Canberra, 25 August 1971
845. Secret
Chinese Representation
Your UN 608.1
Perhaps we should re–emphasise essential elements in our thinking which are as follows:
(1) Our approach is flexible and under constant review. We aim to concert our policy with our friends.
(2) We accept that no tactics can succeed without the full and active support of the Americans. We want to be able to support the Americans and will work towards that objective. We therefore do not wish to impose on the Americans our views on tactics or resolutions, or to push them in any particular direction.
(3) Our only concern is to find the best means of achieving objectives which we share with our friends, especially the United States, Japan and New Zealand.
(4) We do not want to become committed prematurely to sponsorship of particular tactics or resolutions. We do not wish to float any resolutions of our own (please see our-Memorandum 518).2
When texts and tactics have been worked out with our friends we will examine question of sponsorship, bearing in mind that we would much prefer to join a large and representative group. Ministers have not contemplated a vanguard role for us at this stage.
2. Departmentally, we accept the American resolutions as a basis for exploring future action. The following further comments on your 608 are intended only to assist in this process.
a) Paragraph 2
Americans say that they ‘believe’ their DR can get priority over the AR, and that they ‘firmly believed that the attempt must at any rate be made’, but do not make it clear whether they will support the DR even if they know it will fail. We have had no hard information from the Americans recently on voting estimates. In your 5843 you reported preliminary cornnients by Newlin on the questions in our 781.4 Have the Americans any more definitive comment yet?
(Washington reported in its 4319,5 paragraph 6, that Feldman was undertaking a new count, but we have had no further advice.)
b) Paragraph 3
We must make it clear that we do not (underlined) like the wording of the Albanian resolution. We would much prefer some other wording or some other resolution (for example, American draft DR with a reference to Security Council seat added, or our own). Our only reason for suggesting that we use the AR to achieve our purposes is that (despite its dangers) it might be the only or the least risky way of protecting the ROC. We might, in other words, have to use it however much we dislike its wording. While therefore we take the American points, the Americans themselves have been arguing that any decision by the General Assembly will be basically political and that we should not be too defensive about obvious legal weaknesses. If the General Assembly decides that the ROC shall remain, we do not think it important or anyway of crucial importance, how the PRC is described.
We would like you to be clear however (see paragraph 1 above) that if a better solution is likely to get the votes then we would like to be able to fall in behind the Americans. In any event, we repeat that only a procedure which is actively supported by the Americans is likely to succeed and we would therefore see ourselves as likely to follow them, if that is at all practicable.
c) Paragraph 4
Our draft I.Q. refers to ‘expulsion’, which is one of the questions specifically listed under Article 18 (2). The American IQ refers to ‘representation’ which was the word used in the old IQ resolution under Article 18 (3). We do not see therefore how the Americans can argue that our (underlined) draft savours too much of the approach of the old IQ. Indeed, we are coming to the view that the American draft may be the old IQ differently worded. It seems clear that if the American IQ is adopted, the entire (underlined) AR would require for its adoption a two–thirds majority. We are now not sure how far this could be accommodated with Australian government policy which, as you know, is opposed to procedural devices aimed at impeding the PRC’s entry. We see a real risk that countries will come to interpret the American text as being the old IQ, and its defeat would then seem to be certain. A general reaction against such procedural tactics could also lead to the defeat of any American–sponsored substantive resolution.
d) Paragraph 5
We repeat that our only preference is to find the texts and tactics that offer the best chance of success. We are not committed to any approach and seek only to explore alternatives with our friends in order to reach, if we can, common positions which offer best prospects of success.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/19, ii]
1 Document 241.
2 Not published.
3 Document 234.
4 Document 233.
5 Not published.