Letter CANBERRA, 8 April 1949
SECRET
I desire to refer to your letter of 28th March, 1949, (Ref. 2/206) setting forth the general views of the United Kingdom authorities on the question of establishing relations with the Chinese Communists, and to inform you that the Australian Government has no comments to make at this stage on the United Kingdom Government’s views, with which it is in general agreement.
It is clearly too early to determine what form our relations with the Chinese Communists will ultimately take. For the present we would hope that it may be possible to deal with the Communist authorities on a de facto basis in areas under their occupation.
The question of any form of recognition should, however, wait upon future developments, and should be decided on the basis of full consultation with other powers concerned.
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[AA:A1608/5, A41/1/6, ix]