Canberra, 5 July 1971
3219. Secret
Chinese Representation in the United Nations
We have received your telegrams 3393,13395 and 3400.2
2. Our position remains as spelt out by the Prime Minister to Winthrop Brown:3
(a) Our aim is to preserve the right of Taiwan to a seat in the United Nations, if it so desires,
(b) It is clear that the use of gimmicks would inevitably prejudice our chances of mobilising a majority for any approach alternative to the Albanian resolution, and
(c) We must therefore assume the inevitability of the PRC having the Security Council seat.
3. We have noted that the State Department has come down so firmly on the defence of the ROC’s position against the background that President Nixon has not yet made his decision on their UN approach. In discussions over recent months, this attitude has never come out so clearly. Up to now there have been a number of indications that they were veering in the other direction. The US attitude is of course central to any approach to the question.
4. The comment in paragraph 16 of Annex A of our memorandum 6904 does not imply that ‘the Australian Government wants to be able to vote for the seating of Peking in the United Nations whether or not Taiwan remains a member’ (your paragraph 5 of your 3393). In the first place, the comment in Annex A was not a formal Australian Government position at all: it was put forward at an officials’ level on a purely technical basis and without commitment to the Government.
5. You know that, consonant with our national interest including our interest in improving relations with the PRC, we have been looking for ways to retain a place for the ROC. At the same time, we have accepted that the PRC will become a member sooner or later whether we like it or not. For tactical reasons, we considered that the PRC’s entry should certainly not be hampered by any action on our part. As part of a package arrangement, we contemplated that we would offer to facilitate the PRC’s entry through a substantive resolution. In return (we would hope) for support for a resolution that would protect the ROC by reaffirming Article 18(2) of the Charter (not Article 18(3) by which the ‘representation of China’ was declared an important question).5
6. We hoped that this approach would attract some support from the group of countries which abstained on the Albanian resolution in 1970 (primarily because they did not wish to see the ROC expelled), from perhaps a few of the supporters of the Albanian resolution and of course from the traditional supporters of the ROC.
7. In other words, our strong intention was to find a way to retain UN membership for the ROC. The comment in our paragraph 16 merely reflects a situation in which—if the worst came to the worst—we could still openly demonstrate our interest in normalisation of relations with the PRC and protection of the position of the ROC.
8. In your further discussions with the Americans, you must stress that we have sought a formulation which offered a prospect of protecting the ROC’s position. (For your own confidential information, apart from any other consideration, we would not want to give the Americans any opportunity to imply to others after the event that the defeat of measures to protect the ROC—if that should happen—was partly the result of Australian inaction or misinterpretation at your end of our intention.) The single US resolution would seat the PRC in the UN and protect the ROC from expulsion (through the two–thirds rule). Our two resolutions have precisely the same effect. Thus your interpretation (paragraph 6 of your 3393) that U.S. desire to have a single resolution and our desire to have separate resolutions reflects a real difference in objectives of the draft texts is not correct. It is of course true that our amended IQ resolution could be defeated, and that we would be left with only the substantive resolution calling for the seating of the PRC. But this possible situation applies equally to the single American resolution: the part seeking to protect the ROC is open to amendment and has the same chance of success as our amended IQ. The Americans have asked whether we see the possibility of our amended IQ failing and the substantive passing (paragraph 6 of your 3400).6 We recognise this possibility. The Americans would no doubt see an identical situation arising if the operative part of their resolution relating to the ROC were amended.
9. We still believe that, for tactical reasons, two resolutions are better than one. To win support from the waverers (whose votes will be essential) we need to demonstrate that we are not seeking to impede the PRC’s entry. A single resolution on the PRC’s entry coupled with a procedural resolution confined to Article 18(2) seems to us more likely to attract support than a single resolution linking the two together in a way which many might interpret as being unnecessarily provocative.
10. We still believe that it is politically unrealistic and technically unsatisfactory that the PRC should be denied the permanent seat in the Security Council. Many countries which might otherwise support a DR package would probably not do so if it appeared that the PRC might not be recognised as the legitimate occupant of China’s seat in the Security Council. It could thus be in the ROC’s own interest for such a specific provision to be made in the DR formulation. The penalty for withholding it might be the defeat of any DR approach, which would mean the expulsion of the ROC (and the simultaneous entry of the PRC to the UN and Security Council).
11. If the ROC does not accept this likely situation, it would certainly weaken its own chances of retaining a place in the United Nations (paragraph 3 of your 3393). There is the further point that even if there is no reference in a DR resolution to the Security Council seat, the PRC (after being seated in the U.N. by the General Assembly) could then send its representative to the Security Council and have his credentials accepted. This would be a procedural matter, requiring a total of 9 affirmative votes. The current composition of the Security Council indicates that the vote would be at least 10 in favour of the PRC.
