Canberra, 17 June 1971
Confidential
China Policy-Albanian Resolution
You asked for comment on cables 211 and 212 from Rangoon, reporting an intimation by the PRC that the only concession it would be prepared to make on Chinese representation at the UN would be to drop the second half of the Albanian Resolution. 1 Copies of cables 211 and 212 are attached.
The Albanian Resolution
2. Substantively, the Albanian Resolution falls into two parts:
(i) the restoration of the lawful rights of the PRC and the recognition of its representatives as the only lawful representatives of China to the UN; and
(ii) the expulsion of the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek ‘from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the UN’ and in all its organizations.
The full text is attached. 2
3. At last year’s General Assembly, the Albanian Resolution obtained a simple majority (51 for; 49 against; 25 abstentions). It was not adopted because the earlier passage of the Important Question Resolution (66 for; 51 against; 7 abstentions) required that a substantive resolution on China needed a two-thirds majority for passage. In view of the trend of increased international support for the PRC, there are now very serious doubts as to whether an Important Question Resolution would pass, and consequently consideration has been given to the possibility of tabling a Dual Representation resolution at the UN this year. The question of UN tactics will be the subject of a separate submission in due course.
Comment on Report of Chinese ‘Concession’
4. The second half of the substantive part of the Albanian Resolution is in a sense tautological, in that acceptance of the PRC’s claim to be the sole legal representative of China in the UN would automatically lead to the exclusion of the ROC. The reported Chinese concession should perhaps therefore be seen as a question of form, not of substance. The immediate result of the Resolution would in effect be the same. In the eyes of the PRC, the exclusion of the reference to the Chiang Kai-shek representatives might win support from one or two waverers, who would be willing to accept the exclusion of the ROC, provided that this was not done in an explicit, declamatory fashion.
5. On the other hand, deletion of the references to Chiang Kai-shek tones down the Albanian Resolution and would mean that the same text could not be used as a device to prevent Chiang Kai-shek’s representatives being seated as representatives of Taiwan at a later date. The attitude that the PRC would take to the seating of Taiwan once the PRC is accepted as the only China is yet to be determined; but it seems most unlikely that it would agree to any arrangement that was based upon a disclaimer of Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan or the permanent detachment of Taiwan from the Mainland. It is just conceivable that if Taiwan were later admitted as Taiwan after the seating of the PRC as China, long years of living with this unwelcome development in the UN might lead eventually to some change in the PRC’s attitude. This possibility, remote as it now appears, may account for US interest (paragraph 5, cable 211)3 in the report on Chinese views on the second half of the Albanian Resolution.
6. Our interim conclusion is that the report suggests that the PRC is very much interested in membership of the UN, that its fundamental one-China position of the last 22 years is unaltered, and that it may be willing to make some purely verbal or formal concession to gain membership of the UN as the sole representative of China. The future beyond that is uncertain.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18, xiii]
1 12 and 13 June. Handmer had obtained this information through the Italian Ambassador in Burma from discussions which the Norwegian Ambassador in Peking had had with the PRC Deputy Foreign Minister, Chia Kuan-hua.
2 Not published.
3 Anderson presumably meant to refer to paragraph 5 of Cablegram 212 which referred to US interest in Chia Kuan-hua’s comments.