網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

MORE ON MAO IN MOSCOW, Dec. 1949-Feb. 1950

Editor's Note: The previous issue of the Cold War International History Project Bulletin (no. 6-7, Winter 1995/96, pp. 4-9) contained translations of the Russian transcripts of two conversations (16 December 1949 and 22 January 1950) between Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong during the latter's visit to Moscow in December 1949-February 1950. Mao's trip to the USSR, shortly after the victory of the Chinese Communist Revolution and the establishment in October 1949 of the People's Republic of China, marked the only personal encounter between these two giants of 20th-century history, and led to the signing on 14 February 1950 of a Sino-Soviet treaty formally establishing an alliance between the two communist powers—a landmark in the history of the Cold War.

To provide further examples of the newly-available East-bloc evidence on this crucial event, the Bulletin presents below a selection of translated additional materials from Russian and Chinese sources. They include three records of conversations between Mao and senior Soviet officials, on 1, 6, and 17 January 1950, located in the archives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, formally known as the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVPRF), and provided to the Bulletin by Odd Arne Westad, Director of Research, Norwegian Nobel Institute (Oslo), author of Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1993); Westad's commentary precedes the documents.

In addition to immediate considerations relating to Mao's activities in Moscow, the conversations cover a range of subjects concerning Sino-Soviet ties-political, diplomatic, economic, and military. Especially notable for Cold War historians concentrating on international relations are the exchanges on joint strategy in the United Nations to unseat the Guomindang (Kuomintang) representative (foreshadowing a Soviet boycott that would enable the Security Council to approve U.N. participation in the Korean War) and a discussion of U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson's National Press Club speech of 12 January 1950—particularly his efforts to foment discord between the USSR and China. These conversations, of course, should be read in the context of the two previously mentioned Stalin-Mao conversations, which bracket them (other talks are believed to have taken place, but no additional transcripts have emerged).

In contrast to the Russian documents, which were found by outside scholars working in the archives, the Chinese materials were published since the late 1980s in “neibu” or “internal" editions which have gradually made their way outside China, where they have been extensively used by scholars. Most of these collections were assembled by teams working for or with authorities of the Chinese state or the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with outside scholars receiving little or no access to high-level archives for the post-1949 period, and thus unable to inspect the originals (let alone the surrounding documentation) of the materials contained in these publications. Nonetheless, albeit with due caution, scholars' use of such publications over the past decade has transformed the study of CCP and PRC foreign policy (at least through the 1950s), as well as the actions and motivations of senior figures such as Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai).

To make these Chinese-language materials accessible to an English-reading audience, two U.S.-based Chinese scholars have undertaken to translate, edit, and annotate a multi-volume collection of materials on PRC/ CCP foreign policy since World War II, culled from PRC sources. The two are Prof. Shuguang Zhang (University of Maryland/ College Park), author of Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American Confrontations, 1949-1958 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), and Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1995); and Prof. Chen Jian (Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; during 1996-1997 visiting fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington, DC), author of China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (NY: Columbia University Press, 1994). The first volume was published in November 1996 by Imprint Publications (Chicago): Shuguang Zhang and Jian Chen, eds., Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia: New Documentary Evidence, 1944-1950.2

The translations of Chinese materials below, mostly communications from Mao in Moscow back to other members of the PRC leadership left behind in Beijing, are among more than 200 translated texts included in that volume, the vast majority of which are either reports of the CC CCP or of Mao himself. Introduced by Prof. Warren I. Cohen (University of Maryland/Baltimore), the volume also includes extensive annotations, a glossary, and a chronology; subsequent planned volumes include two volumes covering the 1950s. All the footnotes for the Chinese documents, as well as the translations themselves, are taken from Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia: New Documentary Evidence, 1944-1950. All but one of the Chinese documents originally appeared in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao Zedong's manuscripts since the founding of the People's Republic], vol. 1 (Beijing: Central Press of Historical Documents, 1987), the first in a series of compendia of collected Mao documents that has now appeared in more than ten volumes reaching into the early 1960s. Although they have made extensive efforts to ascertain the authenticity of the documents by consulting with officials and scholars who have had access to the archives, both editors stress the need for caution and critical analysis of these source materials and the importance of encouraging the fastest and fullest possible opening of PRC and CCP archives as a far preferable and more accurate method of exploring China's recent past.3—James G. Hershberg.

