Kowtow, 1950

The might & majesty of imperial Britain exacted amends for the great Chinese snub of 1816 (see above). The Opium War was fought, Hong Kong gained, extraterritorial concessions yanked from the declining Celestial Empire. But by last week history seemed to have completed a cycle. A new dynasty ruled in Peking. A new demand for kowtow lay before His Britannic Majesty's government.

Last January, to protect their trade in the Far East, the British offered to recognize the new Communist regime. They expected an eager response. They got a rude snub. China's Red masters first kept the British dangling, then, last March 3, handed British Charge d'Affaires John C. Hutchison three extraordinary questions, implying that they would not accept British recognition unless the answers were favorable. Asked Peking:

P: Would London recognize the Chinese Communists in the U.N. Security Council? If Would London hand over to the Chinese Communists the Nationalist assets in British territory?

P:Would London clean up Nationalist "remnants" (i.e., political refugees) in Hong Kong?

A fortnight later London replied:

P: His Majesty's government would vote for the Chinese Communists in the U.N. Security Council when a majority of other nations would so vote. Meanwhile, British diplomacy was trying to line up such a majority.

CP: His Majesty's government would turn over to the Chinese Communists all Nationalist assets in British territory. This seemed to include the 71 planes sold by the Nationalists to a U.S. corporation headed by Major General Claire Chennault (TIME, March 6)--an asset still under dispute in the British courts.

P: His Majesty's government would continue to give political asylum in Hong Kong to Nationalists, as it had to Communists.

Peking has not yet signified its pleasure or displeasure over the British reply.

In Parliament, meanwhile, Conservative Major Charles Mott-Radclyffe has heatedly berated the government's kowtowish attitude--"This extremely humiliating position of offering unilateral recognition . . . without in turn receiving recognition ourselves." Conservative Air Commodore Arthur V. Harvey fumed over the disposal of former Nationalist planes in Hong Kong and shipments of British aircraft engines and frames to Red China: "It seems extraordinary that when we are accepting aid from our friends in the U.S. we should be handing over equipment in this way." Major Tufton Beamish quoted the 1920 prophecy of Stalin: "England's back will be broken, not on the banks of the Thames, but on the Yangtze, the Ganges and the Nile."

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