NEUTRALITY GUARANTEE WAS SOUGHT— Soviet Offered Terms To Chinese Nationalists

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 August 1949, Page 6

NEUTRALITY GUARANTEE WAS SOUGHT— Soviet Offered Terms To Chinese Nationalists

WASHINGTON, August 23.—The Soviet Government had asked the Chinese Government in January, 1949, for a guarantee that China would remain neutral if Russia became involved in a war, a Chinese Nationalist Government spokesman said today. He was Dr Kan Chieh-hou, personal representative of the Acting-President of China (General Li Tsung-jen). Dr Kan said that the Soviet Union, at the same time, had demanded a reduction of American influence in China.

Dr Kan issued his. statement “to correct misunderstanding regarding General La’s foreign policy as related in' the United States State Department’s White Paper.” A section of the. White Paper stated that General Li had agreed in principle to the following requests by the Soviet Embassy in Nanking: (1) strict .Chinese neutrality in any future international conflicts; (2) the elimination of American influence to as great an extent as possible in China; and (3) the establishment of a basis of real co-op-eration between China and Russia.

Dr Kan- denied today that any such agreement had ever been reached with the Soviet. He described, the efforts of the Chinese Nationalist Government to persuade the Soviet Union to prevail on the Chinese Communists to agree to a settlement and halt their drive into South China. He said: “It became altogether clear that what the Soviet Union had really wanted in the last three years was a guarantee that China would remain neutral in case Russia became involved

in any war. It was equally clear that, after their failure in obtaining a neutrality agreement from the Chinese Government, the Russians gave a ‘go ahead’ signal to the . Chinese .Communists, with the hope that a Com-munist-controlled China would give them this guarantee.”