50. Since the Second World War, 700 million people in Asia and in Africa have risen from colonial or dependent status to independent nationhood. The world has good reason to rejoice over this momentous development. Although much of it has taken place outside of the United Nations the principles championed by this Organization have added to the impetus of the movement More directly, our Trusteeship Council has laboured hard and well in this field. Right now, more than 7 million people can look forward with pride and confidence to their imminent emergence from trusteeship. The Cameroons and Togoland under French administration and Somaliland under Italian administration will all attain independence in 1960. Likewise the Cameroons under United Kingdom administration will soon decide its own future through United Nations plebiscites. Western Samoa is also within sight of achieving the trusteeship objectives.
51. Although there are still remnants of colonial rule in the world, we can truly say that colonialism as a system is dead. This is, a great credit to the peoples who have achieved, or are about to achieve, national independence. It is also a great credit to the colonial or administering Powers. In this respect, the world has witnessed a revolution, in most cases, a bloodless revolution. My delegation is glad to pay this tribute to all the parties concerned,
52. My country, having suffered from colonialism and imperialism, naturally sympathizes with the dependent peoples struggling for freedom. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Father of the Republic of China, in his teachings repeatedly urged the Chinese people to give aid to the oppressed peoples of the world. My delegation has scrupulously followed the teachings of Dr. Sun in all our deliberations on colonial questions, and we shall continue to do so. The United Nations is, in my judgement, required to promote the freedom of the peoples and the sovereign equality of the nations. In this task, the United Nations must always bear in mind two guiding principles.
53. In the first place, all relationships of domination or exploitation of one people by another must be replaced with the relationship of free co-operation on terms of equality. Co-operation between peoples, I may add, as it is obvious, can take many forms. What is important is not the form of co-operation; what is important is that such co-operation should be free and equal. With this as our major premise, we understand that separation or independence is not the only road, or necessarily the best road, to national freedom.
54. The second guiding principle we should ever bear in mind, I submit, is that the change from the old relationship of domination or exploitation to the new relationship of friendship and co-operation should be made peacefully. The United Nations should try to prevent the use of force in this type of conflict as in international disputes.
55. In spite of some remnants of colonialism in the world, I am optimistic in this matter, except in one regard. This exception is as important as the general trend towards freedom.
56. Unfortunately, after the last World War, a counter-trend set in. While on the one hand, we have this development of 700 million people from colonial or dependent status to independence, we have also witnessed the subjection of peoples bordering the Soviet Union, with the resulting loss of freedom. Asian as well as European neighbours of the Soviet Union have suffered from this reactionary movement. The United Nations can never forget, and should never forgot, the situation and fate of the captive peoples of the world.
57. The general debate has already proceeded far. I note that the problem of the economic development of the under-developed countries has been emphasized by many speakers. The representative of Brazil, opening the general debate this year, devoted almost his entire speech [797th meeting] to this problem. He urged the United Nations to engage itself in a concentrated fight against under-development. The same theme has been incorporated in many of the other speeches. My delegation has listened to such pleas with deep sympathy and understanding. We likewise urge the United Nations, and particularly the industrialized nations, to give special attention to this problem.
58. The Secretary-General in his introduction to the annual report included a paragraph which we regard as very important. For this reason, may I be permitted to quote a part of that paragraph: “The most important United Nations activity in South-East Asia is related to the development of the lower basin of the Mekong River. Assistance to the co-operation among four riparian countries, Laos, Cambodia, the Republic of Viet-Nam (South Viet-Nam) and Thailand, which has been established with a view to furthering this development, is being given through the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East and the technical assistance programmes of the United Nations and the specialized agencies, m well as on a bilateral basis. The work has been making good progress and it is to be hoped that results may be achieved fairly soon regarding some tributaries of the river, while research and planning activities are continuing regarding the river basin as a whole. The whole project is one of great promise where regional co-operation and assistance from or through the United Nations creates possibilities unattainable for any of the countries concerned if they work in isolation or in a more limited co-operation with others." [A/4132/Add.1, P.4.]
59. The Mekong River project is of great strategic importance in the economic development of South-East Asia. We are therefore grateful to the Secretary-General for putting his prestige behind it. The last sentence I quoted states a philosophy which we think is applicable to the whole problem of economic development in under-developed countries. Because of its importance, I would like to repeat the last part: "... regional co-operation and assistance from or through the United Nations creates possibilities unattainable for any of the countries concerned if they work in isolation or in a more limited cooperation with others."
