U.S.-British Move To Control Aviation Oil Sales To China

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 November 1949, Page 5

U.S.-British Move To Control Aviation Oil Sales To China

NEW YORK, Nov. 3 (Recd. 8 p.m.) —The United States and Britain have agreed, after three months of discussion, to control the sale of aviation oils and high grade petrol to Communist China, reports the New York “Herald Tribune's” Washington correspondent. There is still no agreement, however, on a number of other export items which the American Government regards as strategic commodities. The United States Commerce Department announced yesterday export controls in nine classifications of refined oils, chiefly aviation. Licences for such exports previously were required only for European destinations with a view to preventing sale to Russia and its allies. The correspondent says that the British, who had contended the banning from China of a long list of items was too difficult to enforce, promised io control petrol exports through voluntary co-operation with British oil companies. The American Government aimed to ban eventually from Communist China the same list of strategic commodities it tried to keep from eastern Europe. The British, however, with large commercial interests in China, were reluctant to accept such a big list of prohibited goods. The British had always held that tight restrictions on trade with Communist areas would disrupt the economy of the whole world. They suggested that normal trade with China was one of the best means of persuading the Chinese Communists to be reasonable.