493.009/2–1561
Memorandum by Ward P.
Allen of the Bureau of European Affairs to the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Bonbright)
secret
[Washington,] February 15, 1951.
Subject: US Position on Economic Sanctions against
China
Attached is the recommended US position on this subject as it has been
developed by a working group with BNA
and EUR participation, modified slightly
to counter Treasury and Commerce insistence on having the US propose
what would amount to a total embargo. The Treasury Department also
desires to have the whole matter thoroughly explored by the NSC. Informal efforts are being made to
obtain Treasury and Commerce acquiescence to the more limited approach
of the attached, and to avoid the necessity of NSC consideration. It may, however, be necessary to have
high level talks with at least Treasury representatives, since their
general approach seems to be, by urging virtually complete embargo,
either to put the State Department on the spot for refusing to have the
US propose this in the UN or to have the US propose it and place the
onus of rejecting it on the UK and our other Allies.
We have agreed to these recommendations ad
referendum with the understanding (agreed to by the others)
that we will not press, even privately with the UK, for any more than
the minimum stated in Recommendation #1.1
I would appreciate any comments or guidance on this.
[Attachment]
Draft Position Paper Prepared in the Department of
State
secret
[Washington,] February 12,
1951.
Adoption by United Nations General Assembly of
a Resolution Calling for Economic Sanctions Against Communist
China2
problem
On February 1, 1951 the General Assembly adopted a resolution with
respect to the intervention of the Central People’s Government of
[Page 1915] the People’s
Republic of China in Korea. Numbered paragraph 6 reads as
follows:
Requests a Committee composed of the members of the Collective
Measures Committee as a matter of urgency to consider additional
measures to be employed to meet this aggression and to report
thereon to the General Assembly …
It is necessary to determine the position which the United States
Representative on this committee should take with respect to
“additional measures” in the economic field.
recommendations
- 1.
- The United States Representative on the special committee
should propose and support the adoption of a resolution calling
for the immediate imposition by all United Nations members of an
embargo on certain shipments to China. The United States should
regard as the irreducible minimum an embargo on petroleum,
munitions and items useful in the production of implements of
war.
- 2.
- The United States Representative should initiate and support
inclusion in the resolution of provisions recommending that:
- (a)
- each Member of the United Nations shall determine what
commodities qualify for inclusion in the embargo under
the general formula and shall apply its own export
controls to such commodities; and
- (b)
- each Member of the United Nations shall undertake not
to negate the effectiveness of the embargo applied by
other complying States.
- 3.
- With respect to machinery for reviewing the application and
enforcement of the embargo, the United States Representative
should propose the establishment of a committee to which all
Members applying the embargo would report periodically on the
commodities whose export is embargoed by such countries and the
types of controls being applied. This committee would review
such reports and report thereon, with appropriate
recommendations, to the General Assembly. The United States
Representative, in discussing this proposal with other
Delegations, should in his discretion suggest that it might be
appropriate to confer these reviewing and reporting functions
upon the special committee established pursuant to the February
1 resolution, quoted above.
