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as well.
CONFIDENTIAL
3.
Japan and increasingly with the United States
China is now seeking improved relations
with her South East Asian neighbours, apart from
Vietnam and Laos. Sino-Indian relations are
much improved and the Indian Foreign Minister is
expected to visit Peking in the autumn.
Soviet Union will be highly sensitive about the
strengthening of Sino/Western relations,
The
particularly because of its (not unreasonable)
fears of a strong and hostile China in, say,
twenty years' time. We must expect these fears
to have an effect on the general approach of the
Soviet leadership to foreign policy questions,
and perhaps to make them rather more difficult to
deal with; but this will happen whether or not the
West helps China to develop. The important
thing for the West, and more particularly for the
UK, in terms of our relations with the USSR, is
that we should be seen to be contributing to a
natural development in our relations with China
and not appear to be trying artificially to bring
it about or hurry it along. Provided this
condition is met, I would expect continuing Soviet
interest in détente to remain a restraining
factor on their behaviour. The West should
therefore develop its relationship with China
in an open and unpolemical way; should, so far
as possible, seek to act in concert; and should
avoid any sudden lurch which might trigger off
/a Soviet