58. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter1
SUBJECT
- Scheduling a Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua on October 4
State and NSC will submit a coordinated plan for your approval for your UN visit. However, scheduling problems require your early assent to a meeting with the Chinese. Last Friday, we learned that PRC Foreign Minister Huang Hua, who will attend the UNGA, had been invited to Ottawa from October 4 to 7. To inform the Chinese that a visit on those dates would preclude meeting you, State called the PRC Liaison Office to say that you were planning to be in New York on October 4 and 5 and might be available for a meeting. On Monday the Chinese replied that Minister Huang is available for a meeting.
Cy Vance and I favor a 20-minute meeting with Huang during which you would express your commitment to normalization and describe your general approach to foreign policy. Vance will meet Huang on September 29 for a more extensive and detailed discussion.
You have not met with a Chinese official since February.2 Your reception of Huang would balance Hua Kuo-feng’s conversation with [Page 231] Cy—a meeting Cy did not request.3 Further, since normalization probably now must await ratification of the Canal Treaty, your meeting with Huang would suggest the relationship continues to be on track. A failure to see Huang would indicate slippage, while a carefully prepared statement by you after the meeting could strike just the right public note.
Recommendation
That you permit me to inform State to schedule the October 4 meeting.4
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 8, China (People’s Republic of): 7–9/77. Secret. Sent for action.↩
- See Document 5.↩
- See Document 52.↩
- Carter checked the Approve option and wrote, “OK. J.”↩