350/6–751

Memorandum by the Special Assistant in the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs (Bacon) to the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs (Clubb)

Subject: Chinese Attitude on the Representation Question in the Trusteeship Council.

New York’s 1609, June 5 (Daily Unclassified Summary)1 reports that our motion to postpone further discussion of the Chinese representation question was carried in the Trusteeship Council 11–1 (USSR)–0 on June 5. Because it was a motion for postponement of discussion it was given precedence over the USSR motion to seat the Chinese Communists.

The UK spoke in support of the motion, explaining that the UK continued to recognize Communist China as the Government of China and had hoped that Communist China would recognize the obligations of UN members not to assist aggression and to settle disputes by peaceful means. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communists had launched offensive after offensive and the UN had shown “endless patience”. While still hoping that the regime would end the aggression, the UK believed that it would be appropriate to postpone the question of Chinese representation.

The Chinese Delegate (Liu) asked the President (Burns, UK) to rule the USSR motion out of order. The Trusteeship Council President apparently ignored the Chinese proposal and proceeded to put the US motion to a vote.

(Note: UNP reports informally that this mix-up was apparently due to an oversight on the part of our Delegation in New York in not advising the Chinese representative of our proposed tactics which had been worked out with the UK. UNP is sending instructions to our Delegations at other current conferences to make sure that the Chinese Delegation understands the new procedure.)

  1. Not printed.