Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, China and Japan, Volume XIV, Part 1

793.5/10–854

No. 327
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson)

top secret

[Washington,] October 8, 1954.

I have your memorandum of October 7, 1954. As you will have seen from my talk with the President, he is agreeable in principle to our negotiation of a security treaty with the Nationalist Government. This treaty, however, should make it clear that it is truly a defensive treaty and that we are not going to defend our partner while our partner attacks.

Perhaps Article 1 of your proposed treaty¹ covers this, although I think there would have to be an interpretive exchange of letters to the effect that the parties recognize that relations between the treaty area and other areas are “international” relations for the purposes of Article 1.

With respect to the territory covered, the original draft of Article 4² would cover the offshore islands. The proposed protocol³ to Article 4 would raise a serious ratification problem if it meant that the President could alone decide for the United States what would be the additional territory to be covered. I believe that just as Senate approval is required to extend the North Atlantic Treaty area, so Senate approval would be required to extend the treaty area under the proposed treaty. This would in effect mean that the treaty area could not be extended by Formosa and the Pescadores without the new treaty. That would, I suppose, be all right, but it should be understood by the other side.

JFD

1. A draft treaty, together with a suggested rephrasing for Article IV and a draft protocol, originally attached to Robertson’s Oct. 7 memorandum, is attached to the source text. Article I is identical, except for a minor textual change, to Article I of the Mutual Security Treaty of Dec. 2, 1954, between the United States and the Republic of China; for text, see 6 UST 433 or TIAS 2604.
2. Article IV of the draft treaty committed both parties to take action in case of “an armed attack in the Pacific Area on either of the Parties in territories now under their respective administrative control, or hereafter recognized by one of the Parties as lawfully and actually under the administrative control of the other.” The proposed revision of Article IV, along with minor textual changes, omitted the clause beginning “or hereafter recognized”.
3. The draft protocol stated that, for the purpose of Article IV, “the territories under the administrative control of the Government of the Republic of China shall be deemed to include Formosa and the Pescadores, together with such other islands as are mutually agreed to be intimately connected with the defense of Formosa and the Pescadores.”