Canberra, 27 October 1971
Confidential
China
I have been agonising today about the sorts of things that we are pretty soon going to have to face in relation to China and wonder whether it would not be a good idea to set up a task force of experienced people here to start working on some papers about them. I do not have in mind the question of our moving to a position of recognition. You have a document on this matter1 and I believe it is one on which we need your directions so that a paper can be prepared for consideration by Cabinet soon after the Prime Minister returns from the United States and the United Kingdom. However, what I had in mind are the sort of things that would flow as corollaries from what the United Nations has done and while I have already asked a couple of individuals in the Department to be giving some thought the them I would like to know whether you feel they should be attacked in a more widely organised way urgently.
Could I give you three examples:—
(1) For many years we have turned aside propositions in the whole of the UN family and in some other international organisations that Peking should replace Taipei with the argument that this matter was one for determination by the General Assembly of the UN. The General Assembly having decided that the China seat should be occupied by Taiwan2 all the other agencies should follow this lead. This argument has been successful and it is I believe sound but if this is so we must now as a matter of course support the seating of Peking in the Specialised Agencies and other International Organisations and vote against Taiwan without attempting to re–introduce in these other organisations the kind of resolutions that we are co–sponsoring in New York. In other words, I don’t think we can have it both ways. This question could indeed become embarrassingly urgent. Mr. Sinclair3 is about to go off to preside over the Assembly of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. I would think it extremely likely that one of the first things he will face as President is a motion to seat Peking. I would have thought that the only position that our delegation could adopt was in favour of Peking and Mr. Sinclair indeed might be faced with a request for a ruling from the Chair that because the General Assembly had taken the decision it did yesterday the China seat should properly be awarded to Peking from the outset.
(2) What happens to an organisation like ASPAC? We could before long do ourselves harm and indeed destroy the organisation if we were to insist that Taiwan is still China. This matter, for instance, might need to be determined at once before you invite the countries concerned to attend the opening of the AS PAC Registry in Belconnen at the end of December.
(3) What about our trade with Taiwan? We have always had vaguely in the backs of our minds but never really done anything about it that when we recognise Peking we should try to maintain the quite substantial trade that we have with Taiwan by leaving there not any official trade commission or thing of that sort which would almost certainly be impossible, but by having some kind of private corporation or institute which would deal with trading relationships. I notice from a telegram this morning that the Belgians are talking about ‘a private company’ to deal with trading matters and I believe that this is a subject on which we should not get caught with our pants down.
I am sure there are other examples and I would like your directions as to whether you feel that we should at once embark on a study of the things that flow from what the UN has done and the things that will flow if and when we recognise.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18, xx]
1 Presumably Document 279.
2 Presumably, Shann intended to write ‘the PRC’.
3 I. C. Sinclair, Australian Minister for Primary Industry.