Canberra, 7 December 1972
5975. Secret Priority
China
Thank you for your telegram 5628.1 The Prime Minister personally is gratified by the skill and expedition you have shown in getting the negotiation under way.
2. Your meeting with Huang plainly went well on the whole, and we are pleased in particular that you suggested, and Huang agreed, to have the next meeting in your office.
3. Clearly, however, the Chinese are in a tough negotiating mood, especially on the Taiwan issue and on the matter of ROC property here (a matter they did not raise with the Japanese), and are seeking to take full tactical advantage of our desire for the earliest possible establishment of relations. We have no wish to be intransigent ourselves, especially over minor matters, but we are not prepared to be rushed into accepting China’s first negotiating position (perhaps prepared on the assumption that we would begin by proposing something less than the Canadian formula) without making a determined effort to have them come at least some way towards our own position.
4. This does not mean, of course, that we wish you at your next meeting to be any less cordial or to give the impression that we are any less interested in establishing relations. But it will require a continued polite firmness and dignity on your part based on the fact that the Australian Government too has its own interests and requirements.
5. Turning to the draft communique, we wish you to speak along the following lines.
(a) In the heading, we should prefer, in accordance with our practice, to refer to ‘the Australian Government’ rather than ‘the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia’ .
(b) We continue to prefer having in a separate paragraph the reference to the ‘Five Principles’ . Our reasons are twofold. First, the important para 1 of the communique would then be crisper and absolutely to the main point—mutual recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations. Secondly, as we see it, there are presentational advantages in making it clear, as para 2 of our draft does, that the ‘Five Principles’ are to guide our continuing relationship and are not simply (as the Chinese para can be read) the one–shot justification for deciding upon mutual recognition and diplomatic relations.
(c) In our legal view, diplomatic relations are not formally established until one or the other country actually has a diplomatic officer in place in the other’s capital. This explains why our draft para 1 attached a date to mutual recognition but not to the establishment of diplomatic relations. But the matter can be got around in several ways. For example:
(i) ‘ … have today decided upon mutual recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations, and have agreed to exchange ambassadors as soon as possible’ .
(ii) ‘ … have decided upon mutual recognition as from . . . and have agreed to establish diplomatic relations and to exchange ambassadors as soon as possible’ .
(iii) As in (ii), but deleting ‘as from … ‘,leaving it to be inferred that the effective date of recognition is the date of the communique.
(d) If the Chinese argue strongly against reference to the UN Charter principles, you may agree to drop it if the rest of the negotiations have gone well. But if not, you should simply undertake to refer the Chinese arguments to Canberra.
(e) You have similar discretion in relation to the differences between our draft and the Chinese draft in the wording of the ‘Five Principles’ .
(f) In para 2 of the Chinese draft, we should again prefer ‘the Australian Government’ .mdash;as the Chinese draft itself uses in its para 3.
(g) The wording of para 3 of the Chinese draft, and the corresponding para 5 of our draft, will depend on whether the earlier para has some such phrase as ‘exchange ambassadors as soon as possible’ . If that phrase is included earlier, the first part of our para 5 can be dropped. In any case, we should prefer ‘law and’ before ‘practice’ at the end of the para.
(h) We should like to maintain the final paragraph of our own draft in order to give more substance to the communique and to open up the prospect of positive development in our future relations.
6. Turning to the specific points in your para 5, you should speak as follows.
7. On para 5(a), we will naturally make it public when issuing the communique that we have severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan, that we will withdraw theAustralian Embassy in Taipei (we have no other official representation in Taiwan), and that the Taiwan Embassy in Canberra, the Consulates–General in Sydney and Melbourne, and the Consulates in Perth, Brisbane and Hobart will likewise be closed. (This also answers your para 11.)
8. On para 5(b), we have no legal powers to prevent Taiwanese representatives from selling their official properties (a house in each of Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) while Australia still recognises the Taiwanese authorities. We hope the Chinese will understand that this is the legal position and not a policy decision of the Australian Government.
9. On para 5(c), and on the relevant wording in para 2 of the draft Chinese communique, we find ourselves in difficulties. It would not be understood in Australia why the Australian Government had been singled out by China to join the Maldives as the only two countries required to take publicly in a joint communique on diplomatic relations the position in para 2 of the Chinese draft. Moreover it would be damaging to the Australian Government, and we suggest to the Chinese Government and to future relations, if it could be charged in Australia that the agreement between Premier Chou and Mr Whitlam reached in Peking last year on the Canadian formula had been cast aside. Huang mentioned that the USA and Japan had recognised that Taiwan was a province of China. In our understanding, that is not strictly so. The USA, which did not recognise the PRC Government as the sole legal government of China and which indeed made clear its continuing recognition of the ROC Government, simply acknowledged the factual (underline one) position that ‘all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China’ . and said it ‘does not challenge that position’ . This does not in our understanding, nor we believe in the understanding of the US Government, go as far as would the wording suggested by China in our case. As for Japan, the formula it used (’ .ully understands and respects this stand of the Government of China’ (underline seven)) likewise did not go as far, in our understanding and we believe, in the understanding of the Japanese Government, as China is now asking us to go—which is related not to the PRC’s stand on the Taiwan issue but to Taiwan’s being a province of China tout court (underline two).
10. Huang also mentioned the remarks by Mr Whitlam in August. Those remarks were made on a social occasion, and were intended to emphasise that he would not be a party to any suggestion of ‘two Chinas’ . or ‘one China–one Taiwan’ . or an independent Taiwan. That remains his position, and the position of the present Australian Government. It is a position which in our view, and in the light of the many communiques issued by China with other countries since Canada, would be fully safeguarded by use of the Canadian formula.
11. Having spoken in this fashion, you should invite Huang to respond. If at the end of the ensuing discussion, in which you should maintain the foregoing position, it becomes plain that Huang has been given no discretion to come towards us, you may say that you are prepared to recommend that we not insist on the precise wording of the Canadian formula and that we consider carefully any alternative formulation consistent with it which Huang might suggest—even though the Prime Minister has said publicly that we had suggested the Canadian formula.
12. Finally, as a negotiating matter, you should invite Huang, as your guest, to speak first to his instructions, after which you should speak in accordance with the foregoing instructions and in the light of what Huang has had to say.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18/6, i]
1 Document 352.