Canberra, 18 July 1971
1730. Secret Priority
For Freeth.
Please pass the following message urgently to Prime Minister Sato from MrMcMahon.
Begins.
‘I have been giving close and urgent consideration to President Nixon’s statement about relations with the P.R.C.1 The concept of normalising relations with the P.R.C. is of course one which my own Government has publicly espoused and in a public statement last night I welcomed President Nixon’s initiative.2
However, what the United States has done may be potentially embarrassing for Australia and Japan and I am therefore urgently seeking an exchange of views with you.
Although I was informed of the purport of President Nixon’s announcement shortly before it was made, there was in no sense any prior consultation with Australia. Nor have we so far been told what arrangements if any were made by Kissinger in Peking. One can at this stage speculate that these may have covered troop withdrawals from South Vietnam, subsequent international negotiations on an Indo–China settlement and the admission of the P.R.C. to the United Nations.
Like you, I have been pressing the United States Government for some definition of their policy on Chinese representation in the United Nations.
I also share your view that we must make every effort to preserve the right of the Republic of China to membership of the United Nations.
The present position is that the customary Albanian resolution has now been inscribed and will therefore be voted on before any resolution we may put forward on either.dual representation or the non-expulsion of Taiwan.
In these circumstances, the seating of the P.R.C. and the expulsion of Taiwan seem unavoidable.
Without being alarmist, I am obliged to [question]3 whether this is not in fact what the Americans intend. They would, of course, oppose the Albanian resolution but might do so in the knowledge that it will succeed.
These developments would create some political embarrassment for me domestically.
In these circumstances, would you see merit in a joint approach to President Nixon which would seek clarification of his policy on the P.R. C. and at the same time urge that it is still not too late to make an effort to preserve the rights of Taiwan in the United Nations?’4
Ends.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18, xv]
1 See footnote 1, Document 211.
2 See footnote 2, Document 213.
3 On the source document, this word was a handwritten substitute for ‘ask’.
4 In his note on the telephone conversation of 19 July with McMahon (see footnote 3, Document 213), Waller wrote: ‘P.M. queried para [of letter to Sato] in which we speculate that the U.S. was going to let the I.Q. fail … He asked whether I saw any dangers in saying this to the Japanese. I said “no”. They were deeply involved with Taiwan as we were. P.M. agreed but said, in spite of our support for Taiwan, “we must bend with the wind”’. Shortly afterward, McMahon again spoke to Waller, repeating his suspicion that the United States would abandon Taiwan in the UN, and again querying whether reference in the Sato letter to this would ‘embarrass us with the U.S.’. Waller noted: ‘I referred [again] to [McMahon’s] talk with [Winthrop] Brown [Document 161] mentioning the old strategy in U.N., with inevitable failure as easiest course for U.S. P.M. said we may need to change our policy. I asked, did he mean more emphasis on Taiwan’s right to be in the U.N. “ should she wish to do so “. He said yes. Comment: I think the inference is clear’.