This memorandum is being addressed to other Members of the Council of Foreign
Ministers.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Chinese Minister for Foreign
Affairs (Wang Shih-chieh)
Memorandum
Considering that the present Peace Conference will, in due course, be
succeeded by another Conference relating to other peace settlement in
Europe, the Chinese Government cannot refrain from inviting the
attention of the other Members of the Council of Foreign Ministers to
two important considerations in the matter of procedure for convoking
the next peace conference which, it is understood, will deal with a
peace settlement in regard to Germany.
1. The Agreement reached by the Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union,
the United Kingdom, and the United States at Moscow on December 24th,
1945, in regard to the preparation of draft peace treaties with Italy,
Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland attempted to define the procedure
of the preparation of draft peace treaties with the above mentioned
ex-enemy States, which had caused a divergence of opinion at the first
session of the Council of Foreign [Page 942] Ministers held in London in September 1945.1 The Governments of France and China, as
Members of the Council of Foreign Ministers, were requested to adhere to
the procedure provided in the aforesaid Moscow Agreement, and both
France and China notified the three other Members of the Council of
Foreign Ministers of their adherence to the Agreement. China was glad to
see that a unanimity of views on this matter of procedure was thus
obtained from all the Members of the Council.
As the Moscow Agreement did not provide for the procedure in regard to
the preparation of the peace treaty with Germany, a new agreement of the
Members of the Council will be required as to whether the same procedure
followed in the preparation of draft peace treaties with Italy, Rumania,
Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland is to be adopted for this purpose, or a
new procedure is to be adopted.
2. In regard to the procedure for the calling of the Paris Conference, it
has been the view of the Chinese Government that the provisions set down
in the Potsdam Declaration2 and reiterated in Part 1,
paragraph 2, of the Moscow Agreement were not closely followed. The
Potsdam Declaration provides that the Council may adapt its procedure to
the particular problem under consideration, that in some cases it may
hold its own preliminary discussions prior to the participation of other
interested States, and that in other cases it may convoke a formal
conference of the States chiefly interested in seeking a solution of the
particular problem. It is clear that the “Council,” as the term used in
this connection, refers to the full Council comprising the Foreign
Ministers of all the five Powers. While there were specific provisions
for the procedure regarding the preparation of draft peace treaties with
certain ex-enemy States, the convocation of formal conferences was to be
an act of the Council of Foreign Ministers as an integral body.
Paragraph 2 of Part I of the Moscow Agreement likewise states that when
the preparation of all draft peace treaties have been completed, the
Council of Foreign Ministers will convoke a conference for the purpose
of considering the draft treaties of peace with the ex-enemy States
enumerated therein. It is apparent that in the nature of things the
preparation of draft peace treaties should be clearly distinguished from
the convocation of a peace conference to consider these draft peace
treaties. In the former case, it is to be acknowledged that the States
which signed the armistices with the ex-enemy States had special
interest in the drafting of the peace [Page 943] treaties with such ex-enemy States, while in the
latter case all the Members of the Council of Foreign Ministers should
act jointly by virtue of their primary responsibility for the
maintenance of peace and security in general and for the preservation of
the peace settlements following the Second World War in particular.
At the time when the Paris Conference was called in the name of only four
Members of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Chinese Government had
to draw attention to the lapse in the application of the procedure as
set down in the Moscow Agreement. For reasons above stated the Chinese
Government insists that no such lapse of procedure will recur when
arrangements are made for the convocation of a peace conference to
consider a peace settlement with Germany.
