Chinese Minister On Dispute With Russia

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30764, 31 May 1965, Page 5

Chinese Minister On Dispute With Russia

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, May 28. China’s dispute with the Soviet Union was caused by disagreement over a whole “series of important questions of principle,” says the Chinese Foreign Minister, Marshal Chen Yi.

In an exclusive interview, published in the “New Statesman,” the minister said that one of these principles was whether “one can or cannot combat resolutely American imperialism and firmly support the armed struggle of the peoples of oppressed nations.” He said the dispute between Moscow and Peking over this issue “helps the peoples of the world to distinguish the true from the false, to draw a sharp distinction between the real anti-imperialist struggle, between real support and counterfeit support.” Diverting Opinion He was asked if he did not think the Chinese dispute with the Russians was diverting world opinion from the Vietnamese problem and thus playing “a negative role.” The minister said that, by distinguishing the true anti-imperialists from the false, the dispute was playing a positive role by mobilising “peoples everywhere so that they are even more firmly on the side of the Vietnamese people and fighting against the aggression of American imperialism.”

He said Peking was not opposed in principle to negotiations “but, like the Vietnamese people, we are reso lutely against the unconditional negotiations of the Johnson administration and the trickery which it has embarked on under cover of negotiating peace. “The peace talks concocted by them (the United States)

are aimed solely at gaining at the conference table what they have not been able to get on the battlefield.”