World: A BATTLE ON THE SINO-SOVIET BORDER

FOR the fifth time in six months, the world's two largest Communist states battled each other across their common border. In the wild, thinly populated region where China's Sinkiang region and Soviet Kazakhstan meet, Russian border guards and Chinese militia shattered the early morning stillness with grenades and submachine guns. The Soviets apparently got the better of the battle, but the question of who won seemed relatively unimportant. Far more serious was the question: How many such pitched battles can take place before the two giants stumble into all-out war?

The latest fight took place in the vicinity of the Dzungarïan Gates, the ancient traders' pass that was the scene of two brief but bitter encounters in June; two other skirmishes occurred in March and July farther to the east, along the Amur and Ussuri rivers separating eastern Siberia and Manchuria. In a protest to Moscow, Peking's foreign ministry charged last week that Soviet border guards had advanced 1¼ miles into Sinkiang's Yumin County and opened fire on Chinese guards carrying out "normal patrol duty." The Chinese fell back, they said afterward, to "prevent worsening of the situation." Two officers were captured by the Russians in the midst of the Chinese retreat, the first prisoners taken in the border fights.

Different Version. Moscow described the battle very differently. The Russians charged that Chinese troops had been systematically organizing "provocative intrusions" in the area since May, despite Soviet protests. Finally a force of 150 launched last week's attack. According to Russian commentators, Soviet border guards, using armored personnel carriers stormed Chinese positions with submachine guns and hand grenades. Two Russians were killed and eight reported wounded in a one-hour battle, while 25 Chinese died and 25 were wounded. A nagging discrepancy in the Russian account was the contention that the encounter took place six miles east of a settlement called Zhalanashkol. According to both Soviet and Chinese maps, that would put the site of the battle in Chinese territory. This led to speculation last week that the Russians, who have quarreled for centuries with the Chinese over boundaries (see box), have quietly been moving into territory belonging to the Chinese.

The battle took place only five days after representatives of the two nations had met in the Russian border city of Khabarovsk to sign an agreement on river navigation. Observers had thought that the navigation talks might presage productive discussions on borders. The outbreak of shooting seemed to indicate that hostility between sides runs too deep for border unrest to die down.