The old adage about not changing horses in mid-stream unfortunately gives no hint of what should be done when one's horse drowns. Since the Chinese Nationalists have achieved the political equivalent of drowning, that is the problem this country faces in China.

Now that our consular officials in Mukden have been released and there is presumably no need to send an American Legion task force to the Far East, the State Department must make its decision whether or not to recognize the Chinese Communist government. The U. S. has equivocated for four years; the issue can no longer be put off.

The Communists are the government of China. Starting from that fact, we have no moral or pragmatic basis for not recognizing them. Mao-tze Tung's men are neither the innocent agrarian reformers that some of their supporters would make them nor as much a tool of Moscow as the conservative press claims. Their leaders are Moscow-trained, but there are four factors which make their ties to Russia looser than those of the eastern European "satellites."

1) China is no Balkan peanut; it has a population almost twice as great as that of Russia itself. 2) It is an Oriental culture, whereas the Sovict Union has become steadily Westernized. 3) There is a great deal of rugged territory between Moscow and Peking, and remote control does not work very well when it is that remote. 4) The Chinese liberated themselves in the last war; there was no Russian Army to parade in the streets and insure "free" elections.

The most urgent problem facing China's Reds is industrialization, for which they need machines and technical skill. Russia will be willing to provide these, whether it can spare them or not, and if the United States cuts off all communication with China, Mao will become completely dependent on, and subservient to Moscow.

What would be the practical results of recognition? While it might conceivably strengthen would do so even more, not only driving the Chinese closer to Russia, but also giving the Soviets good Propaganda material to use on the natives of southeast Asia. The Russians would be eager to claim that non-recognition is proof that the United States only recognizes governments of whose polities it approves.

Admission of the Chinese Communists to the United Nations would be a necessary corollary of recognition. But since two Security Council vetoes are no more final than one, and our majority in the General Assembly is quite comfortable, there would be no pragmatic reasons for keeping them out.

Not being an Oriental country, we luckily have no qualms about "losing face" over a political situation. Any face that we might have saved was lost with the State Department's unprecedented white paper on China. Our Chinese policy has been a ghastly flasco, partly through our mistaken and partly beyond our control. The Communists have us just where they want us, and recognition is the best way out.