(6 of 7)
American Maoists are also angry with Teng, charging that he has betrayed the late Chairman's principles by abandoning egalitarianism and cozying up to capitalism. Last week five American Maoist radicals splattered the Chinese embassy in Washington with paint and smashed its foyer windows. Shortly after police caught the five, another group of American radicals began parading in front of the embassy, chanting "Long live Mao" and handing out literature calling Teng "that sawed-off revisionist."
Teng is used to epithets. As he pointed out in his interview with Hedley Donovan, Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev characterizes him as "the worst Chinese." To the Kremlin, Teng's policies are anathema, particularly his warmth to ward the U.S. Last week Pravda ridiculed Washington for forming "a mutual admiration society" with Peking. "You think you are using the Chinese," a senior Soviet official warned TIME Moscow Bureau Chief Bruce Nelan. "But look out, they are craftier than you." Another Soviet bureaucrat, reflecting on his country's military assistance to China in the 1950s, said, "You sell them two airplanes, and two years later they have an airplane factory."
Essentially, what troubles the Kremlin most is Teng's determination to turn to the West for the arms China needs to modernize its defenses against the U.S.S.R.'s overwhelmingly superior military might. Peking has expressed particular interest in antitank and antiaircraft weapons, which could be interpreted as a sign of concern over the elite Soviet troops arrayed across China's borders; only last week U.S. Defense Secretary Harold Brown noted that the Soviets have stationed "as much as a quarter of their ground and tactical air forces in the vicinity of China." As seen from Moscow, however, China's formidable standing army of 3 million to 6 million men makes it a grave potential menace if it is supplied with almost any modern arms. Nor does it comfort Moscow—or Washington, either—to know that Peking is already producing materiel ranging from copies of the Soviet AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle to trigger elements for hydrogen bombs.
This winter Brezhnev wrote to the leaders of West Germany, France, Italy and Britain, warning that detente would suffer if they sold arms to China. Thus far only British Prime Minister James Callaghan has chosen to ignore Brezhnev completely; Paris and Rome are hesitant to make substantial arms sales to Peking, while Bonn has refused to sell anything at all. Next month London is expected to confirm the sale to Peking of such sophisticated weapons as 70 Harrier vertical " takeoff jet fighters, short-range air-to-air and infantry antitank missiles, and Scorpion armored vehicles.
In an effort to placate the Kremlin, Carter wrote Brezhnev two weeks ago that the U.S. had no plans to sell arms to China. But the President said he would not stand in the way of Western European arms sales to Peking, news that surely displeased Brezhnev.