740.00119 Council/3–1447: Telegram

The Chinese Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Foo) to the Secretary of State 7

Your Excellency: Under the instruction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I have the honour to communicate to Your Excellency the following statement made by the Foreign Minister, Dr. Wang Shihchieh in Nanking on March 11, 1947.

“The Chinese Government has not been officially notified of the reported proposal of Mr. Molotov to include problems relating to China in the agenda of the Moscow Conference of four Foreign Ministers. But on this matter the Chinese Government has previously made it clear in Notes to the four Foreign Ministers that the agenda of the [Page 611] Moscow Conference should be strictly confined to problems of Peace Settlements for Austria and Germany.

It cannot be over stressed that the internal problems of any state represented in the Council of Foreign Ministers do not lie within the Council nor can such problems be allowed to form the subject of Agreement among the other Members of the Council and that any extension of the agenda must be a matter for prior consultation and agreement among the five Foreign Ministers.

China’s stand in this respect has received the support of Great Britain, France, and the United States of America, and in the reply from the Soviet Government no objection was raised.

The Chinese Government will not in any manner agree to the inclusion of such problems in the agenda of the Conference.

I avail myself [etc.]

Foo Ping-shettng
  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the American delegation at the Council of Foreign Ministers in Moscow in despatch No. 93, March 14; received March 18. The Ambassador in China (Stuart) received the text on March 11 which he submitted to the Department in his telegram No. 522 of the same date.