DIPLOMACY: Shopping List for Peking

The document ran for ten pages, single-spaced, and contained nothing but lists of items broken down into 142 categories. Yet when it was released by the White House last week, it spoke eloquently of the extent to which the U.S. is willing to move toward a relaxation of Sino-American relations. The catalogue of items that American businessmen may sell to Peking without Washington's approval—some 1,000 in all—represents an end to the 21-year-old U.S. prohibition against direct trade with Communist-ruled China.

The American shopping list is a follow-up to last April's flurry of Ping Pong diplomacy. At that time, while the Chinese played host to the U.S. table tennis team in Peking, President Nixon announced a series of trade and travel concessions. He also promised to allow U.S. businessmen to sell non-strategic goods to China. For five weeks a special team from the State, Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture and Defense departments worked to compile a master list. For three weeks after that, Under Secretaries from each department, along with National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, reviewed it item by item. The list was personally approved by President Nixon before it was made public.

Up the Yangtze. American businessmen may now sell to China a wide variety of goods. If the Chinese have the cash—and inclination—they will be able to plow their fields with American farm tractors, use U.S.-made fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides and even import American livestock for breeding purposes. They can equip their offices with U.S.-made desks, typewriters, check writers, telephones and simple calculators, outfit their factories with American forklift vehicles and a wide assortment of U.S. machinery.

The Chinese will be able to use U.S. medical instruments and American-made road rollers and pavers, drive U.S. passenger cars and motor scooters, or cruise up the Yangtze in boats powered by American outboard motors. Chinese housewives will be able, if their government does not deem it too decadent, to whip up sweet cakes with U.S.-made mixers and enjoy the marvels of American household appliances. Chinese office buildings and department stores will be able to install American elevators, escalators, furnaces and air-conditioning equipment. In a bid for U.S. grain sales to China, Nixon annulled the old "50% clause," which in the past has discouraged U.S. wheat sales to Communist countries by forcing American growers to ship at least half of their goods in high-priced, noncompetitive U.S. ships.