262. Letter From President Carter to Chinese Premier Hua1
Vice President Mondale’s visit provides us with a welcome and valuable opportunity to assess the current state of relations between the United States and China, and to discuss how we can best build on the progress we have already made together.
Any nation which seeks to weaken or isolate you in world affairs assumes a stance counter to American interests. That is why the United States normalized relations with your country, and that is why we must work together to broaden and strengthen our new friendship.
The visit of Vice Premier Deng to the United States in January and the numerous high-level missions we have exchanged in recent months have done much to advance our bilateral cooperation in such important fields as culture, trade, science and technology. But much remains to be done, and I hope the visit of Vice President Mondale will advance our cooperation to a new stage.
The Vice President is my most trusted associate and shares my fullest confidence. I have asked him to explore with you and your colleagues new areas where we might expand our cooperation, and I have asked him to review major global developments with you including those in Indochina, in Asia and the Pacific, in Europe and the USSR, and to invite your assessment of them. I hope that you will speak to the Vice President as you would to me, and I look forward with keen interest to his report of your conversations.
Earlier this year, during my conversations with Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, I was most pleased that he accepted, on your behalf, my invitation for you to pay a State visit to the United States at a mutually convenient time. I welcome this opportunity personally to reiterate my invitation to you. I would hope that you will be able to visit the United States early in 1980, and I, in turn, would hope to visit the People’s Republic of China later that year.
[Page 923]I look forward to welcoming you to the United States, Mr. Premier.
Sincerely,
- Source: Carter Library, Mondale Donated Material, Overseas Assignments, Trip Files, 1977–1980, Box 31, Vice President’s Visit to the PRC, 8/25/79–9/3/79 (Beijing, PRC, 8/25–29/79), President Carter Letter to Premier Hua. No classification marking. Sent to Mondale’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Denis Clift, under an August 20 covering memorandum from Oksenberg, which stated, “Attached is the only copy of the President’s letter to Hua Guofeng which the Vice President should deliver to the Premier on Tuesday, August 28.” (Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Far East, Oksenberg Subject File, Box 48, Mondale 8/79 China Trip: 8/20/79)↩