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33 3 W hile the Nixon administration wrestled with the implications of the latest dimension of the Sino-Soviet split, Romanian Prime Minister Ion Maurer told Zhou Enlai that Nixon had “expressed without any reservation his wish of finding a way to normalize relations with China. He articulated this very clearly and asked us to help in this matter if we can.” Nixon also refused to support the Soviet Union “in any way if it has any aggressive intention toward China” and “admitted that it was impossible to solve the major international issues without China.” Zhou thanked Maurer for Romania’s “independent foreign policy” and its refusal to follow the Soviets “in their anti-Chinese acts,” but did not reveal any desire to improve relations with the United States. Instead, he worried that the Soviets and the United States wanted to establish “hegemony” in international affairs, and noted that while the United States and PRC had been meeting for fourteen years, the United States had refused to recognize China’s sovereignty over Taiwan. He spent the rest of the meeting criticizing the Soviets. Zhou’s posture shifted considerably when, only four days later, the two diplomats spoke in Hanoi after North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh’s funeral . After a long discussion of the border tensions and the Czech invasion, Zhou steered the discussion to the United States and Nixon’s discussions about a European security pact. Maurer seized this moment to make a clear link between Nixon’s desire to achieve European security between “countries ,” rather than “military pacts” like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact, and his desire to “get in touch with all the states that want” to prevent an “area of hegemony” between the United States and the Soviet Union. Nixon, Maurer emphasized, was “willing to speak with other socialist countries the same way he is discussing with Romania.” Zhou continued to fish for information, and asked Maurer’s impressions of TENTATIVE STEPS AND THE WARSAW CHANNEL 34 a cold war turning point Rogers and Kissinger. Maurer said that while he had not met the secretary, he came away impressed with Kissinger’s “close collaboration” with the president and his “analytical, penetrating character.” Zhou got the message that the administration did want to improve relations with China. The Soviets, meanwhile, were trying to have face-to-face talks with the Chinese about the most recent border incident. Alexei Kosygin, the chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers who had recommended “restraint” after the March incidents, seemed to have convinced Brezhnev that since the Soviets had inflicted heavy damage on Chinese troops, they could now negotiate. Brezhnev gave the go-ahead, and Kosygin asked the North Vietnamese to set up a meeting with Zhou in Hanoi during the week of the funeral. Mao, however , not only suspicious but clearly wanting to make Kosygin squirm, took four days to approve a meeting, and then insisted it be called “informal.” He also ordered that it be held at the Beijing airport in what seemed to be a calculated insult. Kosygin did not receive notice about the meeting until he had left for Moscow and his plane had stopped in Tashkent, in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, to refuel. He immediately agreed to the airport meeting and flew to Beijing. During their discussion, Zhou said the treaties were old and unfair to China, but instead of abrogating them he preferred to negotiate. Kosygin agreed and the two said they would “take temporary measures to maintain the status quo of the borders and to avoid armed conflict.” Furthermore, “the two sides agreed to avoid armed conflict” and scheduled a meeting for October 20 to discuss the border. Each agreed not to use force, including nuclear weapons, against the other, and pledged that planes from each side “will not violate the air space of the other side.” They also agreed to return their ambassadors to each country, expand trade relations, and restore air and train transportation between the two nations. The Soviets informed their East German allies of the Zhou-Kosygin talks and laid the blame on the current “aggravated” state of Sino-Soviet affairs squarely on the Chinese. Beijing’s “anti-Soviet policy,” Moscow charged, was “being used by the imperialist powers in the struggle against world socialism and the Communist movement.” Despite these acts, Moscow said that it had decided to try to “soften” tensions between the two rivals in order...

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