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THE ROLE OF CHINA "29% the United States must withdraw its forces from the area, but for some time has refrained from any rash action either in fegard to Taiwan or the Nationalist-held offshore istands. 3. The Chinese say that since 1950 the United States has been engaged in active ageression against the People’s Republic of China, sometimes directly and sometimes through “its puppets,” the Nationalists on Taiwan. Prior to that time the United States supplied and often took direct part in Nationalist attempts to suppress the revolution, The United States is also regarded as having done everything possible to impede the Chinese economic \ construction through blockades, embargoes, and general pressure to isolate mainland China from the rest of the world. Therefore, the Chinese feel that in the interest of national security they can- not tolerate the presence on their borders of any American forces or of forces under American domination. Such presence will be ° met with military force, as happened in Korea and was threatened in Laos. 4. The Chinese fect that any government in eastern Asia which permits itself to become an outpost of American military power poses a threat to the peace of Asia and at least indirectly to the security of China. Chinese attitudes toward these countries vary with specific circumstances. Pakistan and Thailand are both mem- bers of SEATO, but there was considerable difference in the Chinese attitude toward them even before the development of the Sino- Indian dispute, Governments such as those in Thailand and South . Vietnam, which are associated with American military ventures involving Chinese interests, are treated as hostile, and the Chinese { give active support, including arms, financial aid, and other forms 7 of assistance, to the left-wing movements attempting to overthrow them. Thailand has recently become a special target because of the extensive American airbases there that are used in bombing ’ North Vietnam. The Chinese are less sensitive to American mili- lary activity in noncontiguous rations such as the Philippines. 5S. Where countries on China’s borders have taken a definitely neutral stand, the Chinese have adopted a policy of general non- interference even to the disadvantage of strong dissident left-wing groups, such as exist within Burma and Nepal. 6. Throughout the rest of the underdeveloped world, the Chi- XA