Frigid relations between Moscow and Peiping seemed to take a turn for the better in a late spring thaw—but it may be only temporary.
In mid-March, the Peiping regime invited Nikita Khrushchev to visit Peiping, ostensibly in an effort to heal the ideological rift between the two Communist regimes.
According to the Soviet Tass news agency, the invitation came in an exchange of letters between the Soviet Union and the Peiping regime agreeing on a Moscow-Peiping meeting to settle their differences.
The Chinese Communist letter urged Khrushchev to stop off in Peiping on his visit to Cambodia for "an exchange of views."
The invitation to Khrushchev, according to the New China News Agency, was first suggested by Mao Tse-tung in talks with the Soviet ambassador to Peiping, S. V. Chervonenko. "If this is not convenient to you," Mao said, "the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party can send to Peiping a delegation headed by another responsible comrade, or we can send a delegation to Moscow."
In its message to Peiping, the Soviet Communist Party said it wanted a bilateral meeting to bring about an end to "differences".
The Red Chinese reply said Peiping was pleased that its "Soviet comrades were making an effort" to heal the rift. It added, "We sincerely hope that the Soviet comrades take steps toward the ending of the dispute between the Soviet Union and (Red) China and the Soviet Union and Albania. This evidently will require the initiative of the Soviet Union."
The Chinese Communists, who had just concluded a series of bitter attacks on Soviet leadership, said: "We have decided to stop publishing polemical articles from this day onward, aside from those already published."
But the Peiping statement reserved the right to reply "openly to criticism from any other Communist party."
The Chinese Communists gave a hint of tough bargaining ahead when they said the Soviet Union must make the first concessions and specifically demanded that Khrushchev end his friendship with Tito of Yugoslavia.
The Red Chinese offer was not accepted by Khrushchev. Eighteen days later, on April 2, the Russians replied, inviting Mao Tse-tung to Moscow for talks instead.
The invitation, contained in a 10,000-word letter from the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party to the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party, said Mao would receive a "worthy welcome" in Moscow.
It said "the best time for such a visit would be in the coming spring or summer—good seasons of the year in our country."
If Mao cannot come, the letter said, the Soviet party is ready to "accept your considerations concerning a meeting of representatives" of the Soviet and. Chinese Communist parties in Moscow "at a high level."
It suggested May 15 as a possible date. The letter, which was dated March 30 and delivered in Peiping April 2, expressed "gratitude" for Mao's invitation. It added, however, that Khrushchev was not planning a trip to Cambodia and said that the visit would be made by Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev.
The letter was couched in relatively mild language, although it repeated Soviet insistence on such matters as better relations with Yugoslavia and "peaceful coexistence" in foreign policy.
There was deep skepticism among free world analysts that Mao would accept Khrushchev's invitation for a visit to Moscow this spring or summer.
Many also believe that Khrushchev would face a loss of prestige with Communist parties and neutral nations around the world if he went to Peiping at the summons of Mao.
Treaty Inequalities
On March 8, the Chinese Communist Party raised for the first time the question of Chinese territory annexed by Russia in a series of "unequal treaties" signed over the last century.
The treaty question was discussed in People's Daily criticism of the Communist Party of the United States.
But U.S. officials said the editorial broadcast in English was primarily aimed at Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev because he had taunted Peiping over permitting Hongkong and Macao to remain colonial territories.
The Chinese Communist paper said the government of imperial China had been forced by colonial powers to sign a large number of unequal treaties. Czarist Russia was included among the colonialists along with the United States, Britain, France, Japan, and Portugal.
"By virtue of these unequal treaties, they annexed Chinese territory in the north, east, and west and held leased territories on the seaboard and in the hinterland of China," the paper charged.
Among the "unequal treaties" forced on China, the People's Daily specifically listed three agreements with Czarist Russia. They were the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, in which China gave up territory on the northeast side of the Amur River in Manchuria; the 1860 Treaty of Peking, yielding areas east of the Ussuri River involving what are now the Russian maritime provinces and Vladivostock, and the 1881 Treaty of Ili, which included territory now a part of Soviet Turkistan and Lake Balkash.
Apparently stung by the Khrushchev reference to the continued existence of the British colony of Hongkong and Portuguese Macao, the paper said: "You are not unaware that such questions as those of Hongkong and Macao relate to the category of unequal treaties left over by history, treaties which the imperialists imposed on China.
"It may be asked in raising questions of this kind if you intend to raise all the questions of unequal treaties and have a general settlement? Has it ever entered your heads what the consequences would be? Can you seriously believe that this will do you any good?"
Again in a direct reply to the Khrushchev December 12 speech before the Supreme Soviet, but without naming him, the Chinese Communist organ said: "Superficially, you seem to agree with (Red) China's policy on Hongkong and Macao. Yet you compare it with India's liberation of Goa. Anyone with a discerning eye can see at once that your sole intention is to prove that the Chinese are cowards."
The daily concluded with a warning that many of the old treaties have lost their validity, and outstanding issues will be left in abeyance only until "conditions are ripe."
