A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
HE dispatch of British troops to Korea has been an obvious possibility for the last four weeks. A very easy and a very economical way of averting or anyhow delaying the decision end them would have been for the Chinese Communists to have e some sort:of demonstration against Hongkong. It would , in practice, have been necessary for them to divert My troops more serious tasks ; propaganda, rumours, tightening or re- usting of frontier controls and other forms of bluff would have e the trick. It seems an obvious gambit, with no risks attached, if it had come off might have led to a gratifying deterioration Anglo-American relations as well as weakening the build-up inst the North Koreans. One can make various deductions from non-employment of this simple ruse. Those who see Stalin as uppet-master initiating and controlling every gesture made by atic Communism may argue that the idea didn't occur to him that he didn't think it worth while. My own_guess is that it n't done because Mao Tse-tung didn't happen to want to do it. the truth is probably far more complicated than either of these utions ; it almost always is, in Asia. * * * *
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