Self-Fulfilling

At the moment, this prophesy is behaving like all good prophecies in fable and legend: it is fulfilling itself through the frantic and largely unscrupulous efforts of the victim to ensure that it cannot fulfil itself. At the moment we are creating a Communist Asia so maddened with grief, fear, pain, outrage and all-too-understandable hate, that—if we go on like this— anything could happen.

All this is utterly unnecessary and entirely our own fault. There would be no danger if we could control ourselves. Implied in this self-control would be a normal posture of self-defence within our own national states and reasonably intelligent international economic and administrative policies.

Should we make sure by finishing off China with nuclear war-heads?

I am doubtful whether even the debauched Western conscience would willingly stomach this solution. If irresponsible leaders forced us into it, and we got away with it, we would face—across the radioactive ruins—a Soviet Union well armed, well organised, probably somewhat ahead of us scientifically, and forewarned that it has to do with an utterly depraved enemy.

(Actually we New Zealanders would probably not be concerned by this stage. It is a widely accepted war-games theory that the USSR would take Australasia off the board in exchange for China. I find this theory sufficiently logical to be probable. Not that it would matter much; for once this stage had been reached there would be very small chance indeed of anybody surviving much longer.)