60. The United Nations, the under-developed countries themselves and the industrialized nations of the world have done much along this line. Economic development of the under-developed countries has begun and in many cases has made substantial progress. At the same time, we must recognize that much more remains to be done. To call your attention to the glaring needs yet to be met, let me refer briefly to a very simple and earthy animal — the water buffalo. From the Yellow Sea on the east coast of Asia to the Persian Gulf, millions of farmers rely on the water buffalo as the chief source of power on their farms. The day may come when the farmers in Asia, like the farmers in many other parts of the world, will use machines; but that day is far off. In the next few decades, most of the Asian farmers will continue to rely on the water buffalo for the heavy work on the farm. Up to the present moment there has been no large-scale systematic effort to improve the breed of this animal. Science has given the world better horses, better cattle, better hogs, better chickens and even better dogs, but the water buffalo remains without benefit of modern science. With the development of artificial insemination, a co-operative enterprise under the auspices of the United Nations to improve the breed of the water buffalo may contribute greatly to the economic progress of many Asian countries.
61. In communist countries, priority has always been given to heavy industry. In the free countries of the world, economic development usually begins with the improvement of agriculture and the establishment of light industries. I do not wish at this point to discuss which order of development is the more desirable. What I wish to point out now is that in all the underdeveloped countries, even before the work in the improvement of agriculture and the development of light industries has been completed, the need and the desire for heavy industry become more and more manifest. It would be wasting time if the United Nations, in its efforts to assist the under-developed countries, should concentrate all its attention on agriculture and light industry. We must foresee and plan accordingly for the next step, namely, the march from light to heavy industry.
62. Now, the development of heavy industry in the under-developed countries meets with two serious difficulties. First, heavy industry usually requires large capital funds. The problem of finance in relation to heavy industry is much more serious than in connexion with light industry, simply because much larger sums of capital are required. In the second place, an under-developed country, establishing some branch of heavy industry — let us say an automobile factory or a farm-machine factory — finds itself faced with the paradoxical situation of a very limited domestic market in the initial period. The products of light industry find in the large populations in the underdeveloped countries a natural and ready market. The products of heavy industry, because of their cost and the limited purchasing power of the peoples in the under-developed countries, may have only a very limited market at the beginning. This is a field in which — and I again fall back on the wise words of the Secretary-General — "regional co-operation and assistance from or through the United Nations creates possibilities unattainable for many of the countries concerned if they work in isolation or in a more limited co-operation with others”.
63. It is clear that factories in the field of heavy industry should, at least in the beginning, be co-operative enterprises of a number of countries in the same region. Or, to take another method, the countries in the same region might agree on a division of labour, each specializing in some line of production and each providing a free and open market for the products of the heavy industry of other countries. In my part of the world, a common market for light industries is not of great importance, but a common market for the products of heavy industry is essential. I recommend this thought to the attention of the Economic and Social Council, as well as to the attention of the Secretary-General and his able assistants in the economic field, at least for purposes of exploration and preliminary survey.
64. At the thirteenth session, in my speech in the general debate [764th meeting], I reported in some detail the economic progress which Taiwan had made. I shall not repeat that story. Progress has been continued. Formerly, we suffered considerably from the disproportionate reliance on the export of one article, sugar. Although the total volume of exports from my country has increased, the percentage of sugar in the total trade has declined from over 70 per cent to a little over 50 per cent. Now we are working hard to increase the export of industrial goods and we have had some modest success.
65. We hear much about economic progress in the communist countries. In their world-wide propaganda, they stress the so-called "leaps forward" in their industrialization. There is a vast difference between progress under conditions of freedom and progress under conditions of dictatorship. The enslavement of a people in order to industrialize, even if successful, should be condemned. But as a matter of fact, much of the trumpeted progress is simply untrue. The economic conditions on the mainland of my country have become so desperate that the Communists have been forced to revise their propaganda figures.
66. At the beginning of this year, the Communists claimed that in 1958 their grain crop reached 375 million metric tons, or almost double the crop of 1957. And they wanted the world to believe in that communist miracle. But in a communique issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party on 26 August of this year, they confessed that the figure was totally and grossly untrue. Now they claim that the crop of 1958 only reached 250 million metric tons, or a reduction in the earlier claim by 125 million tons. The figures in regard to some particular crops are also very revealing. In cotton they claimed a crop of 3,320,000 tons; now they say that the crop was only 1.2 million tons. The claim for ground-nut production has been reduced from 4 million tons to 1,2 million tons. On the basis of earlier claims, they called for a 1959 goal of 525 million tons of food. Now they retreat to the figure of 275 million tons, a reduction by almost 50 per cent. These reductions make the statistics of the Communists simply ridiculous. I would not take their figures for the past or the present or the future too seriously.
