The hope that sprang in the United Nations following yesterday's conciliatory message from Peiping was a strong argument against the United States proposal to brand Communist chins as an aggressor. If the purpose of the U.S. proposal was to push the Chinese into a more tractable attitude than they had previously shown in their dealings with the United Nations, then it has already succeeded. But if its purpose was to end all negotiations between Peiping and the U.N. until the Chinese had publicly repented and withdrawn their troops from Korea, then it was doomed right from the start.

some people argue that the same criteria of aggression must be applied to a large country, China, as to a small country, North Korea, and that failure to condemn the Chinese would be an abandonment by the U.N. of the moral position it assumed in defending Korea. However, another goal of the world organization is the preservation of peace, and certainly not all the possibilities of a peaceful, honorable settlement of Asiatic problems have been exhausted.

On a pragmatic level, the United states should not be irrevocably committed to war against a huge nation like China, a war fought in an out-of-the-way peninsula, with allies who are unenthusiastic about the whole business. The advantage of enabling U.N. troops to carry their fight to the Chinese mainland would be outweighed by our inability to open negotiations for a Far Eastern settlement. At best, we could obtain an armed peace with a large American army required to keep the Chinese on the other side of the Yalu River; at worst, a U.N. evacuation of Korea or the start of world War III.

While the latest Chinese note does not make any material concessions, its tone is encouraging. It admits the importance of a cease-fire in Korea, and contains a John L Lewis-like promise that if all foreign forces are to be withdrawn from Korea, it will "advise the Chinese volunteers to return to China." It even retreats from the extreme position that Chinese Communist membership in the U.N. is a prerequisite for any talks on Korea.

There are still important differences between the American land Chinese ideas of how the fighting in Korea should be ended. The only way these can be settled permanently is by negotiation, and the propaganda blasts coming from both sides should not be allowed to drown out peace talks.