Canberra, 10 December 1970
Secret
Australia’s Policy Towards China
As you know, we think the Policy Planning Group has produced a very valuable draft paper,1 and we have no basic quarrel with the thrust of its argument and conclusion. We do, however, see some problems with the presentation of the crucial final section (i.e. paragraphs 59 to the end).2 Since these problems may bear on the domestic political acceptability of the argument, Mr Eastman has suggested that it may be worth bringing them to your attention in writing before your meeting with the Minister tomorrow (and also, of course, in advance of the more detailed round-table review you envisage having early next week).
- 2. The main vulnerability we see in the way the paper is presented rests on two points: first, it may leave the reader with the impression that we see a potential advantage to Australia, instead of the more realistic choice between disadvantages; secondly, the belief is implicit in the argument that Australia can afford to be a prime mover on the issue, whereas politically and in practice we can only act in concert with the United States, Japan and New Zealand. To elaborate these points:
(a) The experience of others such as Britain, reinforced in our case by the belatedness of any move we may make towards Peking, suggests that it would be very unwise to give any impression in the paper that we foresee Peking’s automatically conferring upon us any benefits following upon our recognition or behaving towards our South East Asian friends in any more acceptable way. Peking will well appreciate the reluctance of our move, will deal with us in the toughest and most hard-headed manner, and, if it does confer any advantage upon us, it will only be because a particular transaction is also advantageous to them. Moreover, limited though our real national interest in the future of Taiwan may be, no impression should be given that we see advantage (or conversely ignore the disadvantages) in abandoning our support of it and conceivably, although this argument has perhaps been overstressed, in undermining the confidence of our South East Asian friends. On the contrary, the conclusion of the paper will, we believe, only be realistic and politically acceptable if the balance of the argument is more explicitly weighted towards the great disadvantages which will flow from our continuing, in increasing isolation, to swim against the tide.
(b) The second difficulty, also an anticipation of potential political misunderstanding of our objective, is that the paper should forcefully bring out that Australia can afford neither to lag behind nor to get ahead of the United States and Japan. Our alliance with the United States and the closeness of our consultation with the dominant non-Communist power in Asia, Japan, should, we think, be explicitly acknowledged as preventing us from taking any initiative without consultation with those two countries. Equally, however, and related to paragraph (a) above, we cannot afford to lag behind them. The objective of this paper must therefore be to secure and preserve for us the maximum flexibility on the issue as a basis for close consultation with the United States, Japan and New Zealand, rather than apparently to secure agreement to our acting independently in stated ways.
3. There are several other lesser points which may bear on your discussion tomorrow. The first is the complication which the United States security treaty with the Republic of China introduces into the United States’ attitude, and hence into our own. It is already clear that the United States Administration does not regard the treaty as inhibiting it from more rapid movement than we have yet achieved in respect of Chinese representation in the United Nations. It is, however, possible that in the last resort the United States may be prevented by the treaty from ‘abandoning’ even a completely recalcitrant and unco-operative Taiwan. Thus, whilst clearly we have to be careful that the United States does not get ahead of us, we are going to have to consider carefully whether we should hold ourselves back because of United States difficulties with the later stages of an exodus from established positions.
4. Secondly, it would be helpful to the political acceptability of the paper’s conclusion if it emphasized that the second of the two main elements in our existing policy—the preservation of the rights of Taiwan—depends on Taiwan’s co-operation, specifically in facing reality. It would be an excessive addiction to principle, and against our national interest, to go down to defeat with a government which had refused to take any of the steps available to it to help itself and to help others to help it. In the same context the paper should bring out, briefly but clearly, the probable impracticability of preserving a seat for Taiwan in the United Nations. The Government’s decision needs to be taken against the explicit background of the probability that we will need to determine our continuing attitudes towards a Taiwan which will be out of the United Nations, which will retain only the thinnest of international recognition but which may retain de facto control over its island only because Peking is prepared to wait.
5. Virtually all of these points are in fact made at one stage or another in the paper, but our chances of achieving our objective would, we think, be greatly enhanced if they were all brought together at the end into a balance sheet of advantages and disadvantages. This crystallization of the issue, including a review of the main possible options, was actually, I believe, requested by the Minister when he endorsed the conspectus of the paper earlier submitted to him. 3
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18, i]
1 A slightly later draft is contained in Document 149.
2 This corresponds almost identically with the text from paragraph 60 to end, Document 149.
3 See Document 143.