Blockade and Bluff
Mao Tse-tung is in Moscow and Chiang Kai-shek is in Formosa, ,Hence it has been announced that the Nationalist navy is to begin mining all Communist-held ports on the China coast. This am- bitious project would be exceedingly difficult to carry out if what Is left of the Chinese navy had the ships, the equipment, the train- ing and the bases which it requires. Since the Nationalists dispose of none of these resources, and since few of their commanders lid none of their crews can be relied on not to desert to the other
•
side at the first favourable opportunity, the threat to-intensify their blockade must be largely bluff ; but imaginary minefields can be a deterrent almost as effective as real ones to shipping which is not, so to speak, equipped to prove a negative, and this latest move is likely by annoying the American and British Governments to hasten the withdrawal of diplomatic recognition from the remnants —now exiled outside Chinese territory—of the Kuomintang regime. Their last "stronghold "—the Tibetan border province of Sikiang- has announced its adherence to the Communist cause, and there seems to be no point at all in anyone continuing to pretend that the Nationalists are the rulers of China. The sooner London and Washington establish some sort of relations with Peking, the better it will be for everyone. This fact has been so obvious for so long that it is difficult to understand why nothing has been done about it up till now.
