Chinese offer to Taiwan

Press, 1 June 1981, Page 6

Chinese offer to Taiwan

NZPA-Reuter Peking China, in a peace gesture to Nationalist-ruled Taiwan, yesterday invited friends and relatives in Taiwan of the late Chinese honorary head of State, Madame Soong Ching-ling, to attend her funeral in Peking on Wednesday at China’s expense. Special flights by Taiwan's China Airlines could land at Peking or Shanghai for the occasion, according to an announcement by the funeral committee for Madame Soong, the widow of the Chinese Nationalist leader, Mr Sun Yat-sen. The announcement was quoted by the New China News Agency a day after Madame Soong had died of leukemia in Peking at the Chinese age of 90, which the agency said was equivalent to 88 years by Western calculations.

Such a gesture from Peking had been widely expected after the death of Madame Soong, who was the only member of her well-known Nationalist family to join the Chinese Communists when they Conquered the mainland in 1949.

After becoming critically ill in mid-May, Madame Soong was admitted to the Chinese Communist Party and was appointed to the unique post of honorary President of China as a reward for the service she did to the Communists by backing them.

Madamb Soong's sister is» the widow of Nationalist leader, Mr Chiang Kai-shek, whose son, Mr Chiang Chingkua, is President of Taiwan. Madame Chiang lives near New York.

Western diplomats in Peking said that the Nationalists had steadfastly rejected previous Chinese appeals for direct trade and communications links.

(ji. Taiwan, a midnight newscast reported Madame Soong’s death without comment and political observers predicted that no official reaction would be forthcoming since she had long been dissociated with the Nationalists.

China yesterday also warned President Reagan not to sell arms to Taiwan and denounced, American politicians who favoured a “two Chinas” policy. The official newspaper “Guangming Daily” said that arms sales contravened the 1978 agreement establishing full diplomatic relations between Washington and Peking, which permits unofficial cultural and trade links with Taiwan. The United States has continued to sell arms valued at millions of dollars to Taiwan in the last two years but what China is most worried about is deliveries of new, sophisticated equipment such as. the Fl 6 fighter. The Reagan Administration has so far made no public move to make such sales.

Timor moves The United Nations Secre-tary-General (Dr Kurt Wald heim) has said (hat the world body will consider steps to settle problems arising from Indonesia’s invasion of the Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. Speaking after three days of talks with Portuguese leaders, Dr Wald heim said the United Nations would try to find a way to satisfy all parties concerned in the question of East Timor. He declined to go into detail, but said earlier that the Portuguese Foreign Minister (Mr Andre Goncalves Pereira), had asked the United Nations to set up a special committee on the territory.—Lisbon.