Mondale Crosses the Boundary

From cautious acquaintance to first confident friendship

The reception accorded to Vice President Walter Mondale in China last week scarcely matched the tumultuous welcome given Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping in the U.S. last January, but it was the warmest on record for an American leader. Deng, an honor guard and a brass band were on hand at Peking airport to meet Mondale, his wife Joan and daughter Eleanor, 19, at the start of the seven-day visit. The Chinese were expecting that months of diplomatic courtship on both sides finally would be followed by tangible aid from the U.S. The Vice President did not disappoint them.

Two days after his arrival, Mondale became the first U.S. leader in history to address the world's largest nation on Chinese television. Speaking from the auditorium of Peking University, Mondale announced plans to provide technical assistance to help China build hydroelectric power. The Vice President later described the plan as the largest--hi scope and complexity--hi the proliferating network of ties between China and the U.S.

That network now includes such things as student exchanges and some ten official protocols covering everything from the sale of a U.S. telecommunications system to the exchange of meteorological information. Mondale also announced that the U.S. will make available to China Export-Import Bank loans of $2 billion over the next five years.

To encourage U.S. private investment, Mondale said, the Carter Administration will ask for congressional authority to extend the guarantee of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. to include China, thus responding to the new Chinese investment law that allows up to 100% ownership of foreign-built projects. The U.S. moves came as a relief to Chinese leaders, who had been chafing at the slow pace of practical cooperation with the U.S.

They were equally pleased by the Vice President's foreign policy pronouncements, which constituted an implicit warning to the Soviets. "Any nation," said Mondale, "which seeks to weaken or isolate you in world affairs assumes a stance counter to American interests." At a Peking news conference, Mondale said that Communist Party Chairman and Premier Hua Guofeng had accepted "with delight" an invitation from President Carter to visit the U.S. some time next year.

Mondale then stopped off in the ancient Chinese capital of Xi'an (Sian) where tens of thousands of Chinese streamed into the streets in a spontaneous outpouring of pro-American feeling.

Overwhelmed, Mondale declared he had undergone "one of the most moving experiences of my public life." In Canton the Vice President formally opened a new consulate, the first in 30 years. For him and other Americans on the trip, it did indeed seem that U.S.-Chinese relations had crossed the invisible psychological boundary that separates cautious first acquaintance and confident friendship. Had China become an unofficial U.S. ally? "Not exactly," said a U.S. official traveling with Mondale. "But we're at the point where we are considering each other's interests as we pursue our separate policies." Policy disagreements endure over the Chinese invasion of Viet Nam, Peking's support of Pol Pot's deposed regime in Cambodia and China's friendship with North Korea. Still, Mondale was telling his hosts that Washington wants the U.S.-Chinese honeymoon to continue. sb

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