Canberra, 20 December 1972
62241. Secret Immediate
China
Your telegrams 5870 and 5871.2
We accept text of communique in your 5871.
(We assume that Huang had agreed to Australia’s being mentioned first in the heading and in para. 1 of the communique to be published here, and China’s being mentioned first in the communique to be published in China—see para. 2 (a) of our telegram 5909.3 But if Huang objects, you should not press the point.)
2. We assume that the communique will have two subscriptions, as follows (the placement being reversed in the China version).
‘For the Australian Government
(Signed) Alan Renouf
Australian Ambassador to France’ .| ‘For the Government of the People’s
Republic of China
(Signed) Huang Chen
Ambassador of the People’s Republic
of China to France’ .
—|—
3. We accept the timings in para. 15 of your 5870, which entails inserting 21 December 1972 in para. 1 of the communique and 25 January 1973 in para. 3.
4. We suggest 1800 hours Canberra time (1500 hours Peking, 0800 hours Paris) on Friday 22 December for the release of the communique and messages.
5. Please put all the foregoing to Huang at your meeting on 20 December.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18/6, ii]
1Documents 376 to 378 were evidently sent as a batch; they have, therefore, been organised in this volume according to their substantive content, rather than the order in which they were dispatched or numbered. With regard to the latter, the three documents were renumbered by hand on the originals—the second digit of each being correctly changed from a ‘3’ to a ‘2’ .
2 Documents 373 and 374.
3 Document 347.