"Moscow Meeting Will Not End Communist Rift"

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29353, 4 November 1960, Page 6

" Moscow Meeting Will Not End Communist Rift"

(Sptial Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) • LONDON, November 3. Next week’s meeting in Moscow between the Russian and the Chinese Communist leaders is not thought likely in London diplomatic circles to end the ideological rift between the two countries.

Representatives of the all Communist Bloc countries will be in the Russian capital and there have been preliminary talks between the Communist representatives to see If the differences can be ironed out, but it is suggested that under the surface of the ideological differences lies a more vital point—rivalry over spheres of influence in Asia and Africa—end that this difference has created a clash of opinion and a coolness which wiU be hard to resolve. The “Daily Telegraph’s** special correspondent says it looks very much as though the real clash is not between the two different views of the Marxist theories but between the interests of two different empires—Russian and Chinese. “The essence of the dispute is probably very much the same as has divided empires in the past—who is to have what? “Russia and China are competing for spheres of interest in the world particularly in the happy hunting ground of the political vacuums created in Asia and Africa by the dissolution of the colonial system. There is no evidence that the two Powers are pursuing a joint policy in these areas.

“On the contrary, there is every indication that they are involved in a race to see who can make the most friends and influence the most newly independent States. What really annoys Mr Khrushchev is not that Mao Tsetung holds different views about the way the peoples of Africa and Asia liberate themselves, but

that Chinese diplomats and agents are busy now digging themselves in all over Africa and Asia.

"What worries Mao about Mr Khrushchev is not that he makes trips to America and hobnobs with Western leaders but that he has had the effrontery to make excursions into Asia and spends so much time courting Asian leaders. The two men clearly have not yet agreed on the division of labour or of spheres of influence. "The question is not whether Russia and China can come to terms over their interpretation of Marxism, it is whether they can sink their own national or imperial ambitions to preserve their alliance. But whether they decide to patch over their differences by signalling their ideological accord or whether they give evidence of having reached a truce in their competition for spheres of influence, their basic conflict will remain. It may well prove in the second half of this century to be more important than the conflict between Russia and the West,” the correspondent says. The "Yorkshire Post" 'says that at best the talks are likely only to produce a truce. This could provide an interval for renewed attempts to be made to resolve the conflicting views.

Grade-school students In Wayzata, Minnesota, checked up on the State’s slogan, "Land of 10,000 Lakes,” and reported that the'map shows only 7,4"3.