Chinese are warming to Russia’s overture

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 25

Chinese are warming to Russia’s overture

From

JONATHAN MIRSKY

in London

The Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Leonid ’ Ilyichov, has been fishing in Chinese waters for a long time. Now there are signs that he has , something on his hook. In one of the first breaks in 20 years of enmity between Moscow and Peking, he has just ended talks about talks in Peking. Now the two sides are meeting to discuss substantive questions. These will revolve around Chinese demands the Soviets will be hard-pressed to satisfy. They include calls on the Vietnamese to withdraw from Kampuchea. withdrawal from Afghanistan, scaling down the 45 Red Army divisions along the 4000-mile common border, and recognition of border claims reaching into western Siberia and north to Vladivostok. But even getting back to the conference table is an accomplishment for Ilyichov, who began trekking to Peking in 1969. The fishing metaphor is not out of place. In those days, it is rumoured, he passed his time waiting for appointments at the Chinese Foreign Ministry by fishing in his embassy’s pond. Border talks and other discussions about the renewal of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty were ended when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. Now. after two appeals this year from President Brezhnev, first in Tashkent in March and last month in Baku. Peking has admitted that Ilyichov is in the capital

not as a private guest of his ambassador but as a negotiator. The pace towards the present consultations — about which the Chinese masses have been scarcely informed — has been gently accelerating. A Russian ran in the Peking marathon a few weeks ago; and a Chinese became her country’s first grand master by coming third in a womens chess tournament in Russia. Yu Hongliang, a ranking Chinese authority on Russia, has been to Moscow, and a top Russian Chinese specialist, Mikhail Kapitsa, unofficially visited Peking in May. New’fishing and trade agreements have been concluded. On the ideological front. "Pravda" accused the West in July of fanning the flames of the Sino-Soviet dispute, and recommended easier border relations. China’s ideological shifts have been more subtle and most notable for the omission of abuse at moments of paramount political significance. At the recent party congress in Peking, only ritual insults were flung in the direction of Moscow. All this could be no more than a series of signals to Washington. Peking expects total United States acceptance of its claims to Taiwan, and a rejuvenated PekingMoscow entente. could confront Washington with a twoheaded monster. —. Copyright, London Observer.