3.
3
line countries were willing to try the Anglo-American plan, but their confidence in it had diminished. It was only through genuine
respect for the front line countries and for the aspirations of the people of Namibia and Rhodesia for independence in good time, that Soviet meddling could be excluded. China supported the people of Rhodesia, Namibia and the whole of Africa in all forms of their struggle for their rights, including armed struggle. But China did not oppose the achievement of their aims through negotiations. Time was now running out. Britain, the US and other Western countries should not be wavering and vacillating: the Russians would not wait.
7.
Dr Owen said that he did not disagree with these views. But he thought that China could use its influence to see that Mr Mugabe kept to the negotiating route. Mr Huang said that China's attitude was demonstrated by the Security Council vote. Dr Owen said that he welcomed the vote.
8.
*
Referring to Mr Huang's reference to western credit and technical assistance to the Soviet Union, Dr Owen said that this was a very difficult issue, on which there were many different opinions within the West. But we did not supply anything which spilled over into the defence area - we did not supply either defensive or offensive military equipment. Even within Europe there was no agreement on credit terms to the Soviet Union. The problem was that Western Europeans did not yet have a socialist system, and market forces tended to operate rather erratically a fact which the Soviet Union exploited. The UK was not ready to consider withholding technology from the Soviet Union. Although the question was debated, on balance we considered that it would hurt us more than the USSR. Other countries would cheat. We would then be unable to maintain the policy. It was also possible to exaggerate the technological disparity between the Soviet Union and the West. In addition it would make impossible that dialogue with the Soviet Union which both he and the Prime Minister had explained was important to us. The Chinese attitude was easy to adopt but Mr Huang did not have bankers and industrialists pressuring him. We had to take into account our need to trade with the whole world.
It was difficult for the UK
to step out of line from other major industrialised countries. Ferhaps we could afford to change our attitude if the Chinese bought enough of our goods! Nevertheless we were already strict: we decided against many deals which had attractions for us because of their military connotations, in such fields as computers, sophisticated machine tools and laser technology.
9.
Mr Huang said that some western friends had raised the question of Sino-Soviet relations and asked whether Chinese policy would change in the future. The Soviet Union on the one hand was posing a military threat to China by massing troops on the border and spreading hostile propaganda: and on the other hand said that it wanted to improve relations with China and to have scientific and technical co-operation. The Chinese position was that they thought the Soviet policy of social imperialism would not change and therefore
;
:
3.
/their policy
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