For an analysis of the opportunities and pitfalls of this source, see Chen Jian, “CCP Leaders' Selected Works and the Historiography of the Chinese Communist Revolution," CWIHP Bulletin 6-7 (Winter 1995/1996), 131, 144-146.

2 Cloth: ISBN 1-879176-20-3 ($55.00): Imprint Publications, Inc., 520 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 840, Chicago, IL 60611; tel.: (312) 595-0668; fax: (312) 595-0666; e-mail: IMPPUB@AOL.COM

3 Comments made at seminar at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., 4 December 1996.

Fighting for Friendship:

Mao, Stalin, and the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950

Kremlinologists of yore used to liken analyzing political conflict in the Politburo to watching a dog-fight taking place under a rug. One could hear sounds of fighting, groans from those badly bitten, and see the rug moving as positions changed. But it was not until the rug was removed that it was possible to determine who had come out on top and what damage had been done to those who lost.

Until very recently, analyzing the events of the Sino-Soviet summit meeting in Moscow in late 1949-early 1950 has been a bit like watching the 1 Kremlinologists' dogs. We have not known much, except to register a general sense of unease on both sides when they alluded to these meetings over the subsequent decades. Until 1995-when the Cold War International History Project obtained and published records of two conversations between Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong during the summit2 no transcripts from the many conversations held during the summit were publicly available. The only documents which Western scholars could use were the published treaties, which on most issues were as uninformative as all other Soviet friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance agreements.3

This constituted a strangely limited harvest for what undoubtedly was among the most important political summit meetings of the 20th century. Not only were these the first and only face-to-face meetings between the two great Communist dictators. They provided the fundamental shape for the Sino-Soviet alliance, a compact which formed the political direction of both states and which Western leaders for many years during the most intense phase of the Cold War regarded as a deadly threat to the capitalist world system. The meetings also formed impressions and images among leaders on both sides, shades of which have been visible at all important junctures in Sino

by Odd Arne Westad

Soviet relations since the Moscow summit.

Part of the reason why so little has been regarded as "known" about these meetings is the mythology which grew up around the physical encounter between the Stalin and Mao figures. Especially for Mao, these meetings were an integral part of the story of his rise to power, and, no less importantly, the growth of his unique knowledge and understanding. Mao loved to talk about his "humiliation" at Stalin's hands in Moscow, and about how the Korean War had proven him (Mao) correct, and how the Soviet leader, once again, had come to realize his mistakes toward the end of his life. Until 1956, Mao told this story repeatedly to members of his inner circle, and after 1956-when open criticism of Stalin became acceptable following Khrushchev's secret speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union-the Chinese leader told it to visitors of all sorts who came to call on him at Zhongnanhai, the compound for the Chinese leadership in Beijing. For Mao and for all members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Chairman's encounter with Stalin became a central part of revolutionary discourse.4

What do we then "know" almost fifty years after the event, as the cover is slowly sliding away?

The Moscow summit had a long and unhappy pre-history. Mao had requested a meeting with Stalin on at least three occasions since early 1947, but the Kremlin boss-the vozhd-had turned him down each time, with excuses ranging from the military situation in China, to international diplomacy, to the Soviet grain harvest. Even after Stalin promised senior CCP emissary Liu Shaoqi in July 1949 that Mao would be invited to Moscow as soon as the People's Republic was set up,5 the Chi

nese in October and November had to pressure the Soviet ambassador in

Beijing, N.V. Roshchin, to get Stalin's OK. When Mao's train finally left Beijing on December 6, the two sides had still not agreed on a framework for what should be discussed in Moscow.

