Evening star., 1953-03-27
China and Soviet Aid


have announced. the signing of new agree
ment under which the Soviet Union is sup
posed to extend large-scale aid to speed up
the industrialization of Red China However,
although the project has been publicized as
something big and important-a program paw
ing the way for rapid and vast economic
progreSS-there is good reason to suspect that
large part of it, perhaps most of it, is made
up of little more than propaganda.
At any rate, ever since GeneralisSimo
Stains death, both Peiping and Moscow have
been Sparing no effort to emphasize that the
change in the Kremlin will in no sense weaken
Sino-Soviet ties. Speaking for his Chinese
Communist regime, Mao Tse-tung has gone
out of his way to proclaim that those ties will
be constantly strengthened, and the same
sentiment has been expressed with at least
equal vigor by the new Russian leadership
under Georgi Malenkov. This line of talk full
of mutual admiration and pledges of eternal
friendship, has now been bolstered by an
nouncement of the economic agreement.
But the agreement itself, whether or not
it is more substantial than mere propaganda,
does not seem to add up to great deal, no
matter how big the Communist trumpet-blow-
ers may try to make it sound It's terms COM
NIT the Russians to help the Chinese expand
their output of electric power and to build up
their metallurgical mining, chemical, ma
chinery, transport and other industries. In
return Red China-which is also to receive
farm equipment-has promised to ship to the
Soviet Union large quantities Of such things
as light metals, rice, vegetable oils meat, tea,
fruit, wool, leather and silk textiles.
These terms are not strikingly different
from those contained in the 1850 Sino-soviet
agreement pledging the Kremlin to deliver to
China electrical metallurgical, mining and
railway equipment in exchange for raw mate
rials, tea, ETC.. and providing for credit OF
$500 million to be extended to the Chinese in
yearly installments of $50 million over period
of five years At BEST this aid has been al
together niggardly, representing only frac-
tion of what the Kremlin looted from Man
churia after VI day in 1945. And the new
pact appears to be not much better-hardly
generous enough to promote speedy Industrial
ization on big scale.
Actually, of course, China today still is
predominanty agricultural, and backward even
in that field Most of its military equipment in
Korea comes from Russia. On its own, in its
present stage of development, it is incapable
of arming itself for modern war For its in
dustrial economy-concentrated in the north
is relatively primitive thing and decades OF
time WILL be required, LOgeCner Win IRE
mendous investment of money and effort, to
build it up into major productive power
Soviet aid on the scale projected in the new
agreement, is plainly far too small for that
So the agreement, since 1t has been ac-
companied by lot of horn-blowing, seems in
considerable part to be propaganda measure
that will contribute little or nothing to the
prosperity of the Chinese people. Indeed, be-
cause it tends to rob the agricultural south for
the sake of industrializaton in the north, its
net effect may be to spread further misery
through land that has had its fill of misery
Regardless of what Red Peiping may say,
China can expect no good whatever from its
enchainment to the Kremlin.