851G.00/12–2146: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 21—8:30 a.m.]
6210. The Chinese Ambassador came to see me this morning to say that his Government is worried about present trend of events in Indochina and would like to suggest that the consular representatives at Hanoi of the United States, Great Britain and China offer their good offices in an attempt to find some sort of solution or solutions for the present lamentable “crisis”. He said that his colleague at Washington was approaching the State Department on this matter and he asked me to let him know as soon as I received anything pertinent from Washington.84
I received the impression the Chinese would not be averse to fishing in the Indochina pond.85
- The Chinese Embassy in London made similar inquiries at the British Foreign Office on December 20 and 23, as reported in telegrams 10216 and 10245, December 21 and December 24, 1946, from London (851G.00/12–2146, 12–2446).↩
- Telegram 6259, December 26, 1946, 1 p.m., from Paris reported the announcement in the Paris press of December 23 and 24 of the formation at Nanking of a refugee Vietnamese government, headed by the former Foreign Minister, Nguyen Tuong Tarn. It reported further that Philippe Baudet of the French Foreign Office had remarked on December 23 that the formation of this government was an attempt to supplant Ho Chi Minh through Chinese intervention (851G.00/12–2646).↩