New York, Dec. 22—The very best line in the weekend commentary over President Carter’s decision to disown our defense treaty with Taiwan was spoken by an unidentified “senior Defense Department official” to Reuters in answer to the question whether Communist China might now proceed by force of arms against Taiwan. “An invasion of Taiwan would be unlikely,” Reuters quoted the Pentagon, “because China keeps much of its forces along its border with the Soviet Union and because China knows that an invasion would seriously hurt relations with the United States.”
Seriously hurt relations with the United States! It is difficult for Americans of middle age to remember when last it seriously hurt anybody to hurt the United States. How does the United States express its displeasure, when seriously hurt? Far less strikingly than it deals with those who do not incur our displeasure. A litany, reserved for liturgical occasions, is not out of order in meditating on the decision of Mr. Carter which, by the testimony of the New York Times, left the President “ebullient.” No doubt Ribbentrop was ebullient after concluding the pact with Molotov in 1939, but let us confine ourselves to the sparest condensation of what has happened.
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