The Lights Go On Again

Some time this fall, Chinese Premier Chou En-lai will make his first official trip abroad in five years. According to reports, he will visit any number of countries, including Pakistan, South Yemen, Tanzania, France, Albania and Rumania. Chou's travels will climax a new departure in Chinese diplomacy. After several years' abstention from normal diplomatic relations with other countries, China is returning to international life. Over the past three weeks, Peking has sent ambassadors to Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia, bringing to 25 the number of Chinese envoys abroad. Once again the lights are flicking on in Chinese embassies all over the world.

They went out when the Cultural Revolution began. The upper echelon of the diplomatic corps was ordered home to undergo intensive reindoctrination in Mao's thoughts, and repeated sessions of selfcriticism. When the Ambassador to Pakistan returned to Peking, for example, he was compelled to kneel at the airport, bow to the masses and confess that he had picked up bourgeois habits.

Ominous Clashes. Eventually, China learned that it could not make do without its diplomatic corps. While the Chinese were preoccupied with their internal crises, the Soviet Union continued to extend its influence around the world. Border clashes with Russia became more frequent and more ominous. Worried that Russia might wage preventive war, China has now embarked on a policy of countering Soviet influence wherever possible. It is fearful of Soviet-American collusion, and even a possible joint attack by the two superpowers. For that reason, it hopes to play off Russia and the U.S. against each other. Chou is also seeking to reassert China's role as a third force and a champion of the lesser powers.

With these goals, China has embarked on a policy that is considerably more pragmatic and less ideological than it used to be. In pursuit of its national interest, it has even started courting nations that it used to castigate--Yugoslavia, for example. Peking has been host this summer to a strikingly varied group of officials from Zambia, Sudan, France, the Congo Republic, Poland and South Yemen. Rumanian Defense Minister Ion lonita was overwhelmed with hospitality and treated to a private audience with the usually inaccessible Chairman Mao. But for all the activity at home, the main thrust of the new Chinese diplomacy has been in other nations.

China has overshadowed Soviet influence among Asian Communists by vigorously supporting Prince Sihanouk's government in exile. Just after the war had spread to Indochina, Chou played host to a unity conference of all Indochinese Communists, and pledged Chinese support until the war is won. Soviet-Japanese collaboration in the development of Siberia gave Chou a chance to play on North Korean fears of revitalized and expanding Japan. As a result, North Korea Strongman Kim Il Sung has recognized Sihanouk's regime and promised aid for the war.

Denouncing the Middle East cease-fire as a "political fraud," China has carried on secret talks with the Palestinian commandos, who are opposed to a truce with Israel. China supports ongoing conflict partly because it wants to counteract any Soviet-American cooperation, partly because it wants to appear as the champion of revolutionary forces. Chou received a delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Peking last week, and the Chinese charge d'affaires in Baghdad has reportedly promised the guerrillas unlimited aid. Chinese aid so far has consisted mainly of small arms that are shipped to the Iraqi port of Basra and trucked overland to Jordan.

China's biggest foreign aid project is in East Africa, where it has recently given a $400 million interest-free loan to Tanzania and Zambia for the creation of a 1,166-mi. railroad. The railroad, whose construction is scheduled to start this fall, will transport copper from the interior of Zambia to the Tanzanian coast. China has also pumped $60 million into Tanzania's first five-year plan. It has provided the guerrillas in Southern Tanzania with thousands of tons of arms and ammunition to be used in their forays into white-controlled Rhodesia, South Africa, Mozambique and Angola.

Old Habits. The emergence of the Chinese diplomats has made them the most talked-about members of the international circuit. Though still as rigid and unsmiling as ever, they are beginning to show up at diplomatic receptions and are even inviting journalists to lunch. In Paris, at least, the Chinese diplomats seem to be slipping back into bourgeois habits despite the reindoctrination of the Cultural Revolution. The ambassador has exchanged his modest Peugeot for a Mercedes, which had been mothballed during the Revolution. The tight-collared Mao tunic is still the standard diplomatic uniform, though it is now smartly tailored and cut from serge instead of the customary baggy cotton. Beneath the diplomat's crisply creased trousers peep out not the proletarian sandals of the old Cultural Revolution but the shiny toes of genuine leather shoes.

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