No Trump

Moscow tries a "China card"

His diction was more than usually slurred. He appeared tired, and his momentum faltered as he paused between sentences. Yet the audience in the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent was attentive as Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev broached a topic that was of concern not only in Tashkent, 240 miles from the Chinese border, but also in Peking and Washington. In an obvious attempt to exploit the currently uncertain state of U.S.-China relations, Brezhnev announced that the Soviet Union was prepared to reopen talks with China to reduce the tensions that have existed between the Communist rivals for more than two decades.

Brezhnev's offer was not the first of its kind, but it was the most direct to date. Said he: "We have never considered normal the state of hostility and estrangement between our countries." Downplaying the doctrinal conflict that caused his predecessor, Nikita Khrushchev, to withdraw all Soviet advisers from China in 1960, Brezhnev offered to renew negotiations on the border disputes that provoked major skirmishes along the Ussuri River frontier in 1969. The Soviets have important reasons to seek a reduction in tensions with China. Faced with domestic economic strains and a dangerous hemorrhaging of resources in Poland and Afghanistan, Moscow may want to limit pressure along the 4,200-mile-long border with China, which is now defended by 46 Soviet divisions.

While wooing China, Brezhnev tried to exploit the growing rift between Peking and Washington over the Reagan Administration's decision to continue selling F-5E jet fighters to Taiwan. The Soviet Union, he stressed, did not have a "two Chinas" policy--in other words, unlike the U.S., it did not maintain ties to the island, which mainland China considers an integral part of its territory. Brezhnev's bid was part of a long-range effort to lure China away from its friendship with the U.S. Says Robert Jensen, professor of geography at Syracuse University: The Soviets "are having considerable success in driving a wedge between us and our European allies. Here they're doing a similar thing on another front."

The Chinese quickly rebuffed Brezhnev's offer. They chose to concentrate on a passage in the Soviet leader's speech in which he mentioned "Peking's cooperation with the policy of imperialists," an allusion to China's expanding links to the U.S., Japan and Western Europe. Said Qian Qichen, a spokesman for Peking's Foreign Ministry: "We firmly reject the attacks on China contained in the remarks." Qian added that China wanted to see concrete evidence of Soviet good will before starting any new talks.

U.S. officials expressed little fear that China would play a "Soviet card" to show its displeasure with U.S. policy. They noted that border talks between the Soviet Union and China are nothing new and that the volume of trade between the two countries ($400 million annually, vs. $5.5 billion with the U.S.) remains small. Says an Administration Kremlinologist: "This is not the first time we've seen the specter of a rapprochement. But every time we put it under the microscope, the threat vanishes."

Few experts anticipate the imminent renewal of a Sino-Soviet alliance. Says a Western diplomat in Moscow: "The Chinese have not changed their strategic posture, which holds that the real threat comes from the Soviet Union." Last week Peking once again attacked the Soviet Union as the "most dangerous source of war in the world today." In a reference to the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, which many Chinese interpreted as a move to encircle their country with pro-Soviet states, the People's Daily warned: "Don't forget Afghanistan."

But the Chinese have shrewdly made use of the Soviet overtures to prod the U.S. to cancel its decision to sell arms to Taiwan. The day of Brezhnev's speech, a Peking magazine published remarks by Party Vice Chairman Deng Xiaoping, again cautioning the U.S. that there was no room for compromise. If Washington did not reverse its decision to supply Taiwan with weapons, Deng said, "let the relations [between the U.S. and China] retrogress. So be it." Administration policymakers cannot count on Chinese mistrust of the Soviet Union alone to ensure harmonious Sino-American relations.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.