Nation: Visitors from China

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Red China last week provided a large share of Washington's worries, but it was the other China that attracted firsthand attention in the nation's capital. Mme, Chiang Kaishek, wife of the Generalissimo, continued the "unofficial" visit she began last month, charming her hosts at a luncheon with 60 Senators and at a dinner given by Dean Rusk—and all the while discussing the danger of admitting Red China to the United Nations. Her wit and ebullience only served to increase the mystery of another, more retiring Nationalist Chinese visitor—one whom she knows well: Defense Minister Chiang Chingkuo, the Generalissimo's son by his first marriage and his political heir apparent.

Enigmatic Element. Part of the mystery about Chiang derives from the fact that for years he held only semivisible posts in the Nationalist government. These assignments, together with his envy-inspiring parentage, forced him to operate backstage and left his position in the Nationalist hierarchy somewhat uncertain. He emerged from the shadows only this year, at age 56, to become Defense Minister. When Vice President Chen Cheng died in March, any doubts that Chiang would succeed his father as Nationalist China's chief vanished. Another enigmatic element in Chiang's career is the twelve years he spent in the Soviet Union (1925-37). Accounts of his last ten years there, when Stalin was feuding with Chiang Kaishek, are vague and controversial.

Like many another rising foreign dignitary, Chiang came to Washington at least partly to boost his international stock and to make himself more visible; his father, after all, is now 77. Invited by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Chiang and his entourage were greeted by an honor guard and a 19-gun salute. Then the lean, bareheaded American and the short, stocky Chinese with the Homburg disappeared for a series of conferences. Just before leaving Taipei, Chiang had declared that "a final and decisive war between Communist and Nationalist Chinese forces is inevitable," but he was much more restrained in Washington. His and McNamara's joint communiqué said simply that they had discussed the Asian situation, the question of Formosan aid to Viet Nam (the U.S. does not want it), and U.S. military aid to Formosa (which has declined to about $70 million a year). Chiang went to a series of dinners and cocktail parties, saw President Johnson for 30 minutes, and called on his stepmother daily in her suite at the Shoreham.

Same Leopard. Nationalist China is worried about being forgotten in the press of other Asian problems facing the U.S. Chiang argued again last week that the Nationalists should seek a beachhead on the Chinese mainland before Chinese Communist nuclear strength grows any greater. "You can never expect a leopard to change its spots," he said. "The only change we can visualize is the return of our government to the mainland." The U.S. gave him no encouragement; it opposes any such move as of now. But U.S. officials consider Chiang a capable heir to President Chiang, and they are pleased that the line of succession in Formosa now seems clearly drawn. A power struggle on the island might allow Peking to gain through politics what the Nationalist Army and the U.S. Seventh Fleet have denied it through invasion.