Blistering Hua attack on Soviet build-up

Press, 5 November 1979, Page 8

Blistering Hua attack on Soviet build-up

' NZPA Rome! j Chairman Hua Guofeng of | China unleashed a blistering j attack on the Soviet Union I at the week-end shortly j after he arrived for a four- , I day official visit on the final I leg of his four-nation tour of i Western Europe. ; Mr Hua, the first Chinese head of Government to visit' I Italy, also made clear that! j China is determined to rein-'; ! force its opening to the] world of capitalism. He said I Peking wanted to expand and strengthen its ties with I Italy, which reach back to Marco Polo in the late I thirteenth century. , I ‘‘Hegemonism provokes conflicts and causes crisis in <

'lmany regions, from the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean Ito the Pacific,” Mr Hua told ( the Italian Prime Minister | (Mr Francesco Cossiga) at a ' banquet. (Hegemonism is (Peking’s codeword for Soviet expansionism). “Indeed. Europe is not sol quiet,” Mr Hua continued.' “In the context of a serious' military confrontation, the; balance of forces is under-! ; going changes unfavourable ( to peace. Western Europe is' j faced with growing pressure, and military threat both on its northern and southern ■ flanks.” Mr Hua called for a strong and united Europe to cope with “the fast development of international ; events.”

■! Mr Cossiga said,. “The Ati lantic alliance, precisely beI cause of its defensive char- ■ acter. is considered by us i an essential factor of peace and security, thanks to the! careful updating that we! (undertake to. preserve its! II necessary efficiency.” I It was a clear reference to ■ I his Cabinet’s basic decision (to support deployment of! [advanced United States mis-1 ■;siles in Western Europe. As Mr Hua, in drizzling (rain, laid a wreath of red and yellow flowers at the Piazza Venezia monument of (the unknown soliders, a (group of protesters let loose two clusters of balloons I with huge red-and-white ( signs saying in English, “Hua go home.”