Shevardnadze in Beijing to Plan Summit

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze arrived here Wednesday to set the stage for a planned Sino-Soviet summit meeting that would formally end three decades of hostility between China and the Soviet Union.

“We are convinced that the summit will open a new chapter in the history of two neighboring countries,” Shevardnadze said in a written statement given to reporters upon his arrival at Beijing airport. “We are starting our negotiations fully aware of . . . its enormous importance for the normalization of bilateral relations and improvement of the situation in the region and in the whole world.”

In brief spoken comments to reporters, Shevardnadze said he expects to reach agreement with his Chinese hosts on a specific date for the summit. The meeting, which would bring Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to Beijing to meet China’s paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, and other top officials, is expected to take place in April or May.

First Summit Since 1959

The summit meeting will be the first since Nikita S. Khrushchev met Mao Tse-tung in Beijing in 1959, shortly before relations between the two countries soured over ideological and border disputes.

Shevardnadze, who was met and warmly greeted at the airport by Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, said he had brought a personal letter to Chinese leaders from Gorbachev.

During this visit, Shevardnadze said, the two sides will “take a step forward in discussing and improving Sino-Soviet relations.”

“The basis for this relationship,” he said, “is peaceful coexistence and mutual respect.”

In addition to planning for the summit, the two sides are expected to discuss a resolution of the Cambodian conflict and measures to improve relations along the Sino-Soviet border.

The Soviet Union has supported Vietnam’s decade-long intervention in Cambodia, while China has been the most important backer of resistance forces fighting the Vietnamese-installed government there. But as preparations for a summit gained momentum, the Soviet Union appeared to be encouraging Hanoi to withdraw its troops from Cambodia.

China and Vietnam reached agreement last month on a Vietnamese withdrawal by September, matched with a cutoff in Chinese aid to the resistance. Thus, any discussion on Cambodia between Shevardnadze and Qian is expected to focus on possible terms for a political settlement among the competing Cambodian factions, and mechanisms for international guarantees of a peace agreement.

The time available for talks is limited, which may indicate that the ground has already been prepared for major decisions. Shevardnadze will meet with Qian this morning and Friday morning, but he is scheduled to take time this afternoon to travel to the Great Wall, north of Beijing, on a sightseeing trip.

On Friday afternoon, he will meet Premier Li Peng, and that evening he flies to Shanghai, where he will meet Deng on Saturday. Deng, 84, is spending part of the winter in Shanghai, which has a milder climate than Beijing.

Going Next to Pakistan

Shevardnadze is scheduled to return to Beijing, give a Saturday afternoon press conference and then fly that same day to Pakistan for talks about the situation in Afghanistan, where the Soviet troop withdrawal is in its final stages.

In his written statement Wednesday, Shevardnadze held out a vision of Sino-Soviet friendship contributing to more successful development of both societies.

“The process of restructuring, renovation, modernization, full opening of the potentials of socialism in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China are also within our sight,” he said.

The theme of Sino-Soviet dialogue, he said, is “peace and development.”