LONDON DIPLOMATS’ OPINIONS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26039, 16 February 1950, Page 5

LONDON DIPLOMATS’ OPINIONS

Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent says London diplomatic quarters feel that the main agreements reached in the talks between Russia and Communist China in Moscow are not visible in the new treaty, which in many ways merely rewrites the chief clauses of Russia’s 1945 treaty with the Chinese Nationalists.

“Though it would be too simple to expect the heads of the Peiping and Moscow Governments to tell the world of any plans they may have laid for the consolidation and extension of Asiatic and Far Eastern Communism, it is thought unlikely that almost two months can have been spent solely in altering the text of a discarded treaty,” says the correspondent.

“A comparison with the 1945 treaty shows close similarities. Like the old, the new treaty is a 30-year alliance,

primarily directed against a resurgent Japan. The substance of the post-vyar treaties between Russia and its European satellites is drawn upon for a mutual defence stand against any States in any way linked with Japan,, and this presumably is aimed at the Western Allies.

“Apparent concessions to China are the agreements on credits and on the Manchurian railway, Dairen and Port Arthur. Another important gain by the new Chinese Republic is the Soviet decision to hand over, without compensation, Japanese enterprises in Manchuria acquired by Soviet interests.

“Observers in London rioted a surprising admission of the often-suggest-ed state of affairs by which, since the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Government has effectively controlled Manchuria’s economy.”