THE NATION: Eyes East

Like a great camera panning across the world, the diplomatic eyes of the U.S. shifted to the Far East. Amid the waning echoes of the Big Four conference at Geneva, a simultaneous announcement crackled out of Washington and Peking: ambassadors of the U.S. and Communist China would meet this week in Geneva to discuss "the matter of repatriation of civilians* who desire to return to their respective countries [and to] ... facilitate further discussions and settlement of certain other practical matters."

Off to the discussions at Geneva went Red China's Ambassador to Communist Poland, Wang Ping-nan, 47, a protégé of wily Premier Chou Enlai. From the U.S., after firm final guidance from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, went Ambassador Ural Alexis Johnson, 46, able career diplomat and specialist on northeast Asia. This will be no glare-bathed conference on general principles like the Parley at the Summit; chances are that it will be a long, quiet conference grinding away at details.

Getting the Tone. What details? What "other practical matters"? In his press conference last week, Dulles in effect listed three of the broad objectives. The U.S. wants Red China to 1) agree to adopt the U.S. principle of "no recourse to force," 2) order its marauding pilots to stop shooting down peaceful Western planes, and 3) join the U.S. in examining the possibility of ceasefire in the Formosa Strait. Should the parley at the base camp progress smoothly, Dulles might later be prepared to meet Chou Enlai.

As the ambassadors arrived in Geneva, Chou tested with his pitch pipe and sent forth the soft tone which has become so popular in the Kremlin. Said he to a Communist Party Congress in Peking: "The number of American civilians in China is small and their question can be easily settled . . . The Chinese people hope that the countries of Asia and the Pacific region, including the U.S., will sign a pact of collective peace."

But a sampling of Peking's press and radio comment showed that Red China was already picturing the Little Two parley as a pathway towards its traditional objectives: 1) surrender of Formosa, 2) membership for Red China in the U.N., 3) "strict fulfillment of the 1954 Geneva treaty on Indo-China," meaning that South Viet Nam must be surrendered in July 1956 by the device of rigged and improperly supervised elections. Communist propagandists suggested that if the U.S. persisted in stalling, Red China might have to make a show of force against the vulnerable offshore islands.

Don't Forget. From the Chinese Nationalists, who want the U.S. to fight the Chinese Communists rather than talk to them, came a bitter and anguished reaction. They feared that conference would mean concession. Cried the Nationalist daily Chi Yin of Hong Kong: "What lies in our future is dark, despicable and possibly sellout days."