Chairman Hua Hits the Road

Plunging into an extraordinary era of door-to-door salesmanship abroad

It was a performance calculated to jangle the nerves of the Russians. There he was, no less a personage than Chinese Communist Party Chairman Hua Kuo-feng, hand in hand with Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, dancing the hora while hundreds of young men and women clapped their hands and thousands of onlookers chanted "Hua! Hua!" And the scene of all this commotion was right in the Kremlin's backyard.

The festivities in Bucharest last week, which kicked off a two-week state visit by the Chinese leader to Rumania, Yugoslavia and Iran, not only constituted a brazen Chinese tweak at the Russian bear but heralded the beginning of an extraordinary new era of personalized Chinese diplomacy following more than a decade of isolationism, if not hostile xenophobia. Looking fit in an elegantly tailored tunic, Hua, 57, obviously enjoyed every minute of the affair. As well he might. Aside from a brief visit to North Korea last spring, this was his first trip to a foreign country and --for a Chinese party chairman--the first-ever foreign journey farther afield than Moscow; Mao Tse-tung last visited the Kremlin in 1957 when relations with the Soviets were still civil.

Moscow's misgivings were aroused by Peking's transparent attempt to present itself as an alternative to the Soviets in the squabbling Communist camp. Certainly Hua's choice of three countries situated on the Soviet Union's southern flank did nothing to quell Russian suspicions. For its part, China has been equally worried about Soviet expansionism in Asia, as well as in the Horn of Africa and South Yemen. Peking, in short, was anxious to cultivate friends who would be effective in helping to halt the tide of what it calls Soviet "hegemony."

Bucharest thus was a logical first stop on Hua's itinerary. With Albania lately at ideological odds with China, Rumania is now Hua's best ally in Eastern Europe. Relations between the two countries have been cordial since the early 1960s, when Rumania realized that the Sino-Soviet rift offered an opportunity to assert its own autonomy.

Fittingly, Hua was given a boisterous reception--although one that was carefully gauged not to exceed that given Soviet Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev on his last visit to Bucharest. After an open-air limousine ride into the capital amid crowds estimated between 250,000 and 500,000, Hua held private conversations with Ceausescu, and was expected to visit the oil center of Ploesti, the Black Sea port of Constanta, and the Danube River port of Galati, which is within sneering distance of the Soviet border.

The business side of the trip focused on trade, technology and diplomacy. Rumania was expected to offer the Chinese high-quality drilling equipment in exchange for oil. Although trade between the two countries has increased seven times over since 1960, several new commercial protocols were also reported in the works.

American analysts viewed the timing of Hua's trip as a normal progression after more than a decade of chaos, stretching from the 1966-69 Cultural Revolution to the crisis that followed Mao's death in 1976. "Their priorities have been predictable," said a State Department specialist. "They've had their People's Congress, and followed it with conferences on science, military affairs and finance and trade to get the post-Mao order set up internally. Now it's natural to turn to foreign policy, including personal diplomacy."

Thus earlier this year, Hua visited neighboring North Korea; the trip resulted in a decided improvement in relations between Peking and Pyongyang. Two weeks ago the Chinese concluded a long-delayed Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Japan and Hua unexpectedly attended the signing ceremonies in Peking.

As it happened, Hua's trip also coincides with the tenth anniversary this week of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which Rumania and Yugoslavia criticized bitterly at the time. Both Bucharest and Belgrade took pains to placate the Russians by declaring that Hua's visit was bilateral and had nothing to do with any anti-Soviet strategy. To calm Soviet fears, Ceausescu even paid a call on Brezhnev just before the Chinese arrived.

Nonetheless, the Soviet press kept up a drumfire of criticism of the Chinese. Pravda blasted Peking for what it called "a veritable military hysteria" and "incitement toward a new war." At a meeting in the Crimea, Brezhnev and Bulgaria's Party Chief Todor Zhivkov issued a joint communique stating that "the peoples of the Balkan countries will not permit this important region to be turned into an object of intrigues and threats force."

Hua found his opportunity to respond to these attacks at a state dinner in Bucharest. After cheerfully clinking glasses with Elena Ceausescu, wife of his host, the chairman offered a toast, but produced a roast instead. In an obvious attack on Moscow, he declared: "The forces that once dreamed of setting up a world empire have long ago turned to dust under the iron blows of the people. Today, those who hold in vain the thought of ruling the world will--even if they briefly enjoy their folly--meet with the same fate."

After that rhetorical punch, Hua this week set out for Belgrade and Tehran, where, in addition to drumming up trade, he could be expected to beat the snares of hegemony again. If he did not offer any surprises on that score alone, his foray into foreign capitals obviously marked the beginning of a new stage in global diplomacy. If the U.S. should break diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Hua might yet make it to Washington.

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