Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, China, Volume II

51. Memorandum From the British Embassy at Washington to the Department of State¹

Washington, January 28, 1955.

FORMOSAN STRAITS

Substance of a Message Dated January 28 from Mr. Trevelyan in Peking

I had a most difficult interview with Chou En-lai who was tense and absolutely uncompromising.

The following were among the points which he made:

(A) The President’s message to Congress had made the United States aim clear. It was a war message.

(B) The United States wanted to get United Nations cover for aggression against China.

(C) He could not comment officially until he had seen the New Zealand proposal, but the Chinese Government would not agree to take part in the United Nations discussion before knowing what was to be its basis. If the United Nations were to discuss American aggression the Chinese Government would welcome it. But the United Nations had no right under the Charter to discuss Chinese recovery of off-shore islands which would be interference in a matter of China’s internal sovereignty.

(D) They would not separate the question of off-shore islands from that of Formosa.

(E) They would not do a deal over the off-shore islands. They would “liberate” them.

(F) The Chinese Government were not afraid of war threats and would resist if war was thrust on them.

The conversation lasted two and a half hours.²

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 793.00/1–2855. Secret. A copy was sent to the President with a covering memorandum of January 28 from Secretary Dulles, which bears the handwritten notation, “President has seen. 28 Jan. 55. G[oodpaster].” (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Dulles–Herter Series) Copies were sent to Wilson, Radford, and Allen Dulles; Radford transmitted the text to Stump, Pride, and Hull. (Memoranda from Walter K. Scott, Director of the Executive Secretariat, to Wilson, Radford, and Allen Dulles, Jan. 28, 1955; Department of State, Central Files, 793.5/1–2855; telegram 975068 from JCS to CINCPAC, COMSEVENTHFLT, and CINCFE, January 29, 1955; Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Miscellaneous Series, Formosa Area)
2. A more detailed report of the conversation was contained in a message headed “Mr. Trevelyan’s Conversation with Chou En-lai on January 28, 1955”, received from the British Embassy on January 29, along with a message headed “Sir William Hayter’s Conversation with Mr. Molotov on January 28, 1955.” The latter described a conversation between the British Ambassador in Moscow and the Soviet Foreign Minister (see telegram 1191, infra); both are filed with a covering memorandum from William H. Gleysteen of the Executive Secretariat to Murphy and other principal officers of the Department. (Department of State, Central Files, 793.00/1–2955) The texts of both messages were sent to the White House with a covering memorandum of January 29 from Gleysteen to Goodpaster for transmission to the President in Augusta, Georgia. (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Miscellaneous Series, Formosa Area) Hagerty’s diary entry for January 30 states that he gave the two messages to the President that morning and that the President “read them through very carefully and then said that as far as he was concerned, he had no intention of taking U.S. forces out of the area and letting the Chinese Reds have a free hand to walk in anytime they wanted to.” (ibid., Hagerty Papers) For Trevelyan’s description of the conversation, see Humphrey Trevelyan, Living With the Communists; China, 1953–5; Soviet Union, 1962–5 (Boston: Gambit, Incorporated, 1972), pp. 142–144.