Covering SECRET
4. At the same time the atmosphere of Sino-Soviet relations has deteriorated. A visit to Peking by Soviet Vice Foreign Minister Kapitsa, due to take place in May, was cancelled (there has been a report that it has now been reinstated but other reports have cast doubt on this). The prospects for a further round of normalisation talks this year look increasingly uncertain. Meanwhile there has been a resumption of antagonistic propaganda exchanges on old territorial disputes, on Soviet policy in Cambodia and Afghanistan, and on Chinese foreign policy statements.
5.
We see all these developments as short-term ups and downs in a situation which fundamentally has changed little since last summer. At that time the Chinese and Americans took steps to arrest the downward trend in their relations caused largely by the Taiwan dispute. Simultaneously the Chinese decided to respond to Soviet overtues in an exploratory fashion, seeking greater freedom of manoeuvre within the triangular relationship because of their disappointment at the development of their relations with the Americans. Consequently, Zhao's remarks about the US and the Soviet Union in his foreign policy speech at the recent National People's Congress were noticeably even-handed. Despite this manoeuvring, however, we believe that the Chinese still see the Soviet Union as the greatest threat to world peace and to China's national security; and that in the long term closer relations with the US will be the key to the success of their central policy of economic modernisation.
7 July 1983
Covering SECRET
Markshish
Mark Elliott
Far Eastern Dept