Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, East Asia and the Pacific, Volume XII, Part 1

S/P–NSC files, lot 62 D 1

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson) to the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Bowie)¹

top secret

[Washington,] November 17, 1954.

Subject:

• FE Comments on Attached NSC Draft—”U–S. Policy Towards the Far East”

FE recommends that the following revisions be made in the text of the NSC draft paper dated November 12² on “U.S. Policy Towards the Far East”. An explanation of these recommendations is included as Tab A.

• Paragraph 2 —Eliminate all but the first sentence and add the following language after the first sentence: “While there is now no reason to anticipate an early collapse of the regime nor any means of seeing when one might occur, inherently such regimes have elements of rigidity and instability which might produce crises or break down unexpectedly. We should be ready to exploit any opportunities which might occur as a result of inherent internal weaknesses.”
• Paragraph 5b—Add the words “except by joint agreement” to the end of the first sentence.
• Paragraph 5d—In the first sentence insert the words “or imminent threat of such attack” between the words “attack” and “against”.
• Paragraph 6b—Insert the words “as the only Government of China” between the words “China” and “and”.
• Paragraph 7—Insert the words “weaken, or” between the words “to” and “retard”, and a comma after the word “of in the first line.
• Paragraph 7a—Eliminate the last part of the sentence, beginning with “but”, and substitute the following language: “and deal with it only on a local basis and only in regard to strictly limited subjects where the regime is a necessary party at interest”.
• Paragraph 7c—Eliminate the entire paragraph and substitute the following: “Maintain the embargo on U.S. trade with Communist China and continue to exert our influence on other free world countries for the maintenance of the current level of trade restrictions against Communist China, without, however, exerting our influence in such a manner as would be seriously divisive.”
• Paragraph 7d—Eliminate the whole paragraph and substitute the following: “Create discontent and internal divisions within each of the Communist dominated areas of the Far East, impair relations of the Asian Communist regimes with the Soviet Union and with each other, and impede actions taken by these regimes to increase their war-making capacity by all feasible overt and covert means consistent with the basic policy ‘not to be provocative of war’.”

[Tab A]

Explanation of Recommended Changes

• Paragraph 2—For the past, two or three years at least there has been no expectation that an early collapse of the Chinese Communist regime would occur. The policy of applying external pressures to Communist China was not based on an expectation that these pressures would bring about such a result, although it was recognized that they might encourage resistance within Communist China to consolidation of the Peiping regime’s power. Such pressures have been designed, however, to weaken, or at least retard the growth of, the power of a regime which has from the beginning been intensely hostile to the United States and which continues to threaten our security interests. FE believes that we should continue to pursue a policy of external pressures against Communist China for this purpose.
• Paragraph 5b—It should be recognized that under some circumstances offensive actions by the Chinese Nationalists would be in the interests of the United States. Thus the door should not be closed to all offensive action by the Nationalists. We should, however, protect ourselves against offensive actions which would be detrimental to U.S. interests.
• Paragraph 5d—Circumstances may arise under which a Presidential request for Congressional authority prior to an actual armed attack would be advantageous. It might act as a deterrent to aggression, or if not, would at least enable U.S. forces to move more rapidly when the attack occurred.
• Paragraph 6b—FE feels that it is an important part of our present policy that we recognize the Government of the Republic of China as the only Government of China, that this policy should be continued, and that this should be stated specifically in the paper.
• Paragraph 7—While the policies set forth under this paragraph can be justified solely on the grounds that they will tend to retard the growth of the power and influence of the Asian Communist regimes, it should be made clear that it would also serve the U.S. interest to weaken these regimes in absolute terms by whatever courses of action can be devised under these policies. Opportunities for weakening them may arise in the future which do not exist now.
• Paragraph 7a—FE feels that the second half of the sentence in paragraph 7a (beginning with “but”) is too broad and could easily be misinterpreted to authorize a wide range of dealings with the Chinese Communist regime even though formal recognition is not extended. Actual practice has been to deal with Peiping on a very limited basis where such contact was unavoidable in order to obtain specific U.S. objectives. Examples have been the Armistice negotiations in Korea and subsequent discussions on the Korean Political Conference at Panmunjom,³ the Geneva Conference, and direct negotiations on Americans detained in Communist China.⁴

• Paragraph 7c—This paragraph fails to recognize that the U.S. controls not merely strategic items but embargoes all trade and financial transactions with Communist China. On the basis of this paragraph U.S. goods which were not classified as strategic could be traded with Communist China and U.S. and foreign nationals would be able to engage in financial transactions in connection with such trade. Such a policy would make it considerably easier for the Chinese Communists to dispose of exports which are surplus to the requirements of the Soviet bloc. Without the U.S. market Communist China has been experiencing difficulty in disposing of surplus exports. On the financial side it would relieve the pressure on Communist China’s meager foreign exchange reserves. FE opposes such relaxation on U.S. trade and financial controls and believes that total U.S. embargo of trade and financial dealings with Communist China should be maintained.

  As to the second part of paragraph 7c. While it is recognized that there are limits beyond which it would be counterproductive to go in exerting influence on our allies to maintain the current level of their trade restrictions, FE believes that the United States should maintain its prior position that the overall interests of the free world are best served by the maintenance of current multilateral control of trade with Communist China. Any acquiescence in a relaxation of China controls for the purposes stated in Section 7c (2) would tend to become a full retreat to the relatively low level of controls now applied multilaterally against the Soviet bloc. There are no persuasive technical or political criteria which could clearly justify a level of strategic controls intermediate between present multilateral China controls and controls against the Soviet bloc. Since the goods Communist China most desires from the free world are those on the present multilateral China control lists, there could be no significant increase in free world-China trade without a very substantial reduction in the China strategic list. While it is true that many China list items can be transshipped from the European Soviet bloc to Communist China, such transshipment is generally costly and inefficient. It imposes an added burden on the Communist bloc which we should do nothing to lighten.

• Paragraph 7d—The suggested substitution protects our basic position but leaves us free to deal with changing situations.

1. Drafted by Edwin W. Martin, Deputy Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs.
2. Ante, p. 961.
3. For documentation, see volume xv.
4. For documentation, see volume xiv.