324. Editorial Note
On July 30, Premier Chou En-lai made a speech before the National People’s Congress concerning the international situation and Chinese foreign policy. The text of his speech reads in part as follows:
“After the Korean armistice and the restoration of peace in Indo-China, the situation in the Taiwan area has become the most tense in the Far East. It must be pointed out that this tension has been caused by the United States’ occupation of China’s territory Taiwan and its interference with the liberation of China’s coastal islands. This is an international issue between China and the United States. The exercise by the Chinese people of their sovereign rights in liberating Taiwan is a matter of China’s internal affairs. These two questions cannot be mixed up. During the Asian-African Conference, the Chinese Government already proposed that China and the United States should sit down and enter into negotiations to discuss the question of easing and eliminating the tension in the Taiwan area. There is no war between China and the United States; the peoples of China and the United States are friendly towards each other; the Chinese people want no war with the United States, so the question of cease-fire between China and the United States does not arise. After the Asian-African Conference, the Chinese Government has further stated that there are two possible ways for the Chinese people to liberate Taiwan, namely, by war or by peaceful means. Conditions permitting, the Chinese people are ready to seek the liberation of Taiwan by peaceful means. In the course of the liberation by the Chinese people of the mainland and the coastal islands, there was no lack of precedents for peaceful liberation. Provided that the United States does not interfere with China’s internal affairs, the possibility of peaceful liberation of Taiwan will continue to increase. If possible, the Chinese Government is willing to enter into negotiations with the responsible local authorities of Taiwan to map out concrete steps for Taiwan’s peaceful liberation. It should be made clear that these would be negotiations between the central government and local authorities. The Chinese people are firmly opposed to any ideas or plots of the so-called ‘two Chinas.’”
Concerning the pending ambassadorial talks, Premier Chou stated that, if both sides sincerely desired negotiation and conciliation, “It should be possible in the forthcoming talks at the ambassadorial level to reach, first of all, a reasonable settlement of the question of the return of civilians to their respective countries. The number of American civilians in China is small, and their question can be easily settled. … We are of the opinion that since there are no diplomatic relations between China and the United States at the present time, each of them can entrust to a third country the task of looking after the affairs of its civilians in the other country, and primarily the return of these civilians to their own country.”
[Page 689]Noting that the ambassadorial talks were also to “facilitate further discussions and settlement of certain other practical matters now at issue between both sides”, and referring to President Eisenhower’s words quoted by Secretary Dulles at his July 26 press conference (see Document 319), he declared that if those words signified that the United States was prepared to cooperate with China, “the Sino-American talks at the ambassadorial level should be able to make preparations for negotiations between China and the United States for relaxing and eliminating the tension in the Taiwan area.”
The complete text of the speech is in People’s China, August 16, 1955, pages 3–8.