Mao had three matters at the forefront of his mind as his train wound its way toward the Soviet capital. He wanted security against a potential American attack. He wanted Soviet assistance in the construction of socialism. And he wanted to remove the stigma which, in his view, had been inflicted on Chinese-Soviet relations by Stalin's signing in 1945 (at the close of World War II) of a Sino-Soviet Treaty with Mao's bitter rival, the Nationalist Government headed by Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek]. The best way to achieve all of these aims, Mao concluded, was to sign a new treaty between the two countries, based on Communist solidarity, discarding the 1945 pact. But the Chinese leader was in no way certain that Stalin would accept such a proposal, and he was prepared to act with great care, so that his wish for a new treaty did not stand in the way of the two other aims, both of which could prove more obtainable.6 6

Stalin, on his side, wanted to test Mao, his commitment to "proletarian internationalism," and his style of behavior in Moscow. With unflinchable faith in his own ability to separate friends from enemies, Stalin agreed to a meeting with the new Chinese leader in order to see how Mao would hold up under scrutiny. Stalin had not yet decided whether or not to sign a new treaty, nor had he made up his mind about any major agreements with the new Chinese regime, prior to Mao's arrival in Moscow. Based on what we know of his behavior in other contexts, it is likely that Stalin sought material for his conclusions primarily from the Chinese attitude to the post-World War II territorial arrangements in East Asia and from Mao's attitude toward the

[ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

vozhd personally.

What happened between the two sides in Moscow from December 17 to January 2 remains shrouded in mystery. Stalin obviously wanted to impress the Chinese, to show them Soviet power by arranging visits to memorials and symbols of the achievements of Communism. It is also obvious that he did not want anyone to engage in any further discussions of the main political issues beyond what had been said at the meeting between Mao and himself on December 16.

Beyond that, everything is still conjecture. Mao may have feigned illness to avoid accepting the Soviet agenda for "sightseeing" and to insist on an immediate continuation of the political talks. The Soviets then used Mao's "illness" to explain why substantive meetings with Stalin, or any Soviet leader, were impossible, thereby trying to force Mao to come up with suggestions for a specific agenda. Mao may indeed have been ill. We know that he was not in good health in October, and the strenuous journey to Moscow could hardly have helped.

Even more important is why Stalin decided to let his guest kill time over the New Year holidays holed up in a government dacha near Moscow. The most likely explanation is that the Soviet leader just could not make up his mind on what the outcome of the Chinese visit would be, and as long as the boss did not act, his subordinates could not take any initiatives on their own. The exertions of his own 70th birthday celebrations (on 21 December 1949) and the ensuing New Year functions may also have taken their toll on the vozhd and made it inopportune for him to seek out difficult negotiations just at that time.

We know that Stalin did meet with Mao on at least three occasions during this period, but existing sources indicate that those meetings were brief and dealt exclusively with specific practical issues, such as sending Soviet teachers to China and Soviet assistance in repairing the Xiaofengman hydroelectric station. In their book Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War, Sergei N. Goncharov, John W.

Lewis, and Xue Litai surmise that it was rumors among the foreign press corps in Moscow that Mao was being spurned or even put under house arrest by his Soviet hosts which compelled Stalin agree to let TASS publish an interview with the Chinese leader on January 2. In that interview, Mao referred to the 1945 treaty and trade issues as items being under consideration by the two sides.

Just what happened in the Kremlin during the day of January 2 we do not know. Oral history sources indicate that Molotov and Mikoyan together approached the boss and suggested holding talks with the Chinese at some point over the coming two weeks. Stalin agreed, and entrusted the two with seeking out Mao and informing him. After seeing Molotov and Mikoyan, Mao fired off a jubilant telegram to Beijing, telling of "an important breakthrough" telling of "an important breakthrough" in his work: The Soviets had agreed to signing a new treaty and would receive Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in Moscow to negotiate it.

Based on what we now know, Mao was almost certainly overstating his case. As the Chairman's conversation with Molotov on January 6 shows, Stalin had in no way green-lighted a new treaty, and was still holding open the possibility of merely amending the 1945 text. In spite of the several meetings between Mao and Soviet officials over the following weeks, to which Goncharev, Lewis, and Xue allude, there is no evidence from archival sources of when the Soviet leader gave his go-ahead for a new treaty to be negotiated. It was not until meeting with Mao and Zhou on January 22 and declaring "to hell with" the Yalta accords claring "to hell with" the Yalta accords that Stalin made clear to the Chinese that he was ready to scrap the 1945 text.

