United Nations: The Recalcitrant Candidate

UNITED NATIONS

The delegate from the small western African nation of Niger took the floor in the General Assembly last week as the latest installment began in the perennial debate over admitting Red China to the U.N. “We in Niger have suffered from subversion prepared and financed by Peking,” declared Representative Amadou Hassane, recalling Peking’s attempts at troublemaking in black Africa. “Communist China does not in any way fulfill the requirements for membership in the United Nations.”

His message could hardly have been more clear. Yet Hassane speaks for a diminishing viewpoint among U.N.members. This year Peking’s friends claim that in a simple majority test, the seating issue would be carried by five or more votes. That sounded high to most experts, but there was no doubt that the tally for Red China would be greater than in 1963, when a simple majority failed by 16 votes. A lot has happened since then; most of the new African members favor Red Chinese ad mission, and France has switched to the Peking side, leaving the U.S. as the only major Western power opposing Red China’s membership.

Even if Peking’s supporters do win a majority, that does not necessarily mean that Red China will get in. For they must also win a majority to change the present ruling that requires a two-thirds approval before Red China may be seated. Many nations, notably Great Britain, favor admitting Red China—but only on a two-thirds majority.

A curious aspect to the whole furor is that not even Peking’s most ardent supporters are certain that the Red Chinese really want in. Last month Red China’s Foreign Minister Chen Yi laid down what could only be considered impossible conditions. He declared that his government will never apply for membership; it simply expects its “legitimate rights in the U.N.” to be restored by kicking out Nationalist China and giving the Reds that seat. Furthermore, he demanded that the U.N. must rescind its 1951 resolution branding Red China an aggressor in Korea, and undergo a complete reorganization.

So long as the Red Chinese feel that way, warned U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, admitting them to the U.N. “would be tantamount to yielding to undisguised blackmail.” Even so, Peking’s friends in the U.N. pressed ahead for a showdown vote that was likely to come this week.