Canberra, 11 December 1972
Secret
China
We are drafting for your consideration a reply to Renouf’s telegram 57301concerning his meeting yesterday with the Chinese Ambassador in Paris.
2. You may wish to mention at your press conference this afternoon that there has been a further meeting between Renouf and Huang Chen, this time at the Australian Embassy, that good progress is being made and that you have received a cordial message from Chou En–lai.2
3. We suggest, however, that at this stage you should not say anything more about the substance of Renouf’s negotiations with the Chinese, which are necessarily confidential as between Governments, and that the texts of your message3 to Chou En–lai and of his reply to you should not be released for the time being. As Renouf points out in paragraph 15 of his telegram 5730, the last paragraph of Chou’s message gives us the kind of positive statement about future relations with China which we had wanted to have in the communique itself, but which the Chinese do not want there. Publication of Chou’s message at the same time as release of the communique would help offset the relative bareness of the communique itself. It would also be likely to have a greater impact than if released before agreement has been reached with the Chinese. It would also be desirable, as Renouf implies in the last sentence of paragraph 15, to clear the matter with the Chinese before publicising the exchange of messages.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18/6, i]
1 Document 359.
2 See footnote 2, Document 347.
3 See footnote 2, Document 347.