CHINESE LEADER IN RUMANIA

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 9

CHINESE LEADER IN RUMANIA

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) BUCHAREST (Rumania), June 16. The Chinese Communist Premier, Chou En-lai, starts an eightday visit and political talks with Rumanian leaders in Bucharest today, amid new signs of a deepening rift between his hosts and Moscow.

Mr Chou and a delegation of high-ranking officials will obtain a first-hand impression of independent-minded Rumania’s present dispute with the Kremlin over the Warsaw Pact military alliance and the East European common market.

Mr N. Ceausescu, the Rumanian Communist Party chief, chose the eve of Mr Chou’s arrival to reiterate his opposition to Soviet schemes of integrating East European com-

munism in the military and economic sphere. In a speech in Oltenia, Mr Ceausescu said that the idea of centrally-guided Communist parties has become obsolete. He said that although Rumania stands for Communist unity on the basis of equality and non-interference “an international centre to guide the parties along uniform lines is no longer possible.” “Today each party must follow its own general line according to its concrete conditions,” he said. While Rumania has grown increasingly cool towards Moscow, it has so far refused to side openly with Peking and has chosen a neutral position in the Soviet-Chinese dispute.