MOSCOW, Reuter – : Despite fresh conciliatory gestures clearly aimed at China by Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev, full rapprochement between the world’s biggest communist powers still seems a distant prospect. The barriers include China’s so called three obstacles; Gorbachev addressed two of these in a speech last week but according to Moscow based diplomatic specialists, ‘without going far enough to tempt the Chinese into a warmer friend- ship.

The trouble is that the Russians want good relations with China more than the Chinese need them, so Gorbachev must woo Peking with more concrete concessions if he is to succeed, commented one Western diplomat specializing in Asian affairs.

Economic links, by contrast, are expanding fast. Sino-Soviet trade soared by 64% to 2.2 billion dollars last year and China’s first trade fair in the Soviet Union since 1953 is currently being held in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park.

The Kremlin would like political relations with Peking to develop with the same momentum, a concern that clearly underlay Gorbachev’s remarks in the Soviet far eastern Port of Uladiuostok.

The three obstacles cited by: China is the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan, its troop levels on the Chinese border and its support for Vietnam’s presence in Kampuchea.

China and the Soviet Union fell out over ideology and foreign policy at the start of the 1960s and their communist parties still have no direct relations with each other.

Diplomats say Moscow under- stands that it cannot hope to draw China back into the fold of Soviet style communist nations but security considerations motivate its search for better ties.

The nightmare of Kremlin leaders is that Peking, now reforming is economy with an element of free enterprise, will move still closer to the west, forming an axis with the United States and Japan against the Soviet Union.

Although Peking’s disagreement with Washington over Taiwan and its proclaimed policy of keeping a distance from both stipe powers seem to rule this out, the historic Russian fear of the vast Chinese nation on its border is deeply rooted.

The Kremlin, also interested in further trade benefits from political rapprochement, is watching Peking’s economic reforms with interest but unease lest China outpace the Soviet Union in the quality consumer goods field that Gorbachev often stress.

The Chinese, while having some interest in boosting trade, are less worried about security and can afford to play a waiting game, according to diplomats,

Peking was unimpressed by Gorbachev’s first gesture in his speech, the announcement that some 7,000 Soviet troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by year ‘end and batted it straight back with a demand for all 115,000 to be pulled out

The announcement also seemed timed to coincide with the reconvening of Geneva talks between Kabul and Islamabad on ending the Afghan war and designed to impress Washington with Moscow’s flexibility on regional conflicts ahead of a possible second superpower summit.

But Western diplomats were highly sceptical that the pullout would adversely affect the fighting power of Soviet troops, who with the Afghan army have been on the offensive against Moslem rebels this summer.

Gorbachev’s second gesture, aimed more exclusively at the Chinese, was his statement that the Soviet Union was discussing with Mongolia the possibility with drawing some of its 25,000 troops from the territory of its ally on China’s border.

The Chinese have yet to res- pond officially to this comment as well as to an offer Gorbachev made on demarcating the border along the rivers of Northeast Asia, ‘which east bloc diplomats in Peking called a concession by Moscow to China’s position.

Gorbachev said the border – could run along the main ship channel an apparent retreat from Moscow’s previous insistence that it should run along the Chinese bank, the Peking based diplomats said.

Analysts in Moscow noted that Gorbachev had only mentioned one of the two rivers involved, the ‘Amur, and not the Usury where fighting broke out between Soviet and Chinese forces in 1969.

On the troops in Mongolia, they said China would be looking for more precise details of the talks with Ulan Bator. Also outstanding and much more serious was the issue of the Soviet Union’s approximately one million troops on its direct border with China.

As for China’s third obstacle — the Vietnamese presence in – Kampuchea – Gorbachev signaled little change in the Kremlin’s attitude.

Noting that Kampuchea, then Cambodia, had sustained heavy Losses in U.S. bombing raids during the Vietnam War, he said.

With its suffering, it has gained. The right to choose friends   and allies for itself.

Peking favors a plan by Prince or Odom Sihanouk’s forces for a joint government to be formed with the Vietnamese – backed – Heng Samrin faction pending U.N – supervised elections in re- turn for a staged withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea.

Diplomats said the third obstacle was the most important to China and also the area where the Soviet Union could move most easily, since its territorial interests were not at stake, But Moscow was maintaining support for its ally Vietnam as one way of keeping up pressure on China, they said.

Article extracted from this publication >> August 8, 1986