Canberra, 16 August 1955

Secret Personal

You will remember that, on 29th June, I put an information paper² to Cabinet on East Asia and on our attitude towards the Peking Government. It was decided that no steps should be taken at present towards recognition of Peking.

Since then, the Heads of States Conference at Geneva³ has taken place, and the American–Chinese discussions at Geneva on specific matters.⁴ The Bataille des Fleurs is in full swing and shows no signs of abating.

Mike Pearson is going to Moscow shortly. Arthur Irwin⁵ tells me that Sinclair (a Minister in the Canadian Government)⁶ is designedly passing through Communist China in the near future.

Many responsible newspapers in Australia are pressing for a more forthcoming and responsive attitude from us towards the Communist Governments. Personal representations are coming to me on the same lines from reasonable people. Evatt will, I am sure, give tongue before too long–probably when the House meets. I would believe that he is likely to make International Affairs a prominent gambit in the next election campaign. I fully expect that I will be faced with a formidable blast of the same sort of thing in New York.

As I have said to you and in Cabinet for some time, I believe that Peking's entry into [the]⁷ normal world relationship is only a matter of time and that our best interests are that she should, and that we at least should not be the last to agree. It is desirable for us to have a representative in Peking as soon as we can without harm to our interests.

It is well known–or at least intelligently speculated–that our principal reason for holding back is by reason of American opinion, which is doing us no good in Asia. This, of course, is not the only reason: in my own opinion, in fact, the need for some understanding on Formosa is the most important stumbling block.

I fully expect that there will be considerable punch behind this year's efforts to get Peking into the United Nations. It will be much harder to combat than in the past, and I am sure that it is not in our own best interests for Australia to take a leading part in combatting it. A good deal of water has gone under the bridge and our past arguments are getting rather threadbare. It is much more difficult to marshal respectably logical arguments against Peking now than a year or more ago, and any postponement of admission must be argued on the grounds of expediency rather than of principle.

Every possible reservation with regard to the position of Chiang Kai–shek would have to be made in respect of Peking's diplomatic recognition or entry into the United Nations–but, given this, I believe that we should begin to adopt, in our own interests, a more sympathetic attitude towards both Peking's recognition and its entry into the United Nations.

Next year–1956–is an American Presidential election year, in which American domestic politics will get even more inextricably mixed up with international political problems, and vice versa. The 1956 Assembly of the United Nations and the Presidential Elections Campaign will happen at the same time.

It has been argued that Communist China still maintains substantial forces in North Korea; that it has been condemned by the United Nations as an aggressor in Korea; that it is still the object of economic sanctions on the part of the United Nations; and that it may be going to undertake further aggression. All this is true, but it does not seem to me to be an objection of substance if we stick to the position that recognition does not imply approval. The real stumbling blocks in the way of our recognizing Communist China are the position of Formosa and the effect of recognition on our relations with the United States.

As far as the first of these is concerned, what we would have to avoid is an act of recognition of Peking on our part which would cut the ground completely from under the feet of the Chinese Nationalists. We want to be able to continue to argue that an attack upon Formosa by the communists is an act of aggression. We want to be able to work to a position where there are 'two Chinas'. Consequently, any act of recognition on our part should be of Peking as the Government of the mainland of China and we would then either recognize Chiang Kai–shek as the Government of a separate State, or else leave the status of Formosa indefinite, with Chiang Kai–shek as the de facto authority.

Our relations with the United States present a much more difficult problem. The Americans would greatly resent Australia's recognizing Communist China just now, even if our doing so were to ease the way for their own eventual recognition.

If we were to decide at some time to take the plunge and recognize Communist China, we would accordingly have to do something to meet the two preceding objections:

(a) We should inform the Americans beforehand;

(b) We should establish in advance with the Communist Chinese that they would accept our diplomatic recognition and agree to exchange representatives with us if we recognize them as the Government of the mainland of China only. At the same time, we could not ask them to acknowledge they were the Government of the mainland only.

