893.01/10–2449
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs (Freeman)
Mr. Collins46 telephoned this afternoon to inform me of the nature of the Canadian Government’s reply which the Department of External Affairs had instructed be made in Peiping, presumably by the British consul at that city.
The instructions sent to Peiping on October 22 provided for an oral acknowledgment of receipt of the Communist note to be made to “a responsible officer of the Foreign Affairs Bureau” of the Chinese Communist regime. It was specifically requested that the consul avoid in so far as possible the implication that the official status of the Communist regime was being recognized by the Canadian Government. Mr. Collins further stated that the consul was to inform the responsible official that the note was being studied by the Canadian Government and that, in the meantime, it was hoped that Canadian consular officers in China might be permitted to carry out their normal functions in accordance with accepted international law.
[Page 143]Mr. Collins added that this stand on the part of the Canadian Government appeared to fall somewhere between that which had been adopted by the British Government and that of the U.S. Government.
- Ralph E. Collins, Second Secretary of the Canadian Embassy.↩