World: A BATTLE ON THE SINO-SOVIET BORDER

(2 of 2)

The battle could, of course, have begun by accident. But Western observers reason that if anybody deliberately started the skirmish, the Russians would seem the more likely culprits. By keeping the Kazakhstan-Sinkiang border stirred up, Moscow may hope to prevent the Chinese from starting trouble along Russia's more remote and vulnerable far eastern border. There, several cities lie within easy reach of Chinese guns. More important, they lie within an area that was once controlled by China, a point that Peking drives home nightly with Russian-language radio broadcasts beamed to Siberia. The broadcasts sign off with the words: "Good night, citizens of Vladivostok [or Khabarovsk, or Nakhodka], and all of you who are living on temporarily occupied Chinese territory." Occasionally, the radio offers a leering suggestion that the girls wear their prettiest dresses to greet "the courageous soldiers of the People's Liberation Army."

Along the border with Sinkiang, on the other hand, the Russians have all the advantages. Their rail network runs to the border, ending at a town ironically named Druzhba (meaning friendship). The Chinese rail system goes no farther than Urumchi, Sinkiang's capital, 250 miles from the border.

Eve-of-War Mood. In the wake of last week's skirmish, Peking charged that the Russians have removed civilians from along their side of the border to carve out a twelve-mile-deep no man's land in order to "intensify the threat of war against China." The Chinese frenetically warned citizens that it was a "false and deadly dangerous idea" to think that such a conflict would be restricted to the border.

In fostering an eve-of-war mood, Peking might have been reflecting its genuine fear that an all-out struggle may be imminent. But the propaganda serves another purpose as well. Since the excesses of the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966, China has been riven by factionalism. Followers of Mao Tse-tung, "revisionist" backers of deposed President Liu Shao-chi, and ultraradical Red Guards are all fighting for power in at least nine of China's 26 provinces and regions. There have been riots, work stoppages and economic disruptions.

Focusing attention on an external threat is a classic tactic for restoring internal unity, but it is also a dangerous one. With Peking constantly exhorting its citizens to "prepare for the enemy to launch a major war," and Moscow regularly reporting improvements in its civil-defense system, the climate for conflict already exists. In such a climate, a minor miscalculation could turn a border squabble into a major conflict.