Canberra, 21 February 1972
Secret
Notes on Cabinet Submission No.5541 —China Policy
The Minister recommends that we continue our present China policy unmodified, and that we proceed from this decision to an early statement (para 11 (iii)).
2. Whatever Cabinet decides, the timing of an early announcement is a matter of substance, as the Minister recognises in paragraph 9. We have the Nixon visit to China and after that the excursion of Marshall Green of the State Department and Kissinger’s China Policy Adviser, Holdridge.2 I find it difficult to envisage any announcement during the Nixon visit which would avoid criticism, except a broad affirmation in support of the visit and the expression of genuine hopes for its success.
3. If we hold over for the period of the Nixon visit, it seems that we would be well advised also to await consultation with Marshall Green before proceeding to a public definition of policy. In short, the option is to recognise that our policy is a policy proceeding from consultation with President Nixon who has taken a major and commendable initiative commanding widespread public support to explore the possibilities of greater flexibility towards China. If, in the end, that flexibility was not forthcoming it would emerge more clearly as China’s responsibility than it does at the moment. If new considerations do emerge, we would want to take them into account and adjust the presentation of our policies accordingly. It would not go well for us to adjust within a matter of weeks of our own statement. This leads to the conclusion that the question of timing and consultation are major questions of substance for Cabinet to discuss.
4. There are other more durable reasons for the view that our China policy should be developed in a consultative relationship with the United States.
Briefly they are:
(1) The United States will continue to weigh considerations of a military strategic character. The foreign policy of Kissinger and Nixon is dominated by the over–riding concern to produce understandings which will limit thermo–nuclear competition and contain the possibilities of war by miscalculation. The Formosa Straits contain the seeds of danger. Historically, China backed down in the face of the threat of massive retaliation in the early 1950’s from pursuing a military policy across the Straits. An ingredient of the back–down was the failure of Russia to contest the American threat, and it is believed by experts that it was this issue which decided China on nuclear armament. Thus it can be said that for both parties—China and the United States—there are present considerations of such over–riding magnitude as will down–grade pressures for early resolution of political problems such as the status of Taiwan. Thus American policy may not move very dramatically on the ROC/PRC issue.
(2) If military strategic questions are involved, we strengthen the concept of ANZUS by a preparedness to accept consultation.
(3) A policy of consultation of this kind between the U.S. and allies in the Far East on pivotal questions of foreign policy is in parallel with European performance within NATO (de Gaulle excepted) where major East–West (Russian) foreign policy question.s are determined on a basis of consultation. It is to be anticipated that this is what the U.S. now seeks, for the publication of the Marshall Green visit prior to the commencement of the Chou–Nixon talks, serves both notice to China and all other interested parties that America will not act singly in this matter.
5. If prior consultation with the U.S. is an accepted principle, the Minister’s policy offers a most suitable basis on which to proceed and should be supported.
[NAA: A5882, C01138, ii]
1 Document 300.
2 The Australian Government was informed on 14 February that Green, Holdridge and Paul M.Cleveland, Special Assistant and Staff Director, US National Security Council Interdepartmental Group, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, would visit Australia between 10 and 15 March to brief the Government on President Nixon’s visit to China. The official announcement by the State Department (16 February) added that the group would visit the ROC, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand.