No progress in U.S.-China talks

Press, 26 August 1977, Page 6

No progress in U.S.-China talks

NZPA-Reuter Peking The American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance), yesterday held a final session of talks with the Chi-j nese Foreign Minister (Mr; Huang Hua) on the last full! day of his visit to Peking. The two sides had already had nine hours of talks and have covered the critical issue of Taiwan, the main stumbling block to the es-l tablishment of full Sino- 1 American relations. As expected, no progress appears to have been made. American spokesmen con- ) tinned to describe the dis-' cussions as "exploratory.” Mr Vance was due to confer later with Chairman Hua

Kuo-feng, Mao Tse-tung’s 1 successor, but the meeting | was unlikely to be more: than a courtesy call. I American spokesmen! indicated that the visit had! so far fulfilled its limited ex-i. pectations, but they refused'to reveal Chinese reaction to tithe continuing delay in nor-! i’malisation of relations. 11 The first step towards nor-! nmal relations was taken • I with the signing of the; (Shanghai communique dur-i ing President Nixon’s 1972: visit to China. The Chinese say that furi ther progress depends on Washington’s breaking diplomatic and military ties with the Nationalist Government in Taiwan.