Butler in the Waiting Room

Britain and the U.S. are having a serious difference over Formosa. Last week Clement Attlee brought it right into the open. In a public statement, the Prime Minister drew a careful line between U.N. action in Korea, which Britain supports, and U.S. action in Formosa, which Britain opposes. Added Attlee, obviously for the ears of China's Communist regime: "I think that is understood in China."

No Infallibility. Behind Attlee's remarks is the clamor of left-wing press and politicians, who seem unimpressed by the humiliating fact that the Red government has ignored Britain's offer of diplomatic recognition. The New Statesman & Nation, as toplofty and ill-informed as ever, singled out Douglas MacArthur as the chief villain, solemnly assured its readers that he alone would be to blame if a general war broke out in Asia. China specialists in official posts echoed the line. "The British government sees no papal infallibility about MacArthur," snapped one British diplomat. Peevishly he denounced the general's recent visit to Formosa as "flatfooted diplomacy." The outcry muffled the quieter misgivings, mostly among Conservatives, about the wisdom of the government's China policy.

Though the Chinese Communist regime had pointedly snubbed the British (TIME, April 17), though last week Chinese Communist guns were shelling British and other shipping around Hong Kong, the British government still feared to be the least bit beastly to the Chinese Communists, still had hopes that Mao Tse-tung might become an Asian Tito.

No Equality. In the discussions next month between Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and Secretary of State Dean Acheson in Washington the U.S. will continue to reject the British viewpoint. But the U.S. itself, unless it changes its own line again, will defend a position that is also based on inconsistency. The U.S. Government, though it is pledged to the defense of Formosa, is still unwilling to work in anything like partnership with the Nationalist government on Formosa, and never misses a chance to make the point clear, even though an assault by the Reds would make partnership an absolute necessity. Furthermore, the State Department tacitly encouraged Whitehall's recognition of Red China last January.

To date, no one in State's gleaming headquarters in Foggy Bottom has gotten around to suggesting to Britain that it might be time to quit acting like an unwanted butler and to deal with the Reds as at least an equal. So far as is known, no one has ever gotten around to suggesting to Dean Acheson that the U.S. itself, if it is really facing the possibility of a fight with Formosa's Nationalists at its side, had better start treating Chiang Kaishek's forces as equals.