Battles rage on while world watches for Soviet reaction

Press, 20 February 1979, Page 1

Battles rage on while world watches for Soviet reaction

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Vietnam has said that its armed forces and people have intercepted and inflicted heavy losses on all the prongs of the Chinese attack on its northern provinces, as more signs emerged from Peking yesterday that China plans only a limited offensive.

Peking remained silent on the war apart from saying that it was continuing. But the Vietnam News Agency said that since the attack was launched at dawn on Saturday, Vietnam had killed more than 3500 Chinese troops and destroyed almost 80 enemy tanks. The agency said that the Vietnamese also captured many Chinese soldiers and that many columns of Chinese “aggressor troops” were intercepted and were being encircled and strongly attacked. In Peking, China’s Senior Vice-Premier, Mr Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiaoping), told the secretarygeneral of the Organisation of American States (Mr Alejandro Orfila) that Peking’s conflict with Vietnam was a limited move and purely a reaction to provocation on Hanoi’s part. China has steadily maintained that the attack was in response to Vietnamese border “atrocities.”

Mr Orfila said the VicePremier had told him China’s action against

Vietnam was to take care of a particular situation “and it will not be extended or expanded in any other way.” Yesterday Western analysts watched anxiously for the Russian response to the attack. Although many American Government analysts considered a Russian attack on China was inevitable, the Moscow warning to Peking to halt its action was phrased in a way that suggested it was not contemplating an attack of its own immediately. Top United States advisers expect the Soviet Union to launch some form of retaliation against China for its invasion, Senator Howard Baker, the Republican Party leader in the Senate, has said.

Senator Baker, who was briefed on the Sino-Viet-namese border conflict by the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) and the National Security Advisor (Dr Zbigniew Brzezinksi) during the week-end, said he did not wish to quote either of the two men directly for this opinion.

Answering questions on television about the Carter Administration’s attitude, the Tennessee senator said: “There seems to be some view there will be a Russian response of some type, such as the possibility of a troop incursion by the Russians into China or some sort of naval activity off the coast of Vietnam where the Russians have significant naval forces.” Senator Baker said he felt the situation could be resolved if the Vietnamese would agree to withdraw their forces from Kampuchea.

The former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: “We are very much in danger of a third world war. It could be starting at this moment.” But he added: “I would bet that it won’t happen.”

Administration officials emphasised that the United States would not become involved in the fighting but would concentrate its diplomatic efforts on ending the conflicts

and persuading the Soviet Union not to intervene.

In Tokyo, Japanese military sources said that United States and Soviet warships had stepped up activities in the Far East and South-east Asia. Warships of both fleets are cruising in the South China Sea, which washes the coasts of China and Vietnam, they said.

The Associated Press reported that intelligence sources in Bangkok yesterday said Chinese MiG fighter-bombers had penetrated to within 100 km north of Hanoi on Sunday, attacking targets along the Red River.

So far there have been no reports of Vietnam scrambling its own Air Force to intercept the Chinese MiGs, believed to be either MiG 19s or Mig 21s.

The type of target being attacked by the Chinese aircraft was unknown, but in preliminary air strikes on Saturday, the Chinese had concentrated on electric generating facilities to cut communications between outlying areas and Hanoi.