$2000M credit offer to China

Press, 29 August 1979, Page 9

$2000M credit offer to China

NZPA-Reuter Peking The senior Chinese VicePremier (Mr Deng Xiaoping) said yesterday that he is satisfied with the way SinoAmerican relations are progressing.

The Vice-Premier was asked by journalists to comment on Senator Henry Jackson’s statement in Peking a few days ago that the Chinese leaders were unhappy with the way relations between the two countries had gone since normalisation in January just before the United States VicePresident (Mr Walter Mondale) arrived at the Great Hall of the People to begin talks.

After Mr Mondale’s arrival, Mr Deng praised him for his speech at Peking University on Monday which included an offer to China of S2OOOM in credits. “The two billion dollar credits and the other things in your speech answer the question asked just now by the journalists,” he said.

Asked to comment on Senator Jackson’s statement that he had been told of a recent incident on the SinoSoviet border that "involved the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China,” Mr Deng said, “Oh, small in-

cidents. Small incidents occur all the time.” Yesterday morning’s meeting, held in the Great Hall of the People in the centre of Peking, was the second between Vice-Premier Deng and Mr Mondale since the Vice-President arrived in Peking on Saturday for a week’s visit to China. Later in the afternoon, Mr Mondale was scheduled to meet the Chinese Premier and Communist Party chairman (Mr Hua Guofeng) and sign two agreements — a cultural pact and an agreement providing for American assistance in tha development of China’s hydro-electric resources. Mr Mondale’s speech -at Peking University was broadcast in full on national Chinese television, and the text was also carried in. full in the “People’s Daily,” China’s’ leading newspaper. In the speech, the VicePresident offered China S2OOOM in credits, pledged that the trade pact signed in May which provides for most-favoured-nation status would be submitted to the United States Congress before the end of the year, and said that any country which attempted to weaken or isolate China would be acting “counter to American interests.”