Rebuffs from Peking

Press, 15 September 1976, Page 8

Rebuffs from Peking

NZPA-Reuter Peking China has rejected messages of condolence sent bv the Soviet Union and East European Communis, Parties on the death of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman says that the messages are unacceptable because the Chinese communist party does not have relations with its counterparts in Eastern Europe. Messages from the Polish, East German, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Czechoslovak parties have also been rejected and have not been published in the official press in Peking. “We have no party-to-party relations with them and we have rejected the messages,”

the spokesman said Asked whether this meant that the messagers were being sent back, he replied: “You can say that.” In the past, messages of condolence from the Soviet Union have come from such State bodies as the Presidium. The Russian decision to send a message from its Communist Party was clearly calculated and had been regarded by some Western diplomats as a “trial balloon” — an attempt to test the political waters in Peking after the death of Mao. An East European source in Peking indicated that one reason for the decision to send a party message of condolence was to encourage any pro-Soviet elements within the Chinese leadership.

A Western analyst commented: "The Chinese clearly see this as a challenge. Russian-Chinese relations hi the post Mao period have got off to a frosty start.” The Chinese have published a message from the Hungarian Presidential Council — a State body — but have ignored another sent bv the Hungarian Communist Partv. ' Since Chairman Mao died last Thursday, Peking has maintained its strident antiSoviet propaganda, and has vowed to preserve Mao’s foreign policy line. j “The Soviet Union's aim is to put the Third World countries completely into the orbit of social-imperialism in the economic field,” the official New China News Agency said in a commentary yesterda’