For the first time, Red China has allowed its highest diplomat in the United States, Han Hsu, to make a public speech. The occasion was the graduation ceremonies at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois.
Whereas most commencement speakers use their platform to give words of wisdom to the eager graduates, Han Hsu used it to demand that the United States abandon Taiwan and allow Red China to take it over.
Han warned ominously that Mainland China won’t be friends with America unless we withdraw from Taiwan and allow the Communists to “liberate” Taiwan. “When and how,” he said, “is entirely China’s internal affair, an internal affair which brooks no foreign interference whatsoever.”
After throwing down this gauntlet, Han went on to paint his vision of the future. He predicted that, by the end of the century, China will become a powerful Socialist country with the help of other industrialized nations.
If prizes were given for crass arrogance, Han Hsu would win in a walk. Here is a guest in our country using a college commencement as a platform (1) to announce the intent to invade a peaceful neighbor, (2) to demand that the U.S. abandon a longtime and faithful ally, and (3) to predict that free, industrialized America will help Red China to become a powerful Socialist country.
Unfortunately, Ambassador Han has some reason to believe that the Carter Administration looks with favor on such policies. At the same time that Han was delivering his ultimatum and predictions, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Adviser, was visiting in Mainland China with the avowed purpose of warming up a_ friendship between the two countries.
The timing of Brzezinski’s trip was particularly unfortunate. His itinerary took him to Red China the very same weekend that ceremonies were taking place in Taiwan for the inauguration of the new President, Chiang Ching-kuo. Brzezinski made stops in Japan and South Korea on the way to and from Red China, but pointedly bypassed Taiwan.
Reviewing the tone of Ambassador Han’s speech, it is probable that the dictators of Mainland China served notice on the Carter Administration that, if any U.S. official dared to make a courtesy stop at Taiwan on the way to Mainland China, then Red China officials wouldn’t deign to talk with the Americans about extending aid and trade to the Red Chinese regime.
The whole idea of trying to make friends with Red China on such insulting terms so that they will be gracious enough to accept our aid and trade is one more example of our topsy-turvy policies of humiliating our friends in order to toady to our enemies. They make no sense morally or commercially.
Red China was responsible for the deaths of thousands of American servicemen in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and openly threatens further aggression. Taiwan (the Republic of China) has remained faithful to the United States, even during World War II when Japan offered a tempting separate peace under which it would pull its million invaders out of China and use them against the United States.
Commercially, Taiwan is a prosperous cash customer that pays its bills. Its booming economy is highly attractive to U.S. private investments. With 17 million people, Taiwan’s foreign trade far exceeds that of Red China with 900 million people. Red China lacks products to sell and lacks cash to buy from us, so any “trade” must be subsidized by the American taxpayers.
Proof of the poverty and tyranny on Mainland China is that every year hundreds of young men and women attempt the Tong, dangerous swim to Hong Kong. Despite hundred-to-one odds of conquering the distance and eluding Red gunners and man-eating sharks, the best and the brightest, those who enjoy the cream of whatever Red China has to offer, jump at the opportunity to escape to freedom.
