66. Editorial Note
The United Nations Security Council held its 689th meeting on January 31 with a provisional agenda which included Munro’s letter of January 28 (see footnote 6, Document 42) and a letter of January 30 from Soviet Representative Arkady A. Sobolev to the President of the Security Council, which requested a meeting of the Council to consider “acts of aggression” by the United States against the People’s Republic of China and enclosed a draft resolution condemning “these acts of aggression” and recommending the withdrawal of all United States forces from Taiwan “and other territories belonging to China.” (U.N. document S/3355) A Soviet proposal not to admit “the Kuomintang representative” to participate in the discussion was followed by a United States proposal “not to consider any proposals to exclude the representative of the Government of the Republic of China, or to seat representatives of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China;” the Council decided by a vote of 10 to 1 (the Soviet Union) to give priority to the United States proposal and then adopted it by a vote of 10 to 1 (the Soviet Union).
[Page 179]At the 690th meeting of the Council that afternoon, the New Zealand item was placed on the agenda by a vote of 9 to 1 (the Soviet Union) with 1 abstention (China), the Soviet item was placed on the agenda by a vote of 10 to 1 (China), a Soviet proposal to consider the Soviet item first was rejected by a vote of 10 to 1 (the Soviet Union), and a British proposal that consideration of the New Zealand item should be completed before the Soviet item was taken up was adopted by a vote of 10 to 1 (the Soviet Union). The Council then began consideration of the New Zealand item. A New Zealand proposal to invite a representative of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China “to participate in the discussion of this item” and to request the Secretary-General to convey the invitation was adopted by a vote of 9 to 1 (China) with 1 abstention (the Soviet Union). For records of the Security Council meetings, see U.N. documents S/PV. 689 and 690. Lodge remarks concerning the New Zealand and Soviet items and supporting the proposal to invite a representative of the People’s Republic of China are printed in Department of State Bulletin, February 14, 1955, pages 252–253.
A telegram of January 31 from Secretary-General Hammarskjöld to Premier Chou En-lai informed him of the Security Council’s inclusion of the New Zealand and Soviet items on its agenda and of the Council’s invitation to the Central People’s Government to send a representative “to be present in the Council during the discussion of the first item and to participate in the debate in order to present the views of your Government.” (U.N. document S/3358)