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has made no attempt on his current sojourn to allay Moscow's fears
whatsoever.
"A fight must be waged against the policy of domination and dictate,
against the division into spheres of influence, against the recourse
to threat or use of force," said Hua in his toast at a farewell
banquet hosted by China for Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu.
"Aggression, control, and subversion of any state against other states
must be strongly condemned and firmly combated," Hua added.
The Chinese leader added insult to injury by timing his toast to
coincide with the actual start of the invasion ten years ago that
crushed the "Prague Spring" policies of liberal Czech leader Alexander
Dubcek. Troops of the Soviet Union and four hard-core Warsaw Pact
nations (not including Romania) moved into Czech territory at 11 p.m.
August 20, 1968.
China's aggressiveness is having a predictable reaction in Moscow.
And this reaction is the most important aspect of the changing world
power relationship. The Soviets are fearful -- in fact somewhat
paranoiac-- about their shaky eastern flank, especially with China
and Japan getting together and with relations between China and India
also improving. As a result Moscow is making renewed efforts to shore
up relations in the West -- particularly with West Germany.
Both Pravda and Izvestia have recently carried a number of articles
emphasizing improved relations with Paris and Bonn in particular.
On August 16 Pravda devoted a column of commentary on increased trade
with Western Europe. Izvestia a week earlier spoke glowingly of
good relations with Bonn in the wake of Mr. Brezhnev's visit there
earlier in May. Soviet television recently showed a flattering docu
mentary on West Germany, dealing extensively with relations with Moscow.
(West Germany is now at the top of the list of Moscow's capitalist
trade partners, ahead of Japan, with the U.S. way down the list as
Soviet-American trade continues to contract.)
"Western diplomats," reports the Christian Science Monitor of August
18, "also see other reasons for paying attention to Western Europe.
Moscow cherishes hopes of dividing the U.S. from its NATO allies."
Germany and France are particularly ripe for Soviet overtures. Their
confidence in the United States, especially over economic affairs, has
fallen dramatically. On the eve of Chairman Brezhnev's visit to
Bonn last May, the German newspaper Hannoversche Allgemeine commented:
"Brezhnev is going to try to woo the Federal Republic of Germany, and
with it Western Europe, away from the United States •.• Annoyance in
Bonn and Paris about American policies has grown appreciably in the
last year. Not for a long time have the policies of an American
President commanded as little respect in Europe as those of President
Carter.... Leonid Brezhnev could hardly have chosen a better moment
to visit Bonn."
One top official in the West German government, Egon Bahr, has been
especially active in pushing for greatly expanded ties with the Soviet
Union. He has spent hours talking with Brezhnev both in Bonn, and on
a subsequent trip he made to Moscow in July, not as an emissary of