UNITED NATIONS, N. Y., Dec. 9—As the war continues on the Indian subcontinent, Secretariat officials and delegates here are bitterly asking the question, Why is the United Nations paralyzed?

The short answer that they keep giving each other is simple: The world organization is unable to take effective action when a conflict is between big powers. Solemnly declared United Nations principles like “territorial integrity” and “inadmissibility of armed conquest” are discarded as soon as they come up against what one or the other of the big powers perceives to be its national interest.

This, it is said here, was why the Security Council was blocked by a Soviet veto and why the General Assembly's appeal for a cease‐fire was ignored. “We haven't kept single shot from being fired,” an African diplomat said sadly.

The anatomy of the deadlock, as diplomats here see it, is this:

The subcontinent is a vital battlefield in the power struggle between Moscow and Peking. India, whose population is close to 600 million, is the only real weight that counts in the Chinese‐Soviet balance in the area.

Neither China nor the Soviet Union provoked the war, diplomats here believe, but they feel that the two Communist giants were compelled to take opposite sides as soon as the crisis ceased to be an internal Pakistani affair and, with the flight of millions of refugees to India, became an Indian‐Pakistan Confrontation.

The Soviet Union has been tied to India by an ever‐closer relationship, crowned in August by a 20‐year friendship treaty. Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, who visited New Delhi to sign the treaty, is reported to have given Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a firm commitment that Moscow would support her against Pakistan in the United Nations in case of a conflict.

All Across the Map

China's commitment to Pakistan seems to have been equally firm, but many experts feel that it is of a different nature. Moscow and New Delhi are fairly compatible partners, while the Chinese Communists and the military Government in Pakistan are strange bedfellows, the experts say. “The Chinese are following the maxim that the enemy of their enemy is their friend,” a diplomat commented.

The Chinese and the Russians are involved in this sort of jockeying all the way from the Mediterranean to the East China Sea.

As the specialists see it, the Russians have been conducting a drive to extend their power and influence along the southern rim of Asia ever since Nikita S. Khrushchev fell from power in 1965.

Their first moves were to improve relations with Iran and Turkey and to send their fleet into the Mediterranean. Their involvement in the Middle Eastern conflict is viewed by Many here as part of this drive.

They are also reported to be conducting negotiations for naval servicing facilities at Singapore, Mauritius and the Maldives and to have made a bid for similar facilities in Ceylon.

For the first time since President Sukarno's fall and the anti‐Communist riots of 1965 they have given economic assistance to Indonesia and they are reported to have also offered military equipment.

The Soviet Union is reported to have offered Burma unlimited credits to buy arms after the United States terminated its assistance last year and to have made substantial trade offers to Thailand. Trade and cultural missions are reported to have visited the Philippines.

China Feels Threatened

The Chinese feel that the Soviet moves are directed against them. Their delegate, Huang Hua, told the Security Council: “The Soviet ruling clique has a monstrous plan—this is the control of the India-Pakistan subcontinent to surround China.”

The Chinese have been making counterthrusts. One of the strongest efforts, it is believed, is in Southern Yemen, where they are acting in direct competition with the Russians.

The Soviet Navy has servicing facilities on the Island of Socotra, which belongs'; to Southern Yemen and controls the Gulf of Aden, but the Chinese are reported to be winning the battle for influence over the Government.

Whoever controls the Gulf of Aden could block not only the Suez Canal, if it were reopened, but also the Gulf of Aqaba.

The Chinese have been making efforts to improve relations with Burma, whose President, Ne. Win, visited Peking recently. They have exchanged trade and other missions with Malaysia and are buying rubber there, according to informed reports. They have received trade delegations from the Philippines.

Generally, their quickening drive for recognition is believed to have been aimed at counteracting Soviet influence, as well as gaining membership in the United Nations. Their conduct here has made it clear that they consider the world organization as a forum in which they can combat Soviet influence politically and ideologically.