240. Editorial Note
At its 314th meeting on February 28, the National Security Council discussed NSC 5707, “Review of Basic National Security Policy: Basic Problems for U.S. Security Arising Out of Changes in the World Situation”. (A copy of NSC 5707, dated February 19, is in Department of State, S/S–NSC Files: Lot 63 D 351. NSC 5707/8, which was adopted by the NSC on June 3, is scheduled for inclusion in the National Security compilation in a forthcoming volume.) The NSC discussion on February 28 focused, in part, upon “the rising position of Communist China”, and Special Assistant Cutler read to the Council a statement of the problem and the consequences for United States security, as framed by the Planning Board:
“The Problem:
“Communist China continues its economic and military growth. It is increasingly treated as a great power in the international community, passing its potential local rivals for leadership in the Far East and exerting greater influence in the Communist bloc.
“Consequences for U.S. Security include:
- “a. Implications for Free Asia. Non-Communist Asians are increasingly sensitive to Peiping’s preponderant military power and rapid economic growth. Neither of its potential rivals, India or Japan, exerts a successful counter-influence in the area. Elsewhere, most of the other Free Asian states, including India, have been unable to match its rapid economic development.
- “b. Acceptance. Present trends will require increasing effort and resources in order for the United States to prevent Communist China from being admitted to the UN and recognized by additional Governments, and could ultimately jeopardize the continuation of an independent Taiwan unless protected by an acceptable general settlement.
- “c. Sino-Soviet Relations. The increasing role of Communist China in the affairs of the bloc could create opportunities for the United States to exert divisive pressures on Sino-Soviet relations.”
Secretary Dulles took exception to the assumptions upon which he felt the statement presented by Cutler was premised:
“Secretary Dulles replied that he disagreed more strongly with this portion of NSC 5707 than with any other part of the report. It seemed to him that the statement on the rising position of Communist China fully accepted the view that Communist China represented the wave of the future for Asia and that we must accommodate ourselves to this alleged fact. Such views as to the wave of the future prevailed not so very long ago with respect to the Soviet Union in Europe, but certain things had happened, and happened quite recently, to make the situation appear quite otherwise. These same people [Page 492] now feel that the wave of the future is with the Free World countries and not the Communist powers. Everywhere in the world the local Communist Parties have weakened, their discipline gone and their loyalty to Moscow seriously impaired. Indeed, Communist weakness generally had been so exposed that the Communist regimes could no longer even be sure of the loyalty of their own younger generations, who had been brought up with knowledge of nothing but Communist regimes. Thus Communism is not the wave of the future, but is rather a receding wave.
“Secretary Dulles further predicted that developments would in the future come in Communist China which would just as effectively prove that Communism was not the wave of the future in Asia as events had already proved that Communism was not the wave of the future in Europe. Therefore, Secretary Dulles thought that there was no point whatsoever in the argument that we must make some kind of a bargain with Communist China in order to save Taiwan—for example, admitting Communist China into the United Nations. In the future—perhaps in one year, two years, five years—Communist China will be on the defensive. There is no need for the United States or the Free World, therefore, to accommodate to the Communist Chinese and give them what they want—the view which seems to be implicit in this section of NSC 5707. Indeed, NSC 5707 might be described as a rather dangerous paper.”
Dulles concluded at the end of the discussion that “the course of action which would most certainly undermine the Chinese National Government on Taiwan and lose the island to the Communists would be a general settlement between the United States and Communist China”. The President agreed.