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

263. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning (Bowie) to the Secretary of State¹

Washington, June 19, 1957.

COMMENTS ON SAN FRANCISCO SPEECH²

1. The draft speech is a clear and eloquent brief of the present US position on Communist China. In my judgment, it suffers from the same basic defect as the policy itself. It assumes that the present policy can succeed without analyzing either its prospects or its costs.

I.

2. The premises of US policy, as described in the speech, are in essence:

a. Communist China is hostile to the US; has acted and probably will continue to act in ways which are contrary to acceptable standards of international behaviour and adverse to US interests.

b. Communist China is a solid partner of the Soviet Union and an active agent of international communism.

c. US moves toward accommodation to the Chinese Communist regime will not have a significant effect on the character of the regime or its relation to Russia and international communism.

d. Any move by the US which appears to be in the direction of accommodation to the Chinese Communists will: (1) increase the prestige of the Chinese Communists; (2) have unsettling effects in Taiwan; and (3) dispose the Asian friends of the US to move toward closer and possibly dangerous relationships with the Chinese Communists.

3. From these premises the speech draws the following policy conclusions:

a. The US should not recognize Communist China;

b. The US should exert its maximum efforts:

(1) to maintain the international status of Nationalist China as the only government of China; (2) to isolate the Chinese Communists economically and diplomatically, with special stress upon their continued exclusion from the UN or any of its agencies.

II.

4. The premises of US policy as described above are largely unassailable as far as they go. In some respects the speech seems to me to overstate the effects of a less rigid US policy and to ignore the extent of existing contacts by other nations with Communist China. Even so, this part of the analysis seems to me generally acceptable. But that is only half of the story. In choosing a policy, it is essential not only to assess its advantages but also its prospects and costs. Only then can one course be intelligently weighed against other courses. The speech describes eloquently the possible benefits from the present policy. It fails to consider at all its costs or its chances of success. That is why I feel that the analysis and policy are inadequate.

5. This omission does not seem to me to invalidate the first policy conclusion: that the US should not now recognize Communist China. Recognition is ours alone to give or withhold; it costs little or nothing to withhold it; we derive no clear benefits from bestowing it now. In my judgment, however, we tend to extend the idea further than is necessary or serves our own interest. For example, I think it would be in our interest to allow reporters to go to China and to include China in any disarmament agreement. Neither of these actions appears to me incompatible with continued non-recognition. Thus our own refusal to recognize can be maintained without incurring undue costs in other respects.

6. That is not the case as to the second policy conclusion. In effect, that commits us to engaging our prestige and expending our political resources in a continuing effort to deprive the Chinese Communists of economic and political relations with the rest of the world.

III.

7. This is where both the analysis and the policy seem to me to go astray. The reason is simple. I do not believe that over the long run, or even in the fairly near term, the effort to isolate Communist China as a pariah will succeed. We have already seen the British take the lead in doing away with the China differential. There can be little doubt that our other friends will in the near future follow that lead. And in the field of political relations we are, in the instances of the UN General Assembly and the specialized agencies, at the mercy of a majority over which we cannot expect to maintain control for very long. Other nations, including many which fear and dislike Communist China, do not agree with the US approach to the problem. They are increasingly likely to conclude that their interests will be better served by recognizing Red China and having it within the UN framework. Before long, a simple majority can defeat our efforts to isolate the Chinese Communists and can seat them in one of the specialized agencies or in the General Assembly.

8. Granted that any US adjustment of its posture toward the Chinese Communists will entail risks, we must weigh these risks against those we run if we continue adamant in our present position and are then defeated. The consequences in that case, I believe, would be formidable.

a. If in the face of a determined US effort to keep them out, the Chinese Communists gain a seat in one of the UN organs:

(1) Chinese Communist prestige will be greatly enhanced;

(2) Asian countries will hasten to accommodate themselves to a regime which has won an important political victory over the US. In these circumstances they will be relatively free of restraint from US influence in determining the bounds of their accommodation with the Communists;

(3) In this context, there is bound to be a falling off of support for the idea of an independent Taiwan and a greater tendency to accept Communist China as the only China:

(4) There will be severe repercussions on Taiwan enhanced by the US defeat. Some elements, at least, will tend toward rapprochement with the mainland.

b. In the meantime, the US effort to coerce other nations not to recognize Communist China and not to seat it in the UN organs will itself entail severe costs. US policy in the Far East will suffer from the distortions which invariably accompany misdirected effort.³

(1) In this effort, the US will expend diplomatic and other ammunition which might better be devoted to attempting to advance other interests. In twisting arms, granting favors, and making deals to isolate the Chinese Communists, we will use up influence and leverage which is needed for other purposes.