67. In the industrial field, let me cite one figure: that of steel. The Communists previously announced that the steel production of 1958 reached 11,020,000 tons. Now they say that, of that figure, only 8 million tons are found to be suitable for industrial use. The 1959 goal of 18 million tons of steel is now scaled down to 12 million tons.
68. The year 1958 was hailed by the Communists on the mainland as the beginning of the "great leap forward." An important part of the "leap" was to be achieved by the primitive furnaces in the backyards. The Communists mobilized 60 million people — this is their own figure — to produce iron in these primitive furnaces, which, so far as quantity is considered, did contribute three-fourths of the pig-iron production on the mainland last year. Japanese steel experts who visited the mainland at the height of the drive reported that in those furnaces between five and ten tons of coal were used to produce one ton of pig-iron, compared with 6.8 ton of coal normally required in a modern blast furnace. Much of the pig-iron produced in these backyard furnaces had such a high content of phosphorus and sulphur that it was useless for either casting or steel-making. And now the decision has been made by the Communists that the production in the backyard furnaces is no longer figuring in the State's economic plan. In other words, the adventure is to be abandoned.
69. Another important part in the "great leap forward" movement is the organization of "people's communes". The first people's commune was established in April 1958 in the Province of Honan in North China. It was an amalgamation of twenty-seven agricultural productive co-operatives, embracing 9,300 families, or a total of 43,000 persons. It was named the "Sputnik Commune". On 29 August 1958, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party passed a resolution to establish people's communes in all the rural areas of the mainland. Within less than two months, on 20 October 1958, Peiping announced that 26,578 communes had already been organized, embracing 127 million families, or 95 per cent of the total rural population.
70. The "commune" completes the process of the collectivization of property, including land, tools, animals and houses. In addition, by forcing the farmers to live in dormitories, to eat in common mess halls and to leave their children in common nurseries, the Communists intend by this device of the commune to abolish the family. The commune militarizes the labour force. The people are no longer members of families; they are members of a labour brigade, company or platoon. They start and quit work at the bugle call. One of the theorists of the Communists, writing in their chief theoretical magazine, called The Red Flag, on 16 September 1958, figured out that vender the commune, by this device of military discipline, 25 to 30 per cent of labour time could be saved.
71. Aside from the Inhuman and brutal features of the commune, it has been found to be an economic failure. Food conditions in oily and country are worse this year than ever before, and exports of food have declined. The commune, simply on economic grounds, should be a warning to the under-developed countries when they plan economic development. Human beings subject to enslavement lose even a part of their economic, or more specifically productive, potentiality. Human freedom has even an economic value.
72. Professor Richard L. Walker, an eminent authority on China and the Far East, published in the 15 June 1959 issue (sect, two) of the weekly magazine The New Leader, a series of "Letters from the Communes ". In these letters we find an intimate picture of misery and despair in the communes.
73. The Chinese Communist "great leap forward" movement cannot be an example to the other underdeveloped countries of the world. It should serve only a warning not to follow.
74. Now let me turn to the problem of disarmament. In the course of this session, the First Committee and later the Assembly itself will undoubtedly devote many hours and days to this vital problem. I will not go into details at this point. I wish only to present certain considerations of approach which, in my judgement, may be helpful in making the discussion this year efficient and fruitful.
75. The United Nations has discussed the problem of disarmament from the very beginning of this Organization. One of the difficulties we have encountered is the ever-present tendency to propagandize, which only beclouds and confuses the real issues involved. In the first place, I hope that this year the debate may be free of propaganda. In this respect, the delegations not so immediately and deeply involved might help to create an atmosphere of dispassionate and business-like discussion. We should avoid generalities and platitudes. We should concern ourselves with concrete issues, both in regard to the goals of disarmament and in regard to the procedures by which we can reach our goals.
76. In the second place, it seems to my delegation that it is well to remember that the armament race and political conflicts, are inextricably linked. It is idle to speculate now whether political conflicts are the cause and the armament race the effect, or vice versa. Chronologically, it seems to me, political conflicts caused the armaments race. However, the armaments race, having reached the stage it has, becomes in its turn the cause of political conflict. Armaments and political conflicts seem to me to be as closely linked as a man's feet. One step by one foot must be followed by a step by the other foot. Any other view of the situation would be Utopian. Disarmament and the solution of political problems must be parallel.
