CHINA’S DIPLOMACY PEKING’S “FRONT-MAN” IS NOW BACK ON THE ROAD

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32391, 2 September 1970, Page 16

CHINA’S DIPLOMACY PEKING’S “FRONT-MAN” IS NOW BACK ON THE ROAD

(By MICHAEL LAKE, in the “Guardian”, Manchester) (Reprinted by arrangement)

China is back in business again. Peking maintains that the great proletarian cultural revolution continues, but the re-emergence of this great nation from its traumatic introspection will soon be regarded as one of the international phenomena of 1970.

There are strong rumours that a National People’s Convention (equivalent to the Supreme Soviet) will be held before China’s National Day, October 1. There should be a Congress every year and Chairman Mao promised one two years ago. There has not been one since 1958. Such a Congress is likely to give rubber stamps to the New Constitution proclaimed last year. Inevitably, it is that indefatigable survivor, Chou Enlai, who symbolises the awakening. Chou has in the past year been to North Vietnam and North Korea. More. significantly he is scheduled to visit Pakistan and the People’s Republic of Southern Yemen and is strongly rumoured to be going to Tanzania to attend the opening of the Chinesesponsored Tan-Zam railway line. It would not be surprising if he were invited to attend the non-aligned summit conference in Lusaka in three weeks time. Visit To Europe Even more interesting is the possibility that Chou will visit Paris as head of a delegation returning the visit to Peking of Mr Bettencourt, Secretary of State at the Quai d’Orsay, and will then go on to Belgrade and Bucharest. China and Rumania managed to preserve their diplomatic links throughout the cultural revolution. But in a move which may reflect mutual disregard for Soviet sympathies, China and Jugoslavia have this month resumed diplomatic relations which were broken in 1958 and an invitation from President Tito to Chou is on the cards.

Chou has always been Mao Tse-tung’s front man in foreign affairs. Chou is the most sophisticated, in Western terms, of all the Chinese leaders. He speaks English and French, he is a brilliant governmental administrator, and he surpasses even Anastas Mikoyan, the former Armenian President of the Soviet Union, in his capacity for survival in the face of the most violent and emotional political upheaval. Nevertheless his personal reappearance is merely indicative of the policy changes which have taken place in China. The first signs were the return of many Chinese ambassadors to their posts after three years’ absence during the cultural revolution. Hitherto there had been little news of China or of her people. Occasional mushroom clouds blossomed inscrutably from her nuclear testing grounds, while Western prisoners languished un- , seen and unheard of in their ’ cells. There were, of course, ' increasingly vicious ex- , changes of abuse with the ; Russians.

Ambassadors Return Then in May last year China sent her ambassador back to Albania and next, to France. Ambassadors were a tangible sign of the return to something like normality. They returned chronologically to North Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Zambia, to Guinea, Rumania, Sweden, Congo (Brazzaville), Syria, Nepal, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Algeria, the Yemen, and Southern Yemen.

This year ambassadors have returned to North Korea, Finland, Mali, Egypt, Sudan, Ceylon, and this month to Jugoslavia and Hungary. In London Mr Ma Chia-chun remains as Charge d’Affaires, but even he has been out and about to a degree, even attending a Buckingham Palace garden party. In previous months when I met him at selected diplomatic receptions he was as communicative as a brick. China has followed up this burst of diplomatic fencemending with a programme of foreign relief aid which looks explosive beside her efforts of the past two years. In 1968 she gave $5600 to Tanzania for flood relief. In 1969 she gave $20,000 to Jugoslavia and $16,000 to Somalia. As late as February this year China bestowed a mere 1000 blankets on Morocco for emergency relief. By far the most startling gift this year—which has been checked and rechecked

by disbelieving Chinawatchers—was $2l million to Rumania for flood relief this spring, including 3000 tons of frozen pork, 150,000 pigskins and 100,000 goatskins. Hungary, also flooded, got $200,000. Peru, devastated by earthquake, received $600,000. Pakistan was given $400,000 and this month Southern Yemen has signed an aid agreement with China worth $lB million. After a series of natural disasters in the Soviet Union this year Chon En-lai sent a message of condolence. Releases Of Prisoners Another indication of the waning xenophobia in Peking has been the constant dribble of released prisoners appearing at the border with Hong Kong. One • can refer to Anthony Grey, the Reuters correspondent, Captain Will, Norman Barrymaine, another journalist, Mr Bill Mcßain, and Mrs Constance Martin, both pensioners and longstanding residents of Shanghai and latterly the VickersZimmer “spy” Mr George Watt. Various Americans, including Bishop Walsh, and a Swiss have been let out recently. There are, one should remember, still many prisoners in Chinese hands. Perhaps the most disturbing case is that of Mr D. C. Johnston, who was about to leave after his long stint as manager of the Shanghai branch of the Chartered Bank, when he was arrested on April 3, 1968. Others include Mrs Gladys Yang, wife of a Chinese resident of Shanghai, and several Britons who are Chinese sym-

pathisers and, until their disappearance, worked for Chinese institutions. There are also an indeterminate number of Americans, including four known nonCommunists of whom two are United States pilots, and some who no-one can pin down. One American prisoner, Hugh Redmond, committed suicide. There are also the Australian journalist Francis James, four or five Japanese, a Belgian, an Italian sea captain and the Stateless but prominent China-believer Israel Epstein. Going Where? It remains difficult to tell where the Chinese are going. They still aim to lead the “third world,” the underdeveloped, usually coloured nations, although Chou’s previous personal efforts to woo the Africans in 1964 and 1965 were disastrously counter-pro-ductive. Remember his classic faux pas: “Africa is ripe for Revolution?” The Chinese will probably persist in practising subversion against nonaligned leaders whom they publicly court, but they may, after the harsh lessons of the past, be more subtle. They have had a cataclysmic experience during the cultural revolution. They have torn themselves to pieces and even today they must rely on the maximum of “self-reliance,” cannibalising machinery to keep plant going, forbidden to invest in new equipment, dogged by hopelessly inadequate transport for raw materials and export The harvest has been moderate, barely keeping pace with the growth in population. The nuclear programme is given high priority. There are plenty of problems at home to keep Peking preoccupied. Nevertheless, China is showing a new determination to move out into the world, to be around where things are happening, to give the glad hand where she thinks it may help her revolutionary cause or dish either the Russians or the Americans or the British. This is new and of incalculable importance. We should not start panicking, as the Russians may, about the yellow peril once again. The Chinese, who regard all foreigners as barbarians (and when one comes to think of it, well they may) have no more understanding of the outside world than we have of them. They will continue to rriake clumsy mistakes. But it is good that they are on the move again and, presumably, open to some sort of communication.