RUSSIAN TERMS FOR CHINA

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25891, 25 August 1949, Page 5

RUSSIAN TERMS FOR CHINA

Nationalist Spokesman Discloses Demands

REPLY TO UNITED STATES WHITE PAPER

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

Jec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, August 23. The Soviet Government had asked the Chinese Government i January, 1949, for a guarantee that China would remain putral if Russia became involved in a war, a Chinese Nationfct Government spokesman said to-day. He was Dr. Kan hieh-hou, personal representative of the Acting President of hina (General Li Tsung-jen).

Dr. Kan said that the Soviet Union, at the same time, had >manded a reduction of American influence in China.

Dr. Kan issued his statement “to correct misunderstanding warding General Li’s foreign policy as related in the United tates State Department’s White Paper.” A section of the Ihite Paper stated that General Li had agreed in principle to ie following requests by the Soviet Embassv in Nanking: (1) trict Chinese neutrality in any future international conflicts; 2) the elimination of American influence to as great an extent s possible in China; and (3) the establishment of a basis of eal co-operation between China and Russia.

Dr. Kan denied to-day that any such agreement had ever >een reached with the Soviet. He described the efforts of the Chinese Nationalist Government to persuade the Soviet Union h prevail on the Chinese Communists to agree to a settlement nd halt their drive into South China. He said: “It became clear that what the Soviet Union had really wanted h the last three years was a guarantee that China would repain neutral in case Russia became involved in any war. It tas equally clear that, after their failure in obtaining a neutrality agreement from the Chinese Government, the Russians rave a ’go ahead’ signal to the Chinese Communists, with the rope that a Communist-controlled China would give them this raarantee.”