209. Editorial Note
On September 21 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Peking issued a statement containing the text and justification for the draft agreed announcement on the question of the trade embargo which had been put forward in the Geneva talks on August 21. Text of the Chinese statement was transmitted to the Department in telegram 293 from Geneva, September 22; Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/9–2156. For text of the Chinese draft agreed announcement, see footnote 3, Document 203.
The United States responded with a press release issued by the Department of State on September 24:
“For more than thirteen months the United States has been carrying on discussions with the Chinese Communists at Geneva directed toward bringing about the release of our imprisoned citizens and obtaining a commitment from the Chinese Communists for a meaningful renunciation of force to include the Taiwan area. Neither of [Page 431] these objectives has yet been achieved. On September 21 the Chinese Communists issued a statement announcing that they had proposed in the Geneva meetings that discussions be shifted to the question of relaxation of trade restrictions, but that the United States had ‘in effect refused.’
“The United States is not prepared to enter into a discussion of trade restrictions with the Chinese Communists at a time when they continue to refuse to renounce the use of force in the Taiwan area and continue to hold imprisoned American citizens as political hostages, despite their pledge in the Agreed Announcement of September 10, 1955, to permit them expeditiously to exercise their right to return. We have so informed the Chinese Communists at Geneva.
“It is hardly reasonable to expect the United States to discuss a relaxation of its trade restrictions when the trade that would result from such a relaxation would strengthen a regime which refuses to renounce the use of force against us.” (Department of State Bulletin, October 8, 1956, page 553)