Mission to London
Peiping has begun to make efforts to free itself from economic dependence on the Soviet Union.
This intention emerged as Peiping sent a trade mission to Britain in March.
The five-member delegation, headed by Communist "Vice Minister of Foreign Trade" Lu Shu-cheng, arrived in Britain March 20 for a three-week "official" visit. It was the first ministerial mission of the Peiping regime in made brief mention of Lu's departure.
Peiping gave little publicity to Lu's trip. On March 20, the New China News Agency made brief mention of Lu's departure.
In Britain, the Communist delegation paid calls on Edward Du Cann, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and Lord Dundee, Minister of State at the Foreign Office.
They visited an aircraft factory which is building six jet airliners for the Chinese Reds, a nuclear power station, electronic and power generating plants, and various other industries.
British officials, said the Red were particularly interested in synthetic fibre and synthetic ammonia plants.
The Britons, plagued by export difficulties and high unemployment hoped to interest Lu in buying complete textile and other factory installations, machine tools, and consumer goods.
Britain's imports from the Chinese mainland in 1962 were £23,100,000 (US$64,680,000) while exports were £8,400,000 (US$23,520,000).
British exports were mainly copper, iron and steel, wool tops, chemicals, and machinery, while the imports consisted largely of agricultural products such as bristles, cashmere wool, soya beans, and tea.
Free world experts believe that the Chinese Communist soundings in Britain are a telling indication that Peiping does not expect Moscow-Peiping relations to grow much better.
Two Times Zero
Although fragmentary information suggests that food production on the Chinese mainland has increased in 1962, it is still some 20 million tons short of its 1957 level of per capita availability.
Many experts on Chinese Communist affairs see Red China's 1963 food production outlook as "uncertain" and dependent on the weather and "human factors."
A recent U.S. survey said: "There is incontrovertible evidence that slumping agricultural production in the period 1959-61 put the entire Chinese Communist economy in dire straits. After three poor harvests in a row, the advent of 1962 was grim indeed with widespread reports of food shortages and malnutrition."
The Peiping regime has adopted a policy of retrenchment in industry so as to support agricultural production. But "there is not enough evidence yet available to determine whether the efforts to increase food production were successful," according to the report.
Peiping imported about 5,390,000 tons of grain from the free world in 1961 and from four to five million tons in 1962. Some grain was re-exported to Cuba, Ceylon, Albania, and East Germany.
Several sources estimated the 1962 Red Chinese grain output as in the neighborhood of 182 million metric tons. The 1957-58 estimate was some 193,500,000 tons. In determining per capita availability, allowance must be made for increase in population.
Down, Down, Down
The March issue of Monthly Bulletin of Statistics issued by the United Nations also provided data on the economic setbacks of the Communist-held mainland.
First, the Peiping regime has increased its food imports to an astonishing degree. In terms of U.S. dollars, the amount was $55 million in 1959, $84 million in 1960, and $500 million in 1961.
During the same period, the Peiping regime was still exporting food, though at a decreasing rate. In 1958, the figure was $680 million. In 1959, it was $620 million. In 1960, it decreased to $530 million. And in 1961, the figure tumbled to $225 million.
Second, the Peiping regime has reduced its imports of machinery and transport equipment since 1959, an indication of industrialization curtailment.
The Bulletin showed that in 1959, the Chinese Communists imported machinery and transport equipment worth $910,000,000. In 1960, the figure was $800,000,000. In 1961, it was drastically cut to $330,000,000.
Third, the Peiping regime scaled down its import of other manufactured goods. The value of such imports in 1958 was $650,000,000. In 1959, it was $600,000,000; in 1960, $580,000,000; and in 1961, it dropped to a mere $260,000,000. Not that Red China did not need the capital goods; declining figures indicate a shortage of foreign exchange.
Those Russians Again
Departure of Russian technicians and the termination of Soviet aid have crippled Communist China's major industrial complexes.
Western analysts in Hongkong and Washington recently added up some of the effects of the Soviet withdrawal on the Chinese economy.
One of the greatest setbacks was that on the Sanmen Gorge dam on the Yellow River. The Sanmen dam affects the entire Yellow River basin (which contains 40 per cent of Red China's arable land and 180 mil lion people). The Chinese Reds managed to complete the dam in 1961, but the Soviets stopped delivery on generators, and to date the dam is useless as a source of power.
The Changchun truck and passenger-car plant, originally scheduled to start full production in 1958, began to turn out a trickle of finished vehicles in late 1959, Now the plant is reduced to manufacturing spare parts for the few units it completed in the first place. It also repairs tractors.
The Tientsin farm-machinery plant, with an estimated production capacity of 10,000 units (mostly tractors), managed to turn out 6,000 units in 1960. Production this year will be down to about 4,500 because the Russians have stopped delivery of nickel alloys for cylinder linings.
Coal production on the mainland has skidded from 425 million tons in 1961 to about 200 million tons last year. Letters received in Hongkong from coal-rich Manchuria report that coal for heating homes is in drastically short supply.