77. In the third place, whether disarmament should be {complete and general at one jump or accomplished stage by stage involves no question of principle. The test is practicality. I believe that the Assembly will find that disarmament by stages is by far the more practical procedure.
78. In the fourth place, disarmament by stages has the merit of dovetailing disarmament with control, it is now clear that there can be no disarmament without control, it is also clear that nobody desires control for the sake of control or for the sake of espionage. Disarmament and control must be parallel and closely dovetailed one into the other. If we disarm by stages, control can also be introduced by stages. If, at the first stage of disarmament, the nations should find the control to be relevant and effective, the later stages, and probably the more vital stages, would thereby be facilitated.
79. Guided by these considerations, my delegation will heartily join the others in promoting disarmament.
80. The problem of Korea requires and deserves the attention of the General Assembly, it is a problem because the United Nations has not finished its mission of unifying Korea through the democratic process of free elections. International communism has imposed a veto on this democratic process, thereby frustrating the deep hopes of the Korean people. I believe the United Nations should not accept that veto as final.
81. My delegation hopes that the Republic of Korea, as well as the Republic of Viet-Nam, will soon be admitted into the United Nations.
82. Before I conclude, I should like to make some brief observations on the recent tragic events in Tibet. First, let me say a few words on the political status of Tibet.
83. The Constitution of the Republic of China, in article 120, provides, "The self-government system of Tibet shall be guaranteed". This Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on 25 December 1946, with the participation of delegates from Tibet. It should be noted that the Constitution did not create any new system of government in Tibet. It accepted and thereby added sanction to the system of self-government prevailing up to that time.
84. Secondly, I would like to clarify the policy of my Government in regard to the future of Tibet. Shortly after the uprising this March, President Chiang Kai-shek sent a message to the Tibetans on 26 March 1959, in which, among other things, he declared: "The Government of the Republic of China has always respected the traditional political and social structures of Tibet, and upheld the religious faith of its people, as well as their freedom to have their own way of life. Today I wish to affirm emphatically that, regarding Tibet's future political institutions and status, as soon as the puppet Communist regime on the mainland is overthrown and the people of Tibet are once again free to express their will, the Government will assist the Tibetan people to realize their own aspirations in accordance with the principle of self-determination."
85. Thirdly, I wish to express the feelings of all Free Chinese in regard to the use of force by the Communists and the atrocities committed by them in Tibet. In order to make my stand clear I will revert to a debate in the United Nations in 1950.
86. On 17 November 1960, the Chairman of the delegation of El Salvador addressed a letter to the President of the General Assembly requesting that the item "Invasion of Tibet by foreign forces" be added to the agenda of the General Assembly for that session. While the proposal of El Salvador never reached the floor of the General Assembly, it was extensively discussed in the General Committee. On that occasion, my delegation in the General Committee stated: "The sending of an army by the puppet regime of Peiping into Tibet is as shocking to the Chinese people as it is to the peace-loving peoples in other parts of the world. It cannot be justified on the ground of Chinese Interest. Indeed, Mr. President, the use of force by the Chinese Communists in Tibet Injures China's interests permanently in two respects. In the first place, the use of force will undoubtedly leave behind a heritage of hatred between the Tibetan branch and the other branches of the Chinese family, ft starts a feud within the family. In the second place, the action of the Chinese Communists injures the friendly understanding between China and India, "That was how my Government regarded the sending of an army into Tibet in 1950. Our sentiments today in relation to this question remain exactly what they were in 1950.
87. In this matter, as in many others, the Free Chinese are guided by the teachings of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. He taught the Chinese people to regard themselves as one big family with five branches: namely, the Han branch, the Manchu branch, the Mongol branch, the Moslem branch and the Tibetan branch. He proclaimed that all five branches enjoyed civil, political and religious equality. Dr. Sun also proclaimed that the five branches should never resort to the use of force in settling their disputes.
88. The atrocities committed by the Communists in Tibet are even more abhorrent to the Chinese people than they are to the International Commission of Jurists, whose report I had the honour to quote to the Assembly a few days ago [801st meeting]. From this rostrum, as representative of China, I declare that Free China condemns the Communist atrocities in Tibet. My delegation welcomes any proposal to examine them at the present session of the Assembly.