Mr. Evans (FED)
62
M. Croyoson Din fondly
then PIA
2416
Mr. Heath's Visit to China
The Secretary of State saw Mr. Heath in the House of Commons on 11 June. Sir T. Kitson, Mr. William Waldegrave and I were also present. The following are the main points
which Mr. Heath made.
(a) China wanted good relations with Britain and intended to increase trade steadily though the increase in the quantity of trade would be slow. The Chinese were still hesitant about accepting credit facilities and they were determined not to be put in the same position with any other country (Japan, America, or Europe) that they had found themselves in with the Russians when they accepted a great deal of Russian technology and Russian personnel and were then left high and dry when the Russians withdrew. They were determined to make themselves self-sufficient.
(b) Both internally and externally the Chinese operated in a different time scale from Western countries. Any internal development plan would not be for a five-year period as in the West, but for decades.
(c) Mr. Heath was impressed by the extend of their natural resources and by the development of them. He described this as considerable. The Chinese were self-sufficient in oil from on-shore production and were exporting to Japan in a modest way. They had not yet developed their off-shore resources.
(d) Mr. Heath was very impressed by the standard of fitness of the people he saw, particularly the children. Не wondered how the Chinese would cope with all the energy within themselves. Would there be some internal explosion or external adventure. He thought that the present leaders were not expansionist. They had criticised the Russians for becoming over extended abroad and had questioned where this had got the Soviet Union. They thought that the USSR had little effective control, for example, over India. Similarly they considered that America had become over extended in Vietnam. Mr. Heath did not see much likelihood of outside adventures. The boundary with India was quiet. Tibet was autonomous. He did not think that the Chinese
CONFIDENTIAL
wished/