Miami Labor Citizen

Dear Neighbor:

Your Congressman was asked the other day his opinion on imposing a blockade of Communist China.

If a blockade of Red China would end the Korean War, I would certainly enthusiastically support such a move.

But here are some of the problems involved. Very few strategic war materials are coming into Red China today through its seaports. Direct military support for the Chinese Communists comes from Russian factories across the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

It is estimated that the Chinese Reds are getting about 75 per cent of their imports, including war materials, from Soviets. The remaining 25 per cent of their imports comes from across the seas, but not from Russia. So, a naval blockade would not affect three-fourths of Red China's imports.

In the first six months of 1952, Ceylon shipped 12 and one-half million dollars worth of rubber to Communist China. Pakistan shipped 54 million dollars worth of cotton and India sold five million dollars worth of jute to the Red Chinese. Other than Russia, these countries are the three largest exporters to Communist China.

If the United States, acting by itself in blockading China, were to cut off this trade those three countries would blame us for their economic crisis.

As a result of the bill that I introduced two years ago which was aimed at reducing the free world's trade with Red China, the trade passing through Hong Kong dropped off considerably.

In 1951—over 280 million dollars worth of trade went to Communist China through Hong Kong. In the first six months of 1952, this volume of trade dropped to 29 million dollars and consisted of shipments from various countries, such as sulphate of ammonia to be used for fertilizer and paper which were the two largest imports.

No blockade of Red China would be successful unless we not only blockaded Hong Kong but the Russian controlled ports of Port Arthur and Dairen because shipments would merely be diverted to those ports. Fear that this might lead to World War 3 is one of the reasons for extreme caution in approaching this problem.

Most observers seem to feel that the United States will make a renewed effort to strike at the Reds through embargoes and that approval of the United Nations will be sought before a naval blockade is undertaken.