
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 4, 1994                   TAG: 9409070040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                 LENGTH: Medium

2 GIANTS ARE FOES NO MORE

Formally ending an era of tension between two of the world's most powerful countries, Russia and China agreed Saturday not to aim nuclear missiles at each other, never to use force against each other, and to sharply limit the number of troops stationed along their border.

The declaration was signed at the end of talks at the Kremlin between President Jiang Zemin of China and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia. The two men also agreed to work harder on developing economic ties.

The Russia-China relationship has been rocky and traumatic. In the early 1950s their leaders dreamed of fashioning a world of communism.

But by the late 1950s, the two communist giants had entered into such a fierce and dogmatic battle for supremacy that they became bitter enemies. The bloody clashes along their border in the 1960s led many to believe that if there was another world war, it would begin there.

``The signing of these agreements are achievements of historic scope,'' said Yeltsin on Saturday, just back from Germany where he watched the last Russian troops withdraw from Europe. ``For the first time in the history of Russian-Chinese relations, the border between our two countries is legally fixed.''

Tensions had cooled a while ago. Chinese ballistic missiles are not targeted in advance, according to Western military officials, so the agreement is largely symbolic.

The economic agreements signed Saturday were more important than those reached on arms control. China - despite its stridently communist political system - has proven far more flexible economically than Russia was under communism, or Russia is today. Many Russians now say they look to China as a model of how to apply phased economic reforms.

by CNB