TNAG-0005-FCO40-41-Departmental-briefs-about-Hong-Kong-1968 — Page 73

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SOVIET UNION

16, Short of armed conflict, Sinc-Soviet

relations could hardly be worse.

Polemics,

initiated mostly by the Chinese, are at a con-

sistently high level and the Czechoslovakia

crisis provoked a particularly vicious outburst

from Peking.

How

17.Stemming from the ideological split at the

end of the 1950s, the dispute now embraces the

historical national antagonisms of the two

countries. It is reflected in competition for

the allegiance of the Communist Parties of the

world, in competition for influence in South

and South East Asia in particular and in

tension over the long Sino-Soviet border.

is this dispute likely to evelop over the next

decade? A rapprochement seems improbable;

China will be relatively so weak kaxxaxŵyths

***** as not to give Russia sufficient incen-

tive to mend the fences; Russia, even in the

revisionism' face of extreme revolutionisir' in Eastern

Europe, is unlikely to become sufficiently

reactionary for a full accommodation with

China to be feasible; the deep gap between

their philosophies xnd of revolution will

probably remain unbridgeable. A limited

accommodation, however, might result on the

initiative of a post-kao leadership, seeking,

for instance, an expansion of external trade.

Russia is likely to be even more ..ary than

Western countries or Japan about giving aid to

a China which she cannot control and whose

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