been especially true since it coincided coincid-ed with the Indonesian civil war. Washington saw red for a few anxious days more than a week ago when Communist North Ko-hean Ko-hean aircraft, made in Russia, shot down an American fighter plane that admittedly strayed over the truce line between North and South Korea. We then breathed a little more easily and thought we could see what the Communists were up to when they offered to free the American Ameri-can pilot who parachuted behind the Red lines. This followed North Korea's pirating of a South Korean airliner and their surprise sur-prise release of the unharmed American Air Force crewmen on board. Clearly, this was a little more than coincidence. For at the same moment, Communist Com-munist China and North Korea were also announcing the withdrawal with-drawal of the Chinese troops who have occupied North Korea since their ill fated intervention prolonged the Korean war. They proclaimed their willingness willing-ness to discuss the long-delayed reunification of Korea and the drafting of a final peace treaty replacing the uneasy armistice. They reconvened the U N truce supervisory commission to make more propaganda. They even indicated in-dicated a willingness to talk about a compromise on our demands de-mands for United Nations supervised super-vised free elections to be held throughout Korea. To the south, Red Chinese batteries bat-teries continued to lob shells on Chiang Kai Shek's Formosan stronghold. However, these have slackened off. The propaganda barrage against Chiang fell off. There were even frequent reports re-ports deliberatley leaked from Communist China, it is apparent that Peiping might compromise her claim to Formosa. There were reports that the Chinese Reds would accept Kia-shek Kia-shek into a coalition regime, governing gov-erning all China, in which, however, how-ever, he knows he would be gobbled gob-bled up. There have been proposals pro-posals that Chiang could be ap-painted ap-painted Formosa's governor, rec ognizing his rule over the key off shore island under Peiping. The specific olive branch offers are not as important as that Peiping is waving an olive branch at all. Peiping is following the same line in Indo-China, where, as in Korea, she is also offering to discuss the re-unification of Viet-Nam, Viet-Nam, but as in Korea, the war still is too recent and well remembered re-membered and no one is taken in. Undaunted, Peiping is busily concluding, or trying to wrap up trade and cultural deals in Asia and the Pacific. She has launched a program of economic foreign aid for Asia, similar to Russia's has enlarged her mission in India, In-dia, has offered a generous aid scheme for Ceylon, is inching her way into her pro-Western Pakistan through Communist front organizations and "fellow travelers," and says she wants to ally herself with the British Commonwealth's Colombo Plan, for raising Asian living standards. stand-ards. Red China's Mao Tse-tung and Premier Chou En-lai are stressing stress-ing the demlitarization of the Chinese economy in contrast to Chiang's war-time footing and threatened mainland invasion. They talk about homing for the same cultural exchanges with even the United States that Moscow Mos-cow has concluded, about appearances ap-pearances by charmer Chou on American TV one day as Nikita Kruschchev has appeared, "if only the war lords in Washington Washing-ton would relent." Peiping accused the SEATO talks of fomenting war and also stressed her own availability as a mediator in Pakistan's dispute with India over Kashmir, even in the Arab-Israeli dispute and during the Indonesian civil war. Peiping is also campaigning against U. S. atomic tests again, but ignoring Rusisan A tests now actually being conducted. Obviously, Red China sought to make the West appear warlike war-like in comparison during the anti-communist South East Asia Treaty organization conference. But Peiping seems up to more than that. Russia is seeking, almost frantically, fran-tically, to arrange a summit parley par-ley at which Moscow wants more "Communist participants" to sit in to balance the west's numerical numeri-cal superiority in past summit and UN disarmament negotiations. negotia-tions. Krushchev has said that he wants Red China "in" and Red China wants "in." So, no doubt, both have been "breaking their necks" to persuade all that Communist China has become a more respectable member of the world community. |