Spy Aircraft Over China

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30213, 19 August 1963, Page 11

Spy Aircraft Over China

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 17. The war of words between Russia and China had suddenly taken a sinister turn, with both sides moving troops up to the border, the “People” reports. The Soviet Air Force has started regular “spy plane” flights over Chinese territory to observe troop movements, the newspaper says.

The Russians were using an aircraft called the’ Mandrake, which was similar to the fast, high-flying American U2. “China has no defence against this plane. There is no Chinese aircraft that can fly fast enough, or high enough, to catch it. “And she (China) has no anti-aircraft rocket like the one Russia used to shoot down the American U2 in 1960," the newspaper says. Russian spy planes were believed to be keeping watch over activity in the network of huge “State farms" which the Chinese have set up in the border regions. Even the Chinese have admitted that the “farms”—in desolate, semi-barren Siberian frontier regions—are really military installations. The farm-forts can quickly be turned into military garrisons and reinforced, the “People” says. “Already, according to Peking Radio, 100,000 Chinese troops are manning 36 State farms along the Amur and Sungari border rivers ’ in Northern China. “Another 149 farms are strategically-placed in China's Sinkiang Province further west. “More are being built every month,” the newspaper says. The newspaper says Chinese spies were also active against Russia. China had recruited “a string of agents from European Communists” who back the old Stalin line. Frequent references to the capture of spies on Russia's

central Asian borders are appearing in Soviet newspapers. In Peking, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Marshal Chen-yi, said the danger of world nuclear war had increased instead of lessening. Marshal Chen-yi said the danger was demonstrated by American plains to station nuclear submarines in Japan. He was speaking ait a reception in Peking to mark the eighteenth anniversary of the “liberation” of North Korea. His speech came within an hour of China accusing Russia of three years ago having torn up an agreement to give China a sample atom bomb. In Moscow, the Soviet Government newspaper. “Izvestia,” accused Chinese leaders of “double-dealing” in their attitude to the test ban treaty. It said that “there is no time now for idleness in the face of the danger of war,” Tass reported. The reason for the Russian policy was the “realisation of the scale of calamities which a nuclear rocket war inevitably entails.” The policy was based on the Soviet Union's “colossal economic and military might," “Izvestia” said. It said the Chinese “doubledealing is not befitting for Marxist-Leninists. “To believe that it is possible to mobilise the masses by advancing the slogans in which you have no faith means to underestimate the experience and intellect of the masses . . “Izvestia" added.