In any case, I feel Australia should work closely with the Canadians in any future steps that we might contemplate. Our two countries together would have an impact upon both Communist China and the United States which neither of us has separately.

One essential feature of any action we should take should be not merely to accord recognition ourselves but to secure the acceptance of an Australian ambassador in Peking.

One further point: I do not think that we need await the admission of Communist China to the United Nations before we recognize Peking. There are two arguments against such delay:

(a) If Australia waits until the United Nations as a whole has agreed to admit Communist China, Peking itself may be contemptuous of any approaches we might make thereafter. Once China is admitted to the United Nations, it might not care very much whether it has diplomatic relations with Australia or not, and might refuse to accept an Australian ambassador.

(b) Morally, there are much greater arguments in favour of the diplomatic recognition of Communist China than of admitting her to the United Nations. Recognition does not imply approval. It could be argued that admission to the United Nations on the other hand implies some acceptance of the proposition that, at the time of admittance, Communist China adhered to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Although I wrote to Mike Pearson some little time ago,⁸ asking that we coordinate our action in this regard (whenever it might be), I can't be sure that they won't take individual initiative.

Mike Pearson wrote to me on June 15th:

'At the last NATO Council meeting, Dulles also talked about Far Eastern matters, and gave us an exhaustive review of American policy in that part of the world. Incidentally, he did not get much support at the NATO meeting for the United States policy re Red China. So far as my own views are concerned, they correspond closely with your own.

'This brings me to your recent letter of May 27th on the recognition of Communist China. I do not see how we can indefinitely delay taking action in this matter. It is becoming daily more anomalous to refuse to recognize a Government in theory, which we are recognizing in fact as indispensable to the solution of Asian problems. Nevertheless, I recognize, as you do, the practical difficulties in the way of taking any action at this time, and I agree that we should keep closely in touch on this matter so that if and when the time comes to change the present policy we can do so together.'

I have just had a letter from Irwin (Canadian High Commissioner) in which he speaks of a letter that he has just had from Mike Pearson, in which he says:–

'Mr. Pearson adds that, among other things, he would like to discuss with you recent developments concerning Communist China and the reactions of other countries, particularly that of the United States, to them'. He continues: 'If we are not careful we may find one day soon we will be tagging along behind others in regard to recognition of Red China who hitherto have been beseeching us not to take action.'

I would at least like to have discretion to discuss this matter in realist terms with Dulles and others in the United States. I know that many of them are not at all happy at being obliged to be dragged along in the wake of past and outmoded attitudes. I should also like to talk to Pearson, as he will be visiting Moscow early in October and will have a good opportunity to sound out the situation there.

[NAA: A1209, 1957/4832, i]

1 In a minute to Tange dated 11 July; Shann raised the concern that the Cabinet decision of 29 June (see footnote 10, Document 58) might be interpreted as prohibiting an exchange of views with the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada on Far Eastern issues. An annotation on this minute by Tange reads: 'I discussed situation with Minister. His view is that (a) Cabinet was referring primarily to any public moves by Australia; (b) the decision does not exclude initiatives by us to bring about a coordinated approach towards a general settlement with China (as distinct from recognition simpliciter); (c) since he would want to discuss with P.M. any important initiative by us, that will provide the opportunity of having this interpretation approved by the P.M.'

2 Document 58.

3 On 24 July, Menzies issued a statement on the four–power Conference which had begun in Geneva on 18 July. He commented that: 'Australia will not fail to notice that while the problem of Germany was much discussed–though not solved–the problems of the Far East, so vital in their nature to the position of Australia and New Zealand, were not discussed at all'.

4 Discussions between ambassadorial representatives of the People's Republic of China and the United States commenced in Geneva on 1 August and dealt, inter alia, with the repatriation of civilians who desired to return to their respective countries.

5 William Arthur Irwin, Canadian High Commissioner in Australia.

6 James Sinclair, Canadian Minister of Fisheries.

7 Editorial insert.

8 Not found.