Tokyo, 8 August 1960
Secret Guard
Chinese Representation in the United Nations
I have read your guidance savingram No. 10 to all posts1 and Washington Embassy telegram No. 2106 reporting a discussion with Miss Bacon of the State Department.2
2. I am sure there is a good case to be made out for extending the moratorium procedure on Chinese representation at this year’s United Nations General Assembly. At the present stage of international and particular[ly] United States opinion the balance of argument would seem strongly in favour of supporting it, and there looks to be a good chance that it can be upheld again this time.
3. But I cannot help feeling uneasy about the reasons we continue to adduce in support of the moratorium. We may get away with it this year; with luck, we might even be able to scrape through next year, though who can say with any confidence that the new African states that may be prepared to support it or abstain this year will not have changed their minds in the next twelve months—let alone the various other putative new members of the U.N.? Looking at the situation from this point of time, I should be sorry to think that one year from now we would still be canvassing the same arguments, which strike me as unduly negative and obsessed with the risks involved in any shift of attitude. I would venture to think that something a little more imaginative and bold was called for—not necessarily as a prelude to an early change of front but rather by way of forward preparation for meeting with the best possible grace a change that looks like being forced on us, maybe sooner rather than later. As things are I cannot escape the impression—though I hope I am wrong—that we are merely sitting pat and waiting for the ceiling to fall on us.
4. The Minister’s statement in Parliament on 13th August 19593 was designed, as I see it, to argue against any unilateral action by Australia to break the existing front against Communist China. All well and good; but few people can realistically expect Australia to take any such action on its own. The real point is what we and our friends may be forced to do under numerical pressure exerted mainly through the United Nations in the interests of ‘realism’, on which we and even the United States must find it increasingly hard to argue cogently.
5. I understand well enough the procedural difficulties that would confront any attempt to bring about the so-called ‘two Chinas’ solution, and the risks that would be involved. But are we simply hoping that with the passage of time something will tum up—the death of Chiang Kai-shek, a marked change in the American attitude—that will reduce these difficulties and risks or offer another solution that we can conscientiously go along with? If so, should we not perhaps admit this frankly, at least to ourselves and possibly even to our friends, instead of standing on arguments that seem to take little or no account of inevitable future change?
6. Although we say a good deal about the need for respecting the strength of a diminishing section of Chinese and other Asian opinion on the China question, I would suppose that in truth it is really (and rightly, from our broad security standpoint) the strength of United States opinion that continues to influence us, as indeed I suspect it is United States thinking that mainly influences Asians and others who start with a basic dislike and instinctive fear of Communist China. I would only hope, however, that if and when the going should become more difficult than it is at present we would not continue to assume too easily that continuing obduracy in the United States must necessarily be in our own best interests or that our friendly advice counts for little in Washington.
7. Let me admit at once that I have no comprehensive thinking or suggestions to offer. I would only venture to pose the following questions—
(i) While the Nationalist Chinese Government exists as a convenient and perhaps even desirable excuse for Governments which dislike and/or fear Peking to put off the inevitable necessity of having to live with Communist China, does the Nationalist Government in fact have any appreciable international status or prestige to lose?
(ii) Do we really believe that morale throughout certain South East Asian countries and among many overseas Chinese would be materially affected by recourse to a ‘two Chinas’ solution?
(iii) We say that there are not many known supporters of the ‘two Chinas’ solution. Has it ever really been actively canvassed?
(iv) Would it greatly matter if Communist China refused to accept a proffered seat in the United Nations? Can it not be said that by recognising China and Taiwan as separate members of the United Nations, so far from putting itself in the position of a ‘rejected suppliant’ ( !) would be putting Peking on the spot?
(v) Is it necessary to assume that if Communist China were admitted to the United Nations all countries which do not at present recognise Peking would have to do so, either de jure or de facto? And if so that they would be bound to exchange diplomatic missions with Peking, even against their will? And again if so, that they would inevitably become more vulnerable to subversive Communist pressures and influences? (c.f. Indonesia for one).
(vi) Do we accept with equanimity Miss Bacon’s apparent assumption that the United States would use its veto to keep Communist China off the Security Council, even if the Assembly had already acted to replace the Nationalists?
(vii) Are the hypotheses canvassed in paras 3 and 4 of the Washington telegram as remote as Miss Bacon claims?
8. To sum up, the arguments canvassed in your savingram could be said to be relevant to preparations for an extension of the moratorium at this year’s General Assembly, and would seem appropriate enough to discuss with other governments in terms of achieving an objective that we consider immediately desirable. But they seem to me to suggest a lack of something in our longer term policy on the China problem as a whole.
[NAA: A1838, 3107/33/1/1, vi]
1 Document 81.
2 27 July. It reported the Australian Embassy’s discussions with Ruth E. Bacon, an officer in the Bureau of East Asian Affairs, US State Department. Bacon predicted a bigger vote for the moratorium than in previous years and that any attempt to introduce a ‘two Chinas policy’ into the UN General Assembly would weaken the position of the Nationalist Chinese.
3 Casey had made a major statement on recognition during which he gave reasons for Australia’s position including the need to consider moral and humanitarian factors; doubt over Peking’s acceptance of its international obligations; the need to stand by Nationalist China; and the position of the United States. He also argued at length that recognition would not produce benefits for Australia that did not already exist. On the situation in the United Nations, Casey said that recognition by Australia would not solve difficulties in New York because admission of the PRC would result in the expulsion of the ROC.