Taipei, 12 December 1972
792. Secret Immediate
Relations with the ROC
Your telegram 8211 arrived shortly before my appointment with Vice Foreign Minister Tsai on 12 December on the Bank of China question (my telegram 791).2 After we had discussed that question, Tsai said he wished to give me the ROC’s formal reply to the ideas I had put to the Foreign Minister on 5 December (my telegram 746).3 Even in the light of your 821 I had no alternative but to listen. I said only that I would note what Tsai said and report to you.
2. Tsai’s main points were as follows:—
(a) The ROC agreed to our idea of setting up unofficial offices.
(b) It would like to know more of what was in the Australian Government’s mind. For example, should talks about details take place here or in Canberra? Which officers should discuss the details?
(c) The ROC would like the matter finalised as soon as possible.
(d) The ROC thought the main functions of the unofficial offices should be to facilitate travel and trade. In connection with travel the mechanics as well as legalities of granting visas were very important. (Tsai commented that the physical problems could be considerable. In the case of Japan, ROC visas were now nominally issued by the ROC Embassy in Seoul. Even without considering the effect of delays caused if applications had to be sent to Seoul and back by airmail, there were always big crowds and queues at the ROC offices in Japan. It was a real problem to work out effective arrangements for the speedy issuing of visas. Comment. Tsai probably had in mind the likelihood that the ROC Embassy in Wellington will be closed. Once that happens, the nearest ROC mission will be in Manila or Singapore.)
(e) The ROC would like unofficial offices in Sydney and Melbourne. However, if we wished it to be only in one centre or the other, that would be acceptable. (Tsai said in an aside that the ROC office in both cities had been asked to retain their furniture and so on in case it was needed later.)
(f) The ROC thought that continuation of cultural exchanges were desirable.
There were many people in Australia interested in Chinese culture. Arrangements for professors and students to come to Taiwan and vice versa seemed desirable. (Tsai played this aspect in very low key and even made it appear that the ROC would not insist on cultural relations if we were not happy at the prospect.)
(g) The ROC would wish, as in the case Japan, to be able to send people to Australia to set up its unofficial office or to retain some people from the Embassy in Canberra to man that mission. If the latter course were accepted, the status of such people would of course be changed.
(h) In regard to the Trade Agreement, the ROC was willing to continue trade on the basis of the provisions of the trade agreement. An alternative, if we wished, could be a similar arrangement to that which the ROC had with Canada, with which it still had agreements ‘in a semi–official way’ . The point of contact was Washington where the economic counsellors of embassies met to discuss quota questions and so on.
3. Tsai expressed the hope that something could be agreed upon before (underline one) the complete break in relations. I asked whether the main problem he foresaw was that of communications after a break. Tsai said that he had earlier referred to the PRC’s reported desire to freeze ROC assets in Australia. If arrangements were not concluded before a break, the PRC might have more demands to make immediately thereafter. On the administrative side, the ROC would, moreover, have to decide who might stay in Australia and in general make appropriate staffing arrangements. We would also appreciate that the ROC was in a more difficult position than Australia. There was no question of a hostile mission being set up in Taipei and making things difficult for us. This would not be the case for the ROC in Canberra once PRC personnel arrived.
4. Tsai also mentioned that, in earlier cases where relations had been broken, the ROC had requested the other country to give fair treatment to Chinese nationals who wished to continue to hold ROC passports and also to try to restrain the PRC from pressing such people to change their allegiance. Canada and Mexico had done very well in this regard. Japan had also given some undertakings but some problems had arisen already in this connection.
5. Finally, Tsai said that the need for speed in making arrangements had been stressed to Shen in Canberra. The delays in finalising matters with the Japanese were by no means all on the ROC side. As in the case of several other countries which had broken relations with the ROC, Taipei would have been satisfied with any practical arrangements which enabled non–political relations to continue to mutual benefit in the best atmosphere possible. (Some semi–formal arrangements might of course be required in regard to the actual establishment of unofficial offices.) However, the Japanese had wanted parallel ‘associations’ to be set up to deal with one another. This took time to organise. Japan had also wanted careful undertakings in regard to the 3000 Japanese resident in Taiwan: the ROC would have assumed that the 50 thousand Chinese in Japan would be treated reciprocally. Japan had also wanted undertakings about the one Japanese school in Taiwan when there were many Chinese schools in Japan. These and other problems had rather irritated the ROC and had contributed to delays. Delays had not occurred in the ROC’s dealings with Australia.
6. Comment. Tsai is an able administrator. This was a professional and practical presentation. It probably represents, as does agreement to withdraw the Bank of China, widespread acceptance of the belief (cf. paragraph 5 of my 778)4 that the ROC’s best tactics with us are to appear utterly reasonable in contrast to the PRC possible rigidity. In other circumstances we might have been more pleased with the cooperative attitude shown.
Dunn.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18/6, i]
1 12 December. It informed Dunn that Canberra had just received notice from Renouf that the PRC had expressed strong opposition to the maintenance or establishment of any unofficial offices in Taipei or Australia. Dunn was requested, pending further consideration of the problem in Canberra, to discontinue discussion of unofficial arrangements with ROC officials or the US Ambassador.
2 Document 362.
3 Document 351.
4 9 December. The relevant section of this paragraph (which is, in fact, numbered ‘4’ ., reads: ‘You will not be over-impressed by the basically sensible decision [of the ROC] to accept the inevitable, possibly in the hope that some contrast will emerge between the ROC’s “reasonableness” and any rigidity which we may encounter in dealing with the PRC’ .