Canberra, 18 August 1965
Confidential
Chinese Representation at the United Nations
Replies have now been received from the five posts addressed in our telegram of 11th August2 about the possibility of re-introducing the moratorium procedure at this year’s General Assembly.
2. The replies indicate that—
(a) The Chinese proposal has not as yet been canvassed in other capitals.
(b) The general feeling is that the moratorium procedure is a non-starter.
3. Points made by various posts were as follows:—
(a) New York: Our Mission’s initial reaction was that an attempt to revive the moratorium was not likely to serve any useful purpose. With the close balance between both sides on the substantive issue it was doubtful whether any attempt to postpone all consideration of the item would be successful. (See telegram UN. 10783 attached)
(b) Washington: The State Department said there seemed little chance of going back to the pre-1961 procedure.
(c) London: Foreign Office reaction was that the moratorium procedure had been discarded because a sufficient number of UN members had come to the view that it was no longer possible to postpone discussion of Chinese representation. Support for Peking had grown since 1961, and the British could not see the General Assembly this year reverting to a moratorium. The Chinese argument about Vietnam made very little impression.
(d) Ottawa: At Head of Division level, the Department of External Affairs thought that Canada would find it even harder to support such a resolution than they would to vote directly against the seating of Peking. Their basic feeling was that the conflict in Vietnam was a reason for admitting Peking or, at worst, for debating the matter, not for postponing discussion.
(e) Wellington: New Zealand would have nothing to do with this sort of approach to the problem of Chinese representation.
4. You will recall that the Chinese appeared to have the British principally in mind when they raised this proposal with us. London has indicated that the British policy on representation remains as before, i.e. to vote for representation, to vote for the important question, but to lobby for neither. The Foreign Office told our people that the Government was under left-wing pressure to promote Chinese representation, but commented that in the prime interest of retaining British interests in Washington, it might be doubted whether the Government would yield to left-wing advice.
[NAA: A1838, 3107133/111, xv]
1 D.J. Home, Head, East Asia Section, Department of External Affairs.
2 It reported that the ROC Ambassador to Australia had suggested informally the possibility of reintroducing into the UN General Assembly a moratorium procedure in relation to the admission to the United Nations of the People’s Republic of China along the lines that applied before 1961. He envisaged that the basic argument for such a procedure would be that no decision should be made on the question during the war in Vietnam.
3 Not published.