A contributing factor to Stalin's change of mind may have been the conversations on U.S. foreign policy which were held in Moscow and Beijing in the interim. As shown by the record of the January 17 meeting-where the topic for discussion was Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson's speech on developments in Asia before the National Press Club in Washington on January 12Mao was very much aware of how im

portant it was to the Soviets for him to appear willing fully to coordinate his policies toward the United States with Moscow. The effect of Molotov's and Vyshinskii's alerting the Chinese to Acheson's speech (and particularly his claim that the Soviets were out to subjugate China) was to give Mao a chance to demonstrate his loyalty to the boss. (At the same time in Beijing, Mao's intelligence chief, Li Kenong, told the Soviets that a peaceful liberation of Taiwan might be possible after all.8)

Zhou Enlai had prepared well on his long train trip across Siberia. From his arrival in Moscow on January 20, the Chinese Prime Minister was the dynamic force in the negotiations, which soon took the form of Chinese

proposals and Soviet counter-proposals. On almost all issues concerning the alliance treaty, bilateral assistance, trade, and credits and loans, the Chinese drove their agenda forward, while the Soviets argued over details. The Chinese got less, and some times much less, than what they bargained for, but they got some form of agreement on all areas which were important to them. 10

While the economic negotiations showed the Chinese that Stalin's lieutenants could drive a hard bargain, what really hurt the CCP leaders in a way that none of them ever forgot was the Soviet propensity for introducing territorial issues into their negotiating tactics. The Soviet negotiators made Mao feel like he was forced to part with pieces of Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria, Xinjiang, and Mongolia to get the Soviet assistance which he needed. Especially when the Soviets introduced the issues of excluding all non-Soviet foreigners from Manchuria and Xinjiang and establishing joint Sino-Soviet companies in Xinjiang, Mao must have felt that he paid a heavy price.

As we see clearly from the Chinese record, Stalin's tactics, driven by suspicion and rancor, were unnecessary for preventing Sino-American rapprochement and most unhelpful for establishing a lasting Sino-Soviet relationship. Stalin kept his railway and naval concessions in Manchuria (although the leasing period was shortened), and secured phrasing in the secret additional

protocols on Xinjiang and Manchuria which gave him a sense of strategic control of these areas. But Stalin and his associates paid a price for their concessions which was considerably higher than the price Mao paid for signing the agreements which provided him with protection, legitimacy, and aid. By his actions, Stalin undermined Chinese faith in the commonality of ideological principles between the two sides.

The "lessons" of Soviet perfidy in 1949-50 poisoned China's relationship to Moscow through the 1950s and beyond. Almost twenty years after the signing of the treaty, as Zhou Enlai advised Vietnam's Communists on the diplomatic aspects of liberating their country, he recalled his and Mao's experiences with the Soviets in the late 1940s. "The closer to victory your struggle is, the fiercer your struggle with the Soviet Union will be.... The closer your war comes to victory, the more obstructive and treacherous the revisionist Soviets-who cannot compare even to Stalin― will be. I refer to [our] past experiences in order to make you vigilant.”11

As the evidence now stands, it is hard to see it corroborating Goncharev, Lewis, and Xue's view of Stalin and Mao as, in Michael Hunt's phrase, "shrewd nationalists and resolute realpolitikers engaged in an intricate game of international chess."12 Where they see a well-considered plan, at least on Stalin's part, the documents suggest a good deal of improvisation and indecision on the part of the Soviet leadership. If one adds to this the multiple and often unintended consequences of cultural misperceptions and quirky personalities so clearly brought out in the memoirs, the picture which emerges is rather of two "giants of history" struggling, and ultimately failing, to construct a purpose to their bilateral relationship beyond the treaty text.

The Chinese side, if anything, came out better than the Soviets as far as a "realist," interest-oriented agenda. is concerned. Mao's decision-making was, in 1950, still oriented toward consensus within his party and relied heavily on trusted advisers whose judgments influenced his own thinking.

