New York, 17 November 1965
UN1837. Confidential Immediate
Chinese Representation
Voting on both the procedural and substantive resolutions1 was too close for comfort and demonstrated our wisdom in stimulating the prior tabling of our ‘important question’ resolution. The American delegation remained to the end too optimistic about voting as our analysis of trends indicated and as final outcome proved.
2. At this morning’s pre-session exchange of views on tactics Americans still considered that they had three or four votes in hand. In the result however, a number of countries switched votes or voted at variance with assurances United States had received in capitals. Iran had been confidently expected to vote against the substantive resolution, and similar assurances had been received from the Kuwait Mission here. United States had been told in Leopold ville that the Congo. would oppose. The United States had also firm assurance that Chile would oppose. Fortunately, at the last moment, Laos moved back to an abstention while the Americans managed to secure a ‘no’ vote from Israel. Perhaps surprisingly the French Africans, who had long been suspected as the weak link particularly vulnerable to French pressure, did not materially prejudice outcome.
3. Peking’s sponsors had undoubtedly been very active. In addition to securing a number of important defections, in some cases apparently against instructions, they had also managed to silence Ceylon, Mauritania and Nigeria whose procedural manoeuvres would have revealed divisions among the pro-Peking group. The French Mission were undoubtedly active with tactical advice and assistance, though they did not appear to have been actively lobbying for Peking. By comparison Americans do not appear to have been going at full steam. Whether this was a result of an over-confident approach or whether they had reasons for not wishing to lobby particularly hard this year is difficult to judge. One result of vote is to force Nationalist Chinese [to]2 reassess their position and best way to maintain role in the United Nations.
4. The outcome of 47 votes for and 47 against the resolution as tabled by Albania and others represented the result of lobbying and pressure both in New York and in various capitals. It was moreover a vote on a harsh draft dictated by Peking and known to have been dictated by them. The 47 in favour must be taken therefore as a hard core favouring the representation of Peking in the United Nations without reference to terms or conditions. The twenty abstentions may have included some countries (the French claim six) which would have voted for the first paragraph of the Albanian draft which although with the same intent had a softer phasing.
5. The votes cast in favour of our procedural ‘important question’ were also less than the United States had anticipated (our margin was approximately halved) and the opposition and abstainers must be regarded as convinced that representation of Peking is more important than procedural niceties.
6. The issue of the representation of China might still come up at the current session on the occasion of the report of the Credentials Committee. Presumably the Committee’s report will be favourable to the Republic of China and our resolution of this morning concerning the ‘important question’ principle should apply if the report is questioned. The question could also come up any time after the expanded Security Council begins meeting next year.
The failure of our side to maintain majority opposed to Peking marks a significant new stage in this item. Peking’s recent statements and behaviour combined with the uncompromising resolution were not calculated to enhance its prospects. It is fairly clear that in the future Peking supporters will be in the majority and that, once they have a working majority in the Assembly, it will no longer be possible for us to depend on procedural devices to block the passages of the other side:s resolutions. There is already some comment amongst the American delegation that the facts of today’s voting will have to be used to educate American Congressional and public opinion on the need for some fresh approach to this question.
[NAA: Al838, 3107/3311/1, xvii]
CHINA’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION
The ‘Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’, officially deemed to have occurred from 1966 to 1976, but whose most intense period is acknowledged as the first three and a half years, represented the greatest upheaval that had occurred in urban China since 1949. Developments in these years, which even now remain difficult to discern with a sharp focus (and were extraordinarily nebulous to Western observers of the day), had a dramatic effect on the political and social fabric of the PRC. It appears that Mao Tse-tung, deeply disgruntled with challenges to his leadership and the direction of the communist revolution in China, incited a loose coalition—consisting of the army, disenchanted urban youth, and radical intellectuals—to purge the Party of ‘revisionist’ authorities who might lead it down the ‘capitalist road’. Led by student mobs, soon to become known as Red Guards, this group engaged in a conflict with the Party establishment, the perceived enemies of the people, and among itself. Indeed, the effective result of Mao’s campaign to purify the Party, a movement whose direction he tried unsuccessfully to change at a number of points, was a state of near anarchy in which most coherent forms of authority collapsed. With little alternative, in mid-1967 Mao directed the demobilisation of the Guards with the aid of the People’s Liberation Army. He later announced a reconstruction of the Party, a process which reached a climax with the Ninth Party Congress of April 1969, but he did not renounce the Cultural Revolution before his death. Indeed, in the interim, Mao, with a stronger military presence by his side, perpetuated weaknesses in political, social, cultural and educational institutions that had been created by the tumultuous events of 1966–69.
Unsurprisingly, the Cultural Revolution had a significant influence on Chinese foreign policy; the personalities (including Chou En-lai) and machinery that had engineered foreign policy since I949 were not exempt from the attack on the bureaucracy. When the Red Guards were at the height of their power, they gained control of the Foreign Ministry and, in attempting to enforce doctrinally pure policies, rendered a deterioration in most of Peking’s external relations. Foreign representatives in China were also attacked. Yet it was perhaps the longer-term effects that were more important. Re-emerging as the pre-eminent figure in the Party, Mao gave full vent to his antipathy toward the Soviet Union and this, in turn, was to lead to Sino-American detente.
1 On 15 November, two draft resolutions were tabled. The first, procedural in nature, was submitted by 11 countries, including Australia, Japan, and the United States, and sought to reaffirm the General Assembly’s decision of 15 December 1961 that a change to the representation of China in the United Nations was an important question requiring a two-thirds majority of the Assembly. The second draft resolution, sponsored by Albania, Cambodia and nine other countries, was in substance the same as that submitted by Albania and Cambodia in October 1963 (see footnote 1, Document 103).
2 The word in square brackets appears to have been omitted in the original.