Canberra, 24 May 1971
Secret
China Policy
You asked for our comment on the inscribed part of attached cable 365 from the Australian Embassy, Taipei.1
2. In the course of his reported conversation with our Ambassador in the ROC, Yang (the ROC Vice Foreign Minister) said that, if it came to pass that Peking accepted recognition from other countries on the conditions now mentioned by the ROC and if the ROC missions co.uld thus remain in the foreign capitals concerned, the ROC would then face up to the problem of how this concession by the ROC could be satisfactorily presented locally. The conditions mentioned by Yang were set out in paragraph 5 of attached cable 350 from Taipei.2 They postulate that the ROC would offer to stay on in countries recognizing the PRC, in the face of the presence of an Embassy from Peking, provided that:—
(a) nothing in the agreement reached with Peking or in a joint communique contained a reference to the PRC being the ’sole government of China’, ‘the government of all China’, ‘the only legal government of China’ or any other ‘exclusive language’;
(b) there was no acknowledgment of the PRC’s claim to Taiwan;
(c) there was no change in the status or title of the ROC involved. Its Government must, for example, still be termed ‘the government of the Republic of China’. It would not accept anything like ‘the Republic of Taiwan’.
3. The United States Ambassador in Taipei and Yang, the ROC Vice Foreign Minister, have claimed to see these concessions as very significant. We do not share these euphoric assessments. While the conditions do give the appearance of some minimal flexibility on the part of the ROC, we do not at present see that there is any prospect that the PRC would negotiate recognition with a foreign country in accord with the conditions set out above. As a minimal requirement in the recent establishment of relations with several countries, the PRC has insisted that it be described as the sole legal government of China, or in equivalent terms. It has not insisted that all countries note its claim to Taiwan, but it has asked for this (as in the case of Canada) where those countries have had prior contact with Taiwan. The only exception was Kuwait, which had had diplomatic contact with the ROC, but which was not asked to note the PRC’s claim to Taiwan. Kuwait, because of its importance to the PRC as a foothold in a rich oil-bearing area, is regarded as a special case. However, it did acknowledge the PRC as the sole legal government of China. As we do not believe that the PRC would permit recognition unless it were described as the sole legal government of China, or in equivalent terms, the question of the ROC mission remaining as such would not seem to arise. As the tide of international acceptance moves in Peking’s favour, it seems unlikely that it would make concessions in its fundamental approach to recognition.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18, xi]
1 18 May. It reported a conversation between Dunn and Yang.
2 13 May. It reported McConaughy’s strictly confidential reply to Dunn’s question whether the ROC might soon produce ideas of its own about the question of Chinese representation in the United Nations.