12. Our observations on other points in your 3395 are as follows:—
(a) Paragraph 2.7 The U.S. text was interpreted by us as meaning that the PRC is treated as a representative of an existing member—China. The advantage of a DR formulation is that by approaching the problem as ‘one China–two seats’, the question of new membership procedures can be avoided as can the automatic expulsion of the representative found not to be the true representative of China. Our approach would also treat both the PRC and the ROC as representing the existing member—China.
(b) Paragraph 3.8 We still believe that the DR approach has a better chance than any other of retaining a seat for the ROC. This does not mean that we are confident of its success (or that we would not consider other suggestions put forward, especially if their prospects seemed better).
(c) Paragraph 7.9 This does not contradict our view. We are speaking of one China with two representatives. The PRC’s representative would simply replace the ROC’s representative in the Security Council.
(d) Paragraph 8.10 We are consulting the Japanese. The material in question has been handed to the New Zealanders.
13. Comment on your 3400 is as follows:—
(a) Paragraph 2.11We do not agree that a fundamental difference exists in the draft texts between the Australian and U.S. approaches in the [sic] respect of the status of Taiwan. The single U.S. resolution also implies that there is one China—which accords with the views of both the PRC and ROC (thereby leaving it open for future bilateral discussions between the parties to settle their differences). Our intention, like the US’s, is to avoid reference to the territorial or legal status of the two parties. The third preambular in our substantive resolution merely states a fact—that ‘China’ is under the effective administration of two governments. We accept, however, that in order to avoid this problem we might need to delete the third preambular. (Its deletion would also be consistent with our view that reference to the two Governments in a single resolution should be avoided.)
(b) Paragraph 5.12 We have assumed that the amended IQ would have to be taken first. If the substantive one preceded it (and was adopted), opponents of the PRC could argue that the question of the representation of China had been resolved once and for all and that a further resolution was irrelevant. The ROC will need this protection from the outset. On the other hand, if a ‘deal’ could be arranged in advance with the other side, we might agree to take the substantive one first as evidence of our ‘goodwill’. (But this could be risky.)
(c) Paragraph 7.13 We agree that the China representation issue is essentially political and that we should not dissipate our energies in thrashing out legal technicalities. However, we would think the practical position would be to regard the PRC as being a representative of the existing member, from which membership of Security Council etc., would naturally flow.
14. Please communicate the foregoing to the Americans urgently as we do not want any misunderstanding to persist. We value these consultations and would like them to be as full and frank as possible. You know our view that what the Americans do and how strenuously they do it will be a major factor in determining the outcome of the China representation issue. It was for that reason that the Prime Minister wrote to the President on 13 May.14 In the penultimate paragraph of his letter he summarised the Australian position around three principal elements. We want our consultations to continue in order to act in harmony.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18, xiv]
1 Document 199. Waller explained in a preceding cablegram that Canberra was concerned, particularly by paragraph five of Cablegram 3393, that Plimsoll may have misunderstood the Government’s position.
2 Cablegrams 3395 and 3400 (25 and 26 June) communicated records of conversations on Chinese representation with Thomas P. Shoesmith, Country Director of the ROC, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, US Department of State, and Feldman of the UN Division, US State Department.
3 See Document 161.
4 See footnote 4, Document 199.
5 For explanation of Article 18(2) and (3), see footnote 4, Document 94.
6 It reported Feldman’s query whether the Department of Foreign Affairs envisaged the possibility that an Important Question resolution might fail while a substantive resolution to seat the PRC succeeded. The Embassy in Washington reiterated that the Australian Government ‘believed tworesolution formula had better chance of success than any single resolution formula, especially taking into account fact that support for DR principle seems already to have eroded’.
7 This paragraph reported Feldman’s assertion that the US resolution did not treat the PRC as an existing member of the United Nations: that member was China and what needed to be resolved was China’s representation.
8 It reported Feldman’s query whether Australia was ‘going through the motions’ with a dual representation approach given the unlikelihood of its success.
9 It reported Feldman’s query whether the Australian view that the PRC should succeed to the rights and duties of a permanent member of the Security Council contradicted its view, stated in the first operative paragraph of the Australian draft resolution, that it already was a member.
10 It reported Feldman’s query whether the Australian Government was communicating its suggestions to other countries.
11 It reported Shoesmith’s comment that Australia’s draft substantive resolution appeared to imply that Taiwan was part of China whereas the United States had refrained from taking any position on the issue.
12 It reported Shoesmith’s query whether the Australian Government had considered in which order its two proposed resolutions should be presented.
13 It reported Feldman’s general observation that ‘State Department considered Chinese representation issue to be essentially political rather than legal matter, and that it was probably advisable to keep legal technicalities to absolute minimum in resolution’.
14 See Document 181.