Canberra, 29 November 1971
Secret
Taiwan
The Ambassador in Taipei, Mr Dunn, has reported a conversation he had with Vice-Foreign Minister, Yang, on 25 November (telegrams nos. 850 and 851 attached),1 in which Yang told him of views he had put to the American Ambassador the previous day. Yang had come to the view, which he had put to President Chiang Kai-shek, that support for the ROC would decline quickly and it would become increasingly isolated. It would help the ROC to accept the fact that it was the Government of Taiwan only; it need not abandon its claims to the Mainland but could, for example, call itself the ‘Chinese Republic of Taiwan’.
2. Yang had suggested to the American Ambassador that the United States should send a group of senior people to Taiwan, before President Nixon’s visit to Peking, to seek to persuade General Chiang Kai–shek ‘to accept realities’. Yang thought that if other influential regional countries—Japan, Australia and New Zealand—worked on parallel lines, their concerted efforts might achieve something with the President.
3. Dunn’s conclusion is that we should best avoid any involvement in this matter (telegram no. 851) on the principal grounds that (a) if internal influences are insufficient to budge the President, external influences might also fail; (b) if the United States cannot move him, our influence would add little; and (c) we might make it more difficult to normalise relations with the PRC without achieving anything in Taiwan.
4. We could, conceivably, consider taking advantage of this possibility—should it come to fruition—to argue that a change of name by the Republic of China would provide a sufficient basis for us to withdraw our mission from Taipei. This possibility would seem to be open to the objection that it would be a somewhat dubious juridical pretext on which to base such action. (A brief note by Sir Kenneth Bailey on the legal aspects of the question is attached.)2 It could also be open to the charge that it would be inconsistent with previously expressed statements of Government policy in support of the international position of the Republic of China.
5. It would seem desirable to retain our options on the international position of the ROC and not to commit ourselves at this point to any particular course of action. The question of the future of Australia’s diplomatic relations with the ROC will, inevitably, come under examination in the course of any resumed dialogue with the PRC. It would seem prudent to consider our future attitude to our representation in the ROC in the context of such negotiations and not as a separate issue.3
K.C.O. Shann
Acting Secretary
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38118/1, ii]
1 Not published.
2 Bailey noted that under international law, recognition of a state was, in principle, independent of both changes to its name and its territorial claims. He also stressed that Australian ministers had made a number of statements which conformed with this principle.
3 Bowen indicated that he agreed with these conclusions.