Paris, 21 December 1972
5913. Secret Immediate
China
On arrival at the P.R.C. Embassy at 1100 hours 21 December with Price 1 and the Lees,2 I was surprised to be met only by Tsao Kuei–sheng (the so–called Press Counsellor who is always with Huang). Asked where was Huang, Tsao Kuei–sheng replied that he was not in the Embassy but might return later.
2. Before I could get over this shock, Tsao Kuei–sheng said that the Ambassador had not yet received instructions to sign the draft communique hence, signature could not (repeat not) take place at 2100 hours 21 December.
3. Pressing on, Tsao Kuei–sheng said that speaking personally, he wanted to raise a problem over the date to be inserted at the end of paragraph 3 of the communique (the Taiwan paragraph). Whereas I had proposed that this date should be five weeks from the date of the communique, he himself thought the date should be the same date as that of the communique. There were two reasons:
(a) There was no precedent for different dates.
(b) The communique in the case of Britain had had the same date in both paragraphs 1 and 3.
4. I said that I was disagreeably surprised to be confronted with this last–minute hitch as I was sure the Australian Government would also be. At the last meeting I had proposed signature of the communique on 22 December and it was Huang who had proposed the earlier date of 21 December. Now the Chinese were back–tracking. While it was true that everything agreed at the last meeting had been ad referendum (underline two), a new problem had now been raised and one concerning a point, the five weeks’ period physically necessary to Australia to shut up shop in Taiwan, which I had made to Huang ten days ago, and which Peking must therefore have considered and had tacitly accepted. Huang had even invited me to a dinner on 22 December to celebrate the signing of the communique: all of this was baffling, embarrassing and disappointing.
5. Tsao Kuei–sheng responded that instructions had not yet been received from Peking and that he was still hopeful that the communique could be signed by Christmas. There would be no problem if I could agree to putting at the end of the third paragraph the date of the communique.
6. I said that I could not agree to this for obvious and sensible reasons. The Australian Government was honest and respectable. How could it authorise me to sign an undertaking to remove its official representation on Taiwan on one or two days’ notice when it knew that it could not physically do so? This was to ask Australia to tell a lie and I could not conceive that the Australian Government would do so. The proposal was so dishonest that if accepted, it would be difficult for the Prime Minister to explain why.
7. Tsao Kuei–sheng responded that if I could agree to his proposal, he could agree to discussing, and reaching ‘tacit’ agreement upon the date by which our official representation in Taiwan would really be removed. This had been done in the case of Britain.
8. I responded that I did not know what had been done in the case of Britain but what Tsao Kuei–sheng had just said showed the dishonesty of his proposal. If this was what Tsao Kuei–sheng meant, the answer would be to leave out any mention of a date at the end of the third paragraph and have a ‘tacit’ agreement about the date of removal. Frankly, I did not understand what lay behind Tsao Kuei–sheng’s proposal. I had said before and I would say again that the Australian Government was keen to end relations with Taiwan and to establish them with the P.R.C. The Australian Ambassador had already left Taiwan and would not return. The Taiwanese Ambassador had already left Australia. Australia wanted to send Cottrill as Charge a.i. to Peking with five or so assistants early in the New Year. Australia had asked for five weeks for purely practical reasons. Surely in all these circumstances, the P.R.C. could believe that Australia had no desire that its official representation in Taiwan should linger on?
9. Tsao Kuei–sheng said that he would consider my suggestion about not mentioning any date at the end of the third paragraph and would see what Peking had to say when instructions arrived. The Chinese would then seek another meeting.
10. I then told him of the warning about Taiwanese property in Australia (your telegram 6325)3 and said that this was another illustration of Australia’s good faith and friendliness.
11. I also asked Tsao Kuei–sheng for agreement to the despatch to Peking of Cottrill and his party as planned (your telegram 6325). He promised to put this to Peking immediately.
12. Tsao Kuei–sheng then said that according to the press, Australia planned to send as Ambassador to China ‘a very young man’ .4 Was this true? I replied that I knew nothing about this but what had appeared in the press.
13. At the end, Lee was able with the Chinese to do some work on a Chinese text although Tsao Kuei–sheng said that Peking had still to send its own version.
14. Tsao Kuei–sheng proposed and I agreed to restore the word ‘their’ in the first line of paragraph 2 of the communique.
Comment (underlined)
15. The last–minute hitch came as a bomb–shell and hence while Tsao Kuei–sheng was good–humoured, I was the opposite. This, I think, had some effect. It should still, I reckon, prove possible to sign the communique by 23 December but in view of to–day’s surprise, one cannot be sure.
16. Please let me have your reactions to all the above as soon as possible. In particular, do you feel so strongly about Tsao Kuei–sheng’s proposal as I do and would the counter–proposal I made be acceptable to you?
Renouf
[NAA: Al838, 3107/38/18/6, ii]
1 G.J. Price, Minister, Australian Embassy, Paris.
2 The Chinese–speaking Australian diplomat C. Lee, Counsellor, Australian Embassy, Madrid, and his wife.
3 Document 378.
4 S.A. FitzGerald was appointed, at the age of 35, as the first Australian Ambassador to the PRC.