China, Soviets Declare Alliance for Gulf Peace

The foreign ministers of China and the Soviet Union, after a meeting Saturday that reflected warming Moscow-Beijing ties, said their countries will work together to promote a peaceful resolution of the Persian Gulf crisis.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, without offering details, also declared that the two countries believe that the 12-year war in Cambodia--in which Moscow and Beijing back opposing sides--will soon end.

China and the Soviet Union hold “nearly identical” views on the Persian Gulf crisis caused by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Qian told reporters in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin after meeting there with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

“The present task is that parties should avoid the use of force to prevent an escalation into violent war,” Qian said.

The Soviet foreign minister expressed similar sentiments.

“We did not have any disagreements,” Shevardnadze said. “We both support peaceful means and peaceful channels to solve the gulf crisis.”

Both China and the Soviet Union voted in favor of a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing measures to enforce an economic embargo against Iraq. But they did so only after wording in the original draft resolution was softened.

Shevardnadze said that the two countries are willing to cooperate in an attempt to defuse the crisis.

The foreign ministers praised a recent U.N. proposal for settlement of the conflict in Cambodia, where a three-faction resistance coalition backed by China is fighting the Vietnamese-installed Phnom Penh government. Moscow has been Vietnam’s key supporter.

Qian said Saturday, according to remarks paraphrased by the official New China News Agency, that Moscow and Beijing “have reached the conclusion that the Cambodian issue will be soon settled.”

The Soviet news agency Tass reported from Harbin that Shevardnadze said the two sides were guided by the desire to “make every effort to ensure that Soviet-Chinese relations will continue developing in the line of ascent.”

Three decades of estrangement between Moscow and Beijing ended in May of last year when Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Beijing. Since then, Beijing’s hard-line leadership has been privately critical of many of Gorbachev’s policies, but economic ties and state-to-state relations have moved forward.

Shevardnadze’s first activity in Harbin was to lay a wreath at a monument to Soviet troops who died fighting Japanese forces in northeastern China during the final days of World War II.

“Eternal glory to Soviet soldiers,” read the red ribbon on the garland.

The talks also touched on the situation in the divided Korean Peninsula.

“Both sides stand for an alleviation of the tension on the peninsula, and they hold that it is very important to maintain stability and peace on the peninsula,” the New China News Agency reported.

The official Chinese agency also paraphrased Qian as saying that “during the talks both sides discussed the questions of building up trust and reducing military forces in their border areas.”

The two sides agreed that diplomats and military experts from the two sides will begin a second round of talks on border-area military reductions on Sept. 10 in Moscow, the agency reported. It paraphrased Shevardnadze as saying that these negotiations show “the cooperation between the two countries has reached a new essential level.”

The two foreign ministers announced that China will open a consulate in the Soviet city of Khabarovsk and the Soviet Union will open a consulate in China’s northeastern city of Shenyang.

Shevardnadze’s Harbin visit launches an Asian tour that will also take him to North Korea and Japan.