TRADE WITH CHINA

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28284, 23 May 1957, Page 13

TRADE WITH CHINA

British View Restated (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON. May 22. If the British Government could not reach agreement with the United States Government on revising the strategic trade embargo on Communist China, it would have to reconsider the whole position, Commander Allan Noble, Minister of State m the Foreign Office, stated in a House of Commons answer. “We are not going to fritter about with this problem,” he said, explaining no agreement had been reached at last Friday’s meeting in Paris of the committee which regulates trade with the Communist world. The political correspondent of the “News Chronicle” says that Britain is ready for a showdown if the United States maintains its present attitude. The chief stumbling block has been America’s refusal to agree to bring trade with China into line with trade with Russia, banning only strategic items. The British Government’s view is that it is farcical that goods can go to Russia which cannot be 4 sent to China and it will refuse to give ground on this. So will the other 13 committee members —the N.A.T.O. group less Iceland, but with Japan included. “Unless she comes into line, America will be out on her own,” the correspondent said. The Paris edition of the New York “Herald Tribune” says that the British Government has been shocked and irritated by American terms for revising the strategic list for China, and that unless some agreement can be worked out, thpre is a strong possibility that Britain and other trading nations may decide to act unilaterally in trade with China.