If Secretary of State Vance's “exploratory” trip to China proved nothing else, it demonstrated once again that because our relations with Taiwan are the main obstacles to recognizing the People's Republic of China, it is Taiwan, not mainland China, that poses the main problem for American foreign policy in Asia. To a man the Chinese reiterated their conditions for establishing relations: abrogate the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954; break diplomatic relations with Taiwan; and withdraw the American military personnel from the island. With respect to the general question of Taiwan, they all referred back to the PRC section of the Shanghai Communique (published jointly with our own):

Indira Gandhi looks more frail than when I last saw her almost two years ago. Running a vast, complex nation almost singlehandedly has left telling marks. The demands of power, the trauma of political setbacks, and the surprise of postelection vituperation extract a high price from psychological and intellectual resources. Yet Mrs. Gandhi's cool intelligence and incisive manner are unimpaired, and her overloaded appointment schedule testifies to her physical stamina. In a long and discursive discussion she developed what she now thought about both domestic and international events and about the themes that underlie her worldview. All together an unusual blend of detail and vision, of minor fact and large-scale concept, they present revealing insights into personality, policies, and contemporary political happenings.

A resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dated January 31, 1977, declares that “the victory of October |1917| is the main event of the twentieth century, one that radically changed the course of development for all humanity.” The reason is simple: That victory produced the world's first Socialist state.

“Under Communist Party leadership the workers of our country successfully coped with the main and most complicated task of the socialist revolution—the creative.” This was done, we are told, under most difficult conditions, starting with the low level of productive forces and culture inherited from czarist Russia and including the hardships imposed by a series of external attacks.

Southeast Asia has been poorly treated by the world's press. For over a decade, while the Vietnam war raged, the region provided by far the greatest amount of foreign news in the rich countries of North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Every news agency, TV station, and newspaper that could afford it maintained a bureau in Saigon and other regional centers. While most headlines were captured by the hostilities in Indochina, editors mindful of the “domino theory” paid great attention too to the situation in neighboring countries.

The result was that the region quickly acquired an “image” of violence, political instability, communal unrest, intraregional disputes, and a capacity for coups and countercoups rivaled only by Latin America. The “image” was implanted in the mind of the man in the street in New York, Washington, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Paris, and Frankfort, but also found its way into the investment calculations of those cities’ bankers and industrialists—those whose decisions affected the levels of investment in and trade with Southeast Asia.