Stalin, on the other hand, often made hasty decisions based on little or no information or consultation. And since there was, at least in this case, little room for initiatives by any of Stalin's subordinates, the result was a disjointed policy-making process, through which the Soviets won a pyrrhic victory-exacting Chinese concessions, but losing the opportunity to forge a lasting alli

ance.

1

By far the best survey of the summit available is in Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 84-129. Although very little has been published in China in terms of documents (except the items which are included in the present collection), there are a number of memoirs dealing with the summit. The most important is Shi Zhe, Zai lishi juren shenbian [Alongside giants in history] (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian, 1991). Shi was Mao's interpreter in Moscow.

[blocks in formation]

5

Soviet records on Liu Shaoqi's trip to Moscow in the summer of 1949 have recently been released from the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF) and published in the journal Problemi Dalnego Vostok [Problems of the Far East] introduced by former Soviet ambassador to Mongolia Andrei Ledovsky. For an English translation, see Andrei Ledovsky, "The Moscow Visit of a Delegation of the Communist Party of China in June to August 1949," Far Eastern Affairs 4 (1996), 64-86.

6 See Odd Arne Westad, "Brothers: Visions of an Alliance," in Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, forthcoming.

[blocks in formation]

8 Record of conversation, Shibaev-Li Kenong, 16 January 1950, Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVPRF), f. 0100, o. 43, p. 302, d. 10, 11. 38-44.

See Vyshinskii to Stalin, 2 February 1950, and attached draft agreements, AVPRF, f. 07, o 23a, p. 18, d. 234. On II. 29-34 Vyshinskii summarized his conversation with Zhou earlier that day. 10 See Roshchin's and Mikoian's conversations with Zhou on February 12, summarized in AVPRF, f. 07, o 23a, p. 18, d. 234, II. 71-74 and 64-68. For a very interesting summary of prospects for trade, see Kosiachenko et al. to Molotov et al., "O torgovle s Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respublikoi" ["On trade with the People's Republic of China"], 12 February 1950, AVPRF, f. 07, o. 23a, p. 18, d. 237, ll. 1-249.

[blocks in formation]

(1) [I] arrived in Moscow on the 16th and met with Stalin for two hours at 10 p.m. (Beijing time). His attitude was really sincere. The questions involved included the possiblity of peace, the treaty, loan, Taiwan, and the publication of my selected works. (2) Stalin said that the Americans are afraid of war. The Amerians ask other countries to fight the war [for them], but other countries are also afraid to fight a war. According to him, it is unlikely that a war will break out, and we agree with his opinions. (3) With regard to the queston of the treaty, Stalin said that because of the Yalta agreement, it is improper for us to overturn the legitimacy of the old Sino-Soviet treaty. If we abolish the old treaty and sign a new one, the status of the Kurile Islands will be changed and the United States will have an excuse to take them away. Therefore, on the question of the Soviet Union's thirty-year lease of Lushun [Port Arthur], we should not change it in format; however, in reality, the Soviet Union will withdraw its troops from Lushun and will let Chinese troops occupy it. I expressed that too early a withdrawal [of the Soviet troop from Lushun] will create unfavorable conditions for us. He replied that

the Soviet withdrawal of troops [from Lushun] does not mean that the Soviet Union will stand by with folded arms [in a crisis]; rather, it is possible to find ways through which China will not become the first to bear the brunt. His opinon is that we may sign a statement, which will solve the Lushun problem in accordance with the above-mentioned ideas, and that by doing so, China will also gain political capital [zhengzhi ziben]. I said that it is necessary for us to maintain the legitimacy of the Yalta agreement. However, public opinion in China believes that since the old treaty was signed by the GMD [Guomindang; Kuomintang, KMT], it has lost its ground with the GMD's downfall. He replied that the old treaty needs to be revised and that the revision is necessarily substantial, but it will not come until two years from now. (4) Stalin said that it is unnecessary for the Foreign Minister [Zhou Enlai; Chou En-Lai] to fly here just for signing a statement. I told him that I will consider it. I hope that the commercial, loan, and aviation agreements will be signed at the same time, and the Premier [Zhou Enlai] should come. It is hoped that the Politburo will discuss how to solve the treaty problem and offer its opinions.

