STRAINED TO BREAKING’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31151, 30 August 1966, Page 17

STRAINED TO BREAKING’

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright)

MOSCOW, Aug. 29. The rampages of China’s Red Guards against the Soviet Embassy in Peking are straining diplomatic relations between the two Governments close to the breaking point, in the view of Moscow analysts, says the “New York Times.”

After a week of hesitation in reacting to the apparent mob rule of China’s “great proletarian cultural revolution,” Soviet policymakers now are showing clear signs of concern and resentment,

not only on ideological grounds but in hostile terms of power politics. Relations between the rival Communist parties of China and the Soviet Union are already in de facto rupture: now the issue seems to be forced between two nations, which share a 6400-mile frontier across Asia.

The Moscow press gave wide distribution yesterday to the stern phrasing of a Soviet Foreign Ministry Note of protest handed to the Chinese Embassy in Moscow on Friday. There was nothing in this Note to suggest the "fraternal” links of two Communist countries—rather it was a curt and formal communication such as might be despatched by a government to a sworn adversary.

“Emphatic protest,” “Outrages,” “Hooliganism”—this is the language the Soviet Government now is using in addressing the Government of China, after two years of relative forbearance under Peking’s verbal onslaughts.

The Note was not handed over secretly, as were other communications to Peking during Moscow’s futile attempts to heal the ideological breach. Instead it was published in full by Tass, the official Soviet press agency. CAR DETAINED

The protest was specifically against demonstrations by Chinese youths in front of the Soviet Embassy last week, “outrages . committed before the eyes of Chinese policemen.”

The Note also complained that “organised groups of people forcibly detained a car flying the national flag of the U.S.S.R. and carrying the Charge d’Affaires and other Embassy officials” on official business.

It disclosed that a protest about that incident lodged in Moscow on the day it happened—last Monday—was rejected by the Chinese Embassy. “The representative of the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China virtually , stated that the Chinese authorities did not preclude the possibility of continuation of the outrages around the Soviet Embassy and did not want to assume responsibility for these outrages,” the Soviet Government Note said.

One day after publication of the Note reports came from Peking that a new and intricately organised demonstra-

tion in front of the Soviet Embassy was to start today. The Soviet Government will be faced with a direct rebuff to its official demand “that effective measures be taken which would ensure an immediate and unconditional end to actions which hamper the normal work of the Embassy and create a- threat to the safety of its officials.” The Russians minced no words in lecturing the supposedly fraternal Chinese on the norms of diplomatic behaviour.

“The government of the People’s Republic of China ought to know that the above mentioned actions . . . are a direct violation of generally accepted standards of international rule,” the Note said. “States are bound to show due respect for diplomatic Embassy officials and to take steps to prevent any encroachment on their persons, freedom or dignity. ‘NO EVASION’ “States have no right to evade the discharge of these duties toward diplomatic missions and their personnel accredited to them.” This is strong language and, in the view of analysts in Moscow, moves relations between the Soviet Union and China far closer to the brink than the more limited diplomatic protests exchanged in March, 1965, after Soviet police moved to disperse a demonstration of African and Asi.n students including Chinese students —in front of the United States Embassy in Moscow. In 1961 the Soviet Union suspended diplomatic relations with Albania—China’s ideological ally in Europe charging that Albanian authorities were “interfering with the normal activities of the Soviet Ambassador . . . using the Albanian Embassy and Albanian students in Moscow to circulate slanderous and antiSoviet propaganda”

The Soviet Ambassador and the Embassy staff were withdrawn from Albania, and the Albanian Embassy in Moscow was closed. Now the Russians have made similar charges against the Chinese, and the prospect of suspended diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and China creates a far bigger crisis in the Communist world than the Kremlin’s rift with tiny Albania.