(2) This negative effort will tend to distract the US from useful and constructive activity in building free Asia. Our policy already suffers severely from this fault. The speech itself illustrates this failing. It focuses mainly on the negative task of isolating the Chinese Communists, and largely neglects the serious problems of developing strong counterweights to Communist China in Japan and India. As failure of the policy becomes more imminent, there will be an increasing tendency to devote undue resources and attention to shoring it up at the expense of more positive goals.

9. Thus in the final analysis the consequences of sticking to our present policy are likely to be disastrous in terms of our interests and our influence. The results of this course seem to me far more serious than those of available alternatives even if one accepts the premises on which our policy and the speech are based.

IV.

10. Hence we should seek gradually to recast our policy into a more durable mold. Our aims should be (a) to insure the continuance of an independent Taiwan with membership in the UN; (b) to enlist greater free world support for our basic position regarding Communist China; and (c) to minimize the damage to US influence and interests if and when Communist China is admitted to the UN.

11. In practice, this means that we should move toward a “Two-China” policy. Such a policy would involve recognition that neither “China” would absorb the other; it would call for eventual recognition of both countries by most states (but not necessarily by US); it would call for resolving various issues in relation to UN seating which might consume a lengthy period of time.

12. Adoption of such a policy by the US would undoubtedly trouble our Formosan friends. But it would:

a. Provide a basis for maneuver on the question of seating Communist China in the UN so as to complicate and delay such seating considerably;

b. Shift to Communist China the onus for intransigence;

c. Enhance US influence in setting limits to the degree of accommodation of free Asian nations to Communist China;

d. Give permanence to the US protective guardianship of Formosa; and

e. Avoid the dangerous consequences of the defeat of present US policy.

13. The fact that neither “China” will today accept such a concept is an advantage, not a handicap. For we now need most of all to disengage our prestige, cushion the unsettling effects of any adjustment of our posture, and establish a position that we can live with. This will take time. The unwillingness of either “China” to accept the other as a permanent entity will help us to buy time.

14. I do not suggest that your speech should explicitly espouse a Two-China solution. As a first step, it would be sufficient to begin restating our position on Chinese Communist entry into the UN in ways which do not nail our flag to the mast. Our opposition might be stated in a more conditional form. Indeed, we need not specify all the conditions at this time. Three prerequisites are obvious; (a) the release of the US prisoners; (b) continued independence and UN membership for Taiwan; (c) renunciation of use of force by Chinese Communists to recover Taiwan. The crucial thing is to avoid digging ourselves further into a position which will ultimately cost us dearly in influence and in the protection of our interests in the Far East.⁴

1. Source: Department of State, PPS Files: Lot 67 D 548, China. Confidential. Sent to the Secretary under a covering memorandum from Bowie, June 19, in which Bowie explained: “In view of the nature of my comments, it did not seem worth while to try to suggest textual changes in the speech itself”. The copy of the memorandum printed here is the copy which was sent by Bowie to Under Secretary Herter, and is found under a covering memorandum from Bowie to Herter, June 20; ibid.
2. Bowie was commenting on a draft of the speech on China policy which Dulles delivered in San Francisco on June 28. For text, see Document 268. This critique by Bowie of the San Francisco speech is apparently the “departing” memorandum cited by Townsend Hoopes in The Devil and John Foster Dulles (Boston: Little Brown, 1973), p. 419. Gerard C. Smith replaced Bowie as Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning on September 6, 1957.
3. Thus the unreal goal of wiping out Israel constantly distorts Arab policies and actions. [Footnote in the source text.]

4. Attached to the source text, as sent to the Under Secretary, is another memorandum from Bowie to the Secretary, also dated June 19. This memorandum is a brief addendum to the source text which grew out of Bowie’s discussion of his initial memorandum with the Secretary. The text of this “Addendum on San Francisco Speech” reads as follows:

   “I should like to clarify one point which arose in our discussion of my memorandum on your draft speech. You asked whether my comments merely came down to the view that we should stop fighting for what was right because we were sure to lose.

   “As I told you, this is not my point. My basic premise is that we are engaged in a contest with Communist China which is likely to go on for a long time. In that contest, we must husband our capabilities and use them effectively if we are to succeed. In so far as we dissipate our means or devote them to impractical goals, we weaken our chances for longer-term success.

   “My criticism of our present policy is directed at this very point. Our present policy seems to me inadequate because it will fail to achieve its goals and in the process will impair our ability to protect our interests thereafter. It seems to me that it will use up our means, impair our influence, and ultimately weaken the forces opposed to Communist China. Thus I believe it will not serve the main purposes we should have in the Far East.

   “The situation is similar to that which often faces a general. His strategy may well require withdrawals in one sector in order to promote ultimate success in the campaign. So it is here as I see it. To engage our full prestige and influence along the present lines seems to me a grave mistake if we consider the consequences for the long-term campaign.”