World: CHINA: ON THE VERGE OF SPEAKING TERMS

IN the unlikely setting of a fashion show staged early this month by the Yugoslav embassy in the Palace of Culture in Warsaw, U.S. Ambassador Walter Stoessel managed to engage the interpreter of the Chinese embassy in a brief conversation. Between any other two men in the room, the encounter would have gone unnoticed. But as Stoessel and the interpreter chatted, other diplomats in the room looked on in surprise. For the first time in nearly two years, American and Chinese representatives had established direct contact.

After a long period of self-imposed isolation, Peking has apparently decided to recommence at least a measure of diplomatic contact with the West. As a result of the fashion-show conversations, Stoessel was invited to the Chinese embassy for a meeting with Chargé d’Affaires Lei Yang. The two men talked and sipped tea for more than an hour. Though the content of their discussion remains secret, President Nixon’s top foreign policy advisers are convinced that Peking may well be on the verge of resuming formal talks with the U.S.

For its part, the Administration made the gesture of easing U.S. restrictions on trade with China. For the first time since the Communists won control of the mainland in 1949, U.S. businessmen may engage in nonstrategic trade with China. Though the ban on direct commercial import of Chinese goods remains, U.S. firms are free to buy Chinese products, and sell their own to China, through foreign-based subsidiaries or through intermediaries in other countries. U.S. citizens abroad will be able to bring back unlimited quantities of Chinese-made items, which will be subject only to normal tourist duties.

Useful Channel. Stoessel’s contacts in Warsaw carry a special importance, since the Polish capital has been the site of earlier Sino-American conversations. Between 1955 and 1968, the U.S. and China held a total of 134 meetings, first in Geneva and then in Warsaw. While the talks produced mostly propaganda, they did provide a useful channel for confidential contacts. Occasionally, the U.S. ambassador delivered an unpublicized message; in 1962, for example, Washington used the talks to assure Peking that the U.S. would not support a Nationalist attack from Taiwan against the mainland.

The meetings were broken off by the Chinese, whose foreign office had almost ceased to function as a result of the ravages of Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution. In 1966-67, Peking recalled its ambassadors from all over the world. Even now it has replaced only one in Eastern Europe—in Rumania, which has remained neutral in the Sino-Soviet quarrel. Late last year, presumably in a test of the new Nixon Administration, the Chinese agreed to a single meeting in Warsaw in February, only to cancel it abruptly after a Chinese diplomat in Holland defected to the U.S.

Since then, the Chinese have given some signs that they want to return to normal diplomatic behavior. Their embassies, which for months remained forbiddingly closed to guests, have begun to entertain once more. The Chinese embassy in Moscow has imported a cook from Hupeh province whose spiced cabbage and chicken receives favorable mention on the diplomatic dinner circuit. Recent European guests (no Americans have been invited) reported that the atmosphere becomes somewhat stiff after dinner, when each visitor is seated individually with a Chinese and subjected to a quiz on such issues as Soviet intentions in Europe and his own government’s policies.

Good Reasons. The Nixon Administration is anxious to draw China out of its “angry, alienated shell,” as Under Secretary of State Elliot Richardson put it recently. The U.S. fully realizes that it cannot effect any lasting solutions in Viet Nam and Southeast Asia without at least some cooperation from China. Also, Washington worries that a lack of contact between China and the U.S. might embolden the Russians to blackmail or attack China. In view of Moscow’s superior military strength, an American show of neutrality would only benefit the Russians; yet because of the communications void between Peking and Washington, the U.S. would have no other choice, short of retaliating directly against the Soviets. Washington would like to make the Russians less certain of impunity in the event they decided to start a war against China.

Chinese motivation for talks rests on its fear of Russia. The Sino-Soviet border talks, now adjourned after eight weeks, seem to be going badly. The Chinese apparently hope to gain leverage on the Soviets by demonstrating readiness to deal with the U.S.

Even if talks are resumed, U.S. officials do not expect any immediate progress. For one thing, the Chinese Communists demand, as a precondition for even the smallest agreement, that the U.S. abandon the Nationalist government on Taiwan. Also, few Westerners comprehend how far Mao’s China will go to protect its ideological purity. In the minds of Chinese leaders, cultural exchanges and the arrival of Western journalists would only serve to sully the haven of unadulterated Communism. In fact, the most that the U.S. could hope for in the near future would be an agreement to hold regular discussions. These might be moved to Bucharest, since Poland has made a point of siding with the Soviets in the dispute.