New York, 7 March 1972
UN143. Confidential Priority
China
For Minister from Mcintyre
Your 1581 and 1632 .and your telephone call.3
Today 7 March Merrillees4 met Chou Nan, first secretary in the Chinese Mission, in the United Nations Building.
2. Merrillees said the Australian authorities had heard that the Chinese Mission had been discussing the future of Sino–Australian relations with a number of Australians who were unconnected with the Australian Government. The Australian Government was interested in pursuing the dialogue it had begun with the PRC with a view to normalising relations, and wished to know whether the Chinese Government reciprocated this desire. Chou immediately asked whether the Australian authorities had anything concrete to propose. Merrillees replied that he had no firm proposal to convey nor was he in a position to say whether or not anything concrete of this kind was at present under consideration.
3. Chou then referred to a news item which appeared in the New York Times today 7 March (full text in immediately following telegram),5 concerning the assumption by Foreign Affairs of responsibility for Government representation in Hong Kong, and asked whether the interpretation placed upon this decision in the news item was correct. Merrillees pointed out that this article could not be considered an official statement of Government policy and that its contents were therefore subject to confirmation. Chou noted that the Prime Minister was reported to have referred to an ‘independent Taiwan’ and intimated that if such a concept represented Government policy, nothing could be usefully discussed. He assumed that China’s policies were fully understood in Canberra and said that a dialogue on these terms would become simply a restatement of well–known positions.
4. Chou then asked whether the Australian Government wished the dialogue to be resumed at this level and in New York, to which Merrillees replied that he should not necessarily draw these conclusions. In fact, since earlier talks had been held at ambassadorial level, it could be presumed that any resumption of the dialogue would take place at the same level. Chou enquired in this context whether the Government had Ross Terrell6 in mind. Merrillees stressed the importance attached by the Australian authorities to the resumption of contacts as between governments.
5. Chou again reverted to the question of any concrete proposals which the Australian Government might have to make. Merrilees stated that Australia’s interest lay in knowing whether the PRC was prepared to discuss with official representatives the matters which the Chinese had discussed with Australians outside government service.
6. Chou said he would report the conversations to his Permanent Representative Huang Hua, and to Peking, and that he would get in contact with Merrillees if he had any reaction to convey. At no time during the conversation did he refer specifically to Kibel.
7. The interview was arranged without difficulty and conducted throughout in a cordial atmosphere. Chou, who said that he is responsible at the working level for political affairs in the Chinese Mission, has like Merrillees been attending the fourth session of the preparatory committee on the human environment conference. He speaks and understands English very well and used no polemics in his conversation with Merrillees.7
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18/2, i]
1 Document 308.
2 7 March. It informed Mcintyre that Bowen wished him to proceed along the lines of paragraph 3 of Cablegram 158 (Document 308) ‘without waiting for possible approach from Kibel, since this would not now take place for 10 days’.
3 No record of the conversation has been found.
4 R.S. Merrillees, First Secretary, Australian Mission to the United Nations, New York.
5 The Department of Foreign Affairs took responsibility for the post in Hong Kong, previously a trade commission, on 10 May. Cablegram UN144, 7 March, communicated the text of an article, which appeared in the New York Times on 7 March, headlined ‘New Australian Mission in Hong Kong to Woo Peking’. The article stated that McMahon had declared in a television interview on 6 March that Australia would seek to broaden its relations with the PRC by establishing a ‘new diplomatic mission’, staffed by senior officers of the Department of Foreign Affairs, in Hong Kong. The article added that McMahon had indicated that the Australian Government wished Taiwan ‘to have the right to be independent’.
6 Harvard University academic and Australian–born sinologist.
7 An annotation dated 8 March on the cited copy reads: ‘This conversation raises the danger that the Chinese will rebuff us in New York before Renouf can make his approach in Paris. In order to head off the Chinese Mission in New York we should like to send Mcintyre instructions along the lines of the attached, which Sir Keith Waller has approved. We would then submit to you revised instructions to Renouf to take account of what has happened’.