The China Problem Today

No change in the last decade rivals that which has taken place in the situation of China. The military victory of the Chinese Communist forces on the mainland in 1949-50 and the removal of the Nationalist government to Taiwan have created a radically different milieu in which the China problem must be viewed today. Four elements in this situation are of key importance: the direction of developments within Com munist China as the Peking regime seeks to impose its coercive, high-speed program of modernization and social transformation on the Chinese people in an environment far different from that confronting the Bolsheviks in Russia in the 1920's; the benefits and liabilities derived from mainland China's special relation ship to the Soviet Union; the changes and pressures in China's Asian environment; and the influence of American military and political power on Chinese developments. Russia and the United States both exercise immediate and direct influence on China's domestic and international position, but neither can fully control the evolving relations between China and her Asian neighbors. In this area, signs of flexibility and change have appeared during the past decade. Committed to its Russian connection and opposed to all signs of neutralism within the Communist orbit, Communist China has been unable to yield to the appeals of Asian neutralism but has sought to find some ac commodation with it favorable to its own ends.