35. Editorial Note
A statement issued by Premier Chou En-lai on January 24 charged that the United States had “stepped up its military operations to make war provocations” and had been “engineering a conspiracy for a so-called cease-fire through the United Nations, to intervene in the Chinese people’s liberation of Taiwan.” Declaring that Taiwan was “an inalienable part of China’s territory” and that neither the United Nations nor any foreign country had the right to intervene in “the Chinese people’s liberation of Taiwan”, he asserted that the cause of tension in the Taiwan area was that the United States had “occupied Taiwan, shielded the traitorous Chiang Kai-shek clique and incessantly directed subversive activities and war threats against the People’s Republic of China.” In conclusion, he declared that to safeguard China’s security and peace in the Far East, “the Chinese people must liberate Taiwan, and the United States must stop intervening in China’s internal affairs and withdraw all its armed forces from Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits.” For this statement, see People’s China, February 16, 1955, Supplement, or Documents on International Affairs, 1955 (issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London: Oxford University Press, 1958), pages 445–446.