CHINA: So Cold

Barring miracles, Chiang Kai-shek was beaten. Most (if not all) of China would soon be added to the eleven countries or parts of countries run by the Communists. Control of all China, together with the areas he already held, would place 40% of the world's population in Stalin's grasp.

Last week Chiang still held (nominally) far more territory than he had in the worst years of the Japanese war. Then, however, most Chinese wanted him to keep on resisting the enemy. Now, it seemed, most Chinese wanted him to quit.

The conviction of defeat was strongest among the educated, the influential, the rich. The peace-at-any-price tide welled right up to the door of Chiang's study. His indomitable will directed China to go on fighting, but in the absence of the people's confidence, one man's will was not a resistance.

Blood Pressure. Three weeks ago Chiang had appointed as Premier Sun Fo, son of the great Sun Yatsen. Sun Fo last week was recovering from a leg operation and suffering from high blood pressure. He had not slept for nights. He had invited leader after leader to serve in his cabinet. None wanted to share the responsibility of continuing the war. After Paul Hoffman's Shanghai press conference (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Sun Fo went to Chiang with the proposal that the new cabinet be given Chiang's permission to seek a deal with the Communists that would end the war.

When he emerged from his interview with the Gimo, Sun Fo's blood pressure hit 200. In a padded blue gown he hobbled around his study and roared at an American visitor: "You are fighting a cold war against Communists throughout the world, yet in China your policy appears aimed at hastening our government's disintegration. It seems we aren't collapsing fast enough to suit your taste."

Early this week Sun Fo finally succeeded in forming a cabinet. It contained some known to favor appeasing the Communists, but it also contained thoroughly anti-Communist Chen Li-fu. Observers recalled, however, that Chen has long opposed the Gimo's campaign to wipe out Communism in North China. Chen wanted to organize a strong anti-Communist free China south of the Yangtze.

Frigid Ruin. A deal along those lines, instead of a Communist-dominated government for all China, might be shaping up. In either case, the Communist boss, Mao Tse-tung, would probably demand that Chiang Kai-shek leave office. There seemed to be little disposition in China to resist such a demand.

A non-Communist China south of the Yangtze could not expect permanent peace with the Communist north. And it could not survive if the U.S. pursued toward it the same frigid policy that had helped ruin Chiang Kaishek. A free south China, however, would give Washington another chance to develop a positive policy before all Asia was lost.

Meanwhile, as Chiang's military situation worsened daily, Washington gave no sign that it would send additional military aid to China. Madame Chiang Kai-shek's mission to Washington had failed. In Nanking, this week, one of Chiang's secretaries mournfully said: "We hope Madame is home by Christmas; it is so cold in Washington."