China thinks war unavoidable

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33671, 22 October 1974, Page 20

China thinks war unavoidable

(By DAVID BON AVIA, of “ PEKING, October 16. : China believes that ( Western Europe and the ( Third World need not! suffer unduly from the recent rise in oil prices i if they hold consulta-1 tions with the producingnations. At the same time, the Chinese leadership is convinced that a world war, starting in Europe, cannot be avoided in the next generation. Mr Teng Hsiao-Ping, a deputy Prime Minister, is re-

The Times," through N.Z.P.A.) [ported to have expressed ! these views to a visiting (group of West German Pari liamentarians. I His statement represented ! a harder line that that taken in the recent address to the i United Nations General Assembly by Mr Chiao Kuan Hua, the Deputy Foreign l Minister, who said that war might be avoided if the peoples rose in revolution first. Mr Teng’s thinking seems to be in line with Chinese pronouncements of the last year, to the effect that the Soviet Union’s military strength is being massed against Europe in the first instance and the apparent threat to China is a feint to district attention from Moscow’s true aims. Mr Teng is reported to have said that China had several times been led to expect a Soviet attack, but it had not materialised and Peking believed that Europe : would be the real target. The Deputy Prime Minister’s apparent under-estima- • tion of the effects of the oil! ' crisis on Europe’s defence preparedness, and on the economies of the underdeveloped countries, seems ■ to be an attempt to reconcile China’s somewhat conflicting sympathies. On the one hand, it seeks to be seen as a moral leader of the Third World. But on the other, it is a strong supporter of a united Western Europe dependent for the time being on American protection against Russia.