Ford to visit China again next year

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33706, 2 December 1974, Page 17

Ford to visit China again next year

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, December 1. President Ford will visit Peking next year, hoping to sustain efforts at improving Chinese-American relations. The visit — his second in three years — was announced as the Secretary of State (Dr Henry Kissinger) concluded four days of talks in the Chinese capital. It is part of the continuing diplomatic process, aimed at normalising relations between the two countries.

Although no date was given, observers said it was likely it would be in the second half of the year, after the visit to Washington next June of Soviet Communist Party chief, Mr Leonid Brezhnev.

The announcement and communique on Dr Kissinger’s talks were notable for their brevity. They gave no indication who initiated the Ford invitation. However, reports in Washington said that the Chinese wanted the President to go to Peking, in part to balance the Ford-Brezhnev meetings last week in Vladivostok, and partly because they were dissatisfied with the pace of normalising relations with the United States.

Dr Kissinger returned to Washington yesterday from Tokyo. He was welcomed by members of the Japanese Embassy and the Chinese diplomatic liaison but he did not speak with reporters about his trip. _

Dr Kissinger was expected to report on his talks in Peking to President Ford during the week-end. The president will hold a press conference on Monday at which he will almost certainly be asked questions about the nuclear arms agreement reached with the Soviet leaders in Russia last week-end and his own visit to China next year. China launched one of its sharpest propaganda attacks on the United States in months today, less than 48 hours after Dr Kissinger ended his five-day visit. The Chinese Communist Party newspaper “People’s Daily,” and the official New China News Agency both criticised the United States over the recent U.N. General Assembly vote on the Cambodian question. “The United States resorted to despicable means and played tricks on procedural matters to block U.N. membership for the Peking-based Government

headed by Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk,” the news agency said. Prince Sihanouk’s Royal Government of National Union, strongly backed by Peking, was seeking the seat held by the Government of General Lon Nol in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. The “People’s Daily,” in a commentary, said the United States “spared no effort to make trouble and resort to acts of sabotage” in U.N. manoeuvring. It said the United States was trying to use the United Nations to force Prince Sihanouk and his supporters in Cambodia to negotiate with Lon Nol. In a statement dated Thursday but released through N.C.N.A. today Prince Sihanouk ruled out any negotiations with the Lon Nol regime, which only yesterday issued its fourth call for peace talks. “To negotiate with the arch-criminal, a monster created by United States Frankenstein, will be a gross and intolerable insult to the hundreds of thousands of Cambodian martyrs,” Prince Sihanouk said.