[Source: Pei Jianzhang et al., Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi [A Diplomatic History of the People's Republic of China] (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 1994), 17-8; translation from Shuguang Zhang and Jian Chen, eds., Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia: New Documentary Evidence, 1944-1950 (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1996), 128.]

Document 2: Telegram, Mao Zedong to

Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai,
19 December 1949 (excerpt)

(1) As to the question of the Burmese government's request to establish diplomatic relations with us, you should ask it in a return telegram if it is willing to cut off its diplomatic relations with the Guomindang, and at the same time invite that government to dispatch a responsible representative to Beijing for discussions about establishing diplomatic relations between China and Burma. Whether the diplomatic relations will be established or not will be determined by the result of the discussions. It is necessary that we should go through this proce

dure of discussion, and we should act in the same way toward all capitalist countries. If a certain capitalist country openly announces the desire to establish diplomatic relations with us, our side should telegraph that country and request that it dispatch its representative to China for discussions about establishing diplomatic relations, and at the same time, we may openly publish the main contents of the telegram. By doing so, we will be able to control the initiative.2

[Source: Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao [Mao Zedong's manuscripts since the founding of the People's Republic; hereafter JGYLMZDWG], vol. 1 (Beijing: Central Press of Historical Documents, 1987), 193; translation from Shuguang Zhang and Jian Chen, eds., Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia, 129.]

Document 3: Telegram, Mao Zedong to CCP CC, 22 December 1949

Central Committee:

(1) According to [Wang] Jiaxiang, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany all want to do business with us. If this is true, we are going to have trade relations with three more countries besides the Soviet Union. In addition, we have done business or are going to do business with Britain, Japan, the United States, India and other countries. Therefore, in preparing the trade agreement with the Soviet Union, you should have a comprehensive perspective. While we should naturally give top priority to the Soviet Union, we should at the same time prepare to do business with Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Britain, Japan, the United States, and other countries, and you need to have a general evaluation of its scope and volume. (2) The telegram of the 21st has been received. We have arranged with Stalin to have a discussion on the 23rd or 24th. After that discussion, we will be able to determine the guideline, which we will inform you by telegraph.

[Source: JGYLMZDWG, 1:197; translation from Shuguang Zhang and Jian Chen, eds., Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and the Cold War in Asia, 129.]

Document 4: Memorandum, 1 January 1950 Conversation of Mao and USSR Ambassador to China N.V. Roshchin

[blocks in formation]

Following the orders of the USSR Secretary of Foreign Affairs, comrade [Andrei] Vyshinskiy, on January 1 [I] visited the Chairman of the People's Central Government of the People's Republic of China, comrade Mao Zedong.

After an exchange of New Year greetings and other formalities, a friendly and warm conversation took place, during which comrade Mao Zedong related the following.

During the past few days he received a report from Beijing that the governments of Burma and India expressed their readiness to recognize the government of the People's Republic of China. The position of the Chinese government on this matter is as follows: to inform the governments of Burma and India that if they are sincere in their wishes to mend diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, first they must completely break all ties with Jiang Jieshi, unconditionally refuse any kind of support and assistance to this regime, making it into an official declaration. Under the condition that the governments of these countries accept the aforementioned proposals of the Chinese government, the Indian and Burmese governments may send their representatives to Beijing for negotiations.

Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that there is also information, which states that in the very near future England and other countries of the British Commonwealth will evidently take steps toward recognizing the People's Republic of China.

Touching upon the military situation in China, comrade Mao Zedong pointed out that as of now all of the main Guomindang forces on the mainland of China have been crushed. In the Szechuan and Xinjiang [Sinkiang] provinces approximately 400 thousand Guomindang troops were taken prisoner and switched to the side of the People's Liberation army. For the remainder of the Khutszunan cluster, numbering 30-40 thousand persons, all the routes for

« 上一頁繼續 »