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By Henry S. Bradsher (c) Washington Star Peking President Nixon , and Premier Chou En-lai met for four hours today in an effort to bridge Sino-American dif ferences. There was no indication of what the two men discussed on the second day of Nixon’s visit to China. Their meeting took up most of the afternoon, and the visiting Americans were the guests of their hosts at a performance of the revolutionary opera, ‘Red Woman detachment,” the story of a Communist village’s strug gle against the Japanese in the 1930s. While the Chinese were being polite and even cordial to their guests, they were leaving it clear that the United States was expected to make whatever policy changes might be needed for understanding. That was the tone of Chou’s welcoming speech for Nixon Monday night after the Presi dent had arrived and met for an hour with Mao_ Tse-Tung, chairman of the Chinese Com munist party and the nation’s supreme leader. Nixon’s reply was effusive, indicating eagerness to please the Chinese enough politically to develop warm relations. But the Chinese seemed so far, ‘to be eager to please as hosts more than as_ diplomats negotiating a new relationship. The great importance the Chinese are giving the visit as hosts was shown today by the appearance of the Communist party’s newspaper People’s Daily, the nation’s most impor tant publication. It devoted the first and second pages to the Nixon visit — an unusual amount of attention to a foreign guest. People’s Daily published a large photograph of Mao shak ing hands with Nixon at the top of the front page and another beneath it of the two leaders seated talking in Mao’s house inside the old imperial palace grounds, the Forbidden City. Picturing Mao in his home is a most unusual sign of hospitality. Mao usually meets visiting chiefs of state in a colder and more formal reception hall. His home is almost never photo graphed. A third photo at the bottom of the page showed Chou greeting Nixon at the airport. The main headline was the president’s meeting with Mao. Four more photos on page two, where the banquet toasts were published, showed Nixon’s various activities with Chou yesterday. People’s Daily published the agreed upon communique on the Mao meeting. It said only that they had ‘‘serious and frank discussions” without elabora tion. Details of the talk have been kept secret. Mao does not make public speeches and his talks with foreign heads of govern ment are always very con fidential. Mrs. Patricia Nixon was also getting a warm welcome. She toured the kitchen of the Peking Hotel today to see how Chinese cooking was done. Nixon took Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser, to todays meeting with Chou. Secretary of state William P. Rogers was meeting separately with Foreign Minister Chi Peng fgi. While there was some protocol justification for such separate meetings, they seemed to emphasize the point made Mon day when Nixon took only Kiss inger along for his talk with Mao that Rogers is a peripheral figure in USS. China policy. Chou is in many ways his own foreign minister, while Chi lacks any standing in the hierarchy of the Chinese Communist party, which sets the policies the government follows. Chou’s banquet speech Mon day night referred to the desire of the Chinese and American people for improved relations.
Newspaper Details
Southern Illinoisan
Carbondale, Illinois, US
Tue, Feb 22, 1972
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Brenda R.
