Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, Apr 28, 1996

By Graham Hutchings in Beijing

Electronic Telegraph, Friday, April 26, 1996

PRESIDENTS Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Jiang Zemin of China signed a number of agreements in Beijing yesterday that suggested they had formed a strategic partnership to counter the influence of the West.

The two leaders signed a joint statement which promised the new Sino-Russian partnership would extend well into the 21st century.

The document calls for the maintenance of a high-level dialogue between the erstwhile socialist allies, whose ideological differences and territorial disputes once drew them to the brink of nuclear war.

A symbol of the new friendship will be a telephone hotline between Moscow and Beijing, the first time China has agreed to such an arrangement.

American and Chinese officials previously discussed setting up such a link, which was sorely missed during the 1989 suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square.

During the chaos that followed the crackdown, President Bush told reporters he had tried to contact Deng Xiaoping, the senior Chinese leader, by telephone to find out what was going on but had failed to get through.

Talks on the establishment of a hotline between Washington and Beijing appear to have been dropped after last month's crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

Mr Jiang also backed Mr Yeltsin's opposition to the eastward expansion of Nato.

A foreign ministry spokesman said: "The setting up of hotlines is a decision to be made according to the requirements of the relations between the nations concerned, which should be subjected to consultations between the two sides.

"There are now no further discussions or explorations going on between China and the US on this subject." While the Russian and Chinese leaders stressed that the new bond between their countries was not targeted at third parties, the joint statement contained passages apparently critical of America's role in world affairs.

It spoke of the trend towards a multipolar world in international affairs, but added: "Hegemonism, power politics and repeated imposition of pressures on other countries have continued. Bloc politics has taken up new manifestations."

These are phrases China uses regularly to criticise US attacks on its human rights record, and policies towards Taiwan, Tibet and trade.

That Mr Yeltsin was persuaded to sign up to them is a major diplomatic achievement for China's leaders.

The same is true of a passage in the joint statement in which Moscow accepts that the Chinese government is the sole legal entity representing China and Taiwan, and that Tibet is an inseparable part of the People's Republic. Beijing repaid this favour by agreeing to support the "measures and actions adopted by the Russian Federation in safeguarding its national unity, and holds that the question of Chechnya is a domestic affair of Russia".

Mr Jiang also backed Mr Yeltsin's opposition to the eastward expansion of Nato.

Washington is in favour of letting countries such as Hungary and Poland, which were once under Soviet tutelage, join Nato, but Mr Yeltsin fears it will lead to a split in Europe.

Participants in the Moscow meeting, at which China was not represented, called for the treaty to be signed by the end of September

China "understands and supports" Mr Yeltsin's stance, the foreign ministry spokesman said. Mr Jiang believed that, in the post-Cold War era, any eastward expansion of Nato was "not in keeping with the times".

Mr Yeltsin told reporters that he had persuaded Mr Jiang to commit China to talks on nuclear safety, and a treaty banning nuclear tests.

"We are agreed that China will join the decision of the meeting in Moscow on nuclear safety to hold talks this year, and to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," he said.

Participants in the Moscow meeting, at which China was not represented, called for the treaty to be signed by the end of September and to ban all nuclear explosions, including small ones.

But the foreign ministry spokesman later distanced China from these remarks, saying Beijing had not yet agreed to halt what he called "peaceful" nuclear tests, and that experts were still divided as to what such tests involved.

The two presidents also pledged to expand economic ties, speed up talks on the mutual reduction of military forces along their common border and strengthen military co-operation.