No. 398
Editorial Note
On November 20, Michael G.L. Joy, First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, gave Walter McConaughy a report of a conversation on November 18 between the British Deputy Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Harold Caccia, and the Chinese Chargé in the United Kingdom; the text of an oral communication which the Chargé had read to Caccia was attached. Both documents bear notations indicating that they were routed to Secretary Dulles and Counselor MacArthur.
The oral communication stated that the liberation of Taiwan and the offshore islands was a Chinese domestic issue, that the prospective mutual defense pact between the United States and Chiang Kai-shek would only lead to further tension and deterioration of the situation in the Far East, and that the Chinese people could not tolerate any attempt to place Taiwan under United Nations trusteeship or under the mandate of neutral powers or to provide for the independence of Taiwan. It declared that to ease the tension in the Far East and to eliminate the threat of war, all United States armed forces must be immediately withdrawn from Chinese territory and United States interference in Chinese domestic affairs must be immediately stopped.
During the conversation between the Chargé and Sir Harold Caccia, according to the report, the Chargé stated that the Chinese Government would never wish to start a war with the United States but that the Americans insisted on interfering in their internal affairs. The Chinese had a vast program of internal development which was their first priority, but, he repeated several times, they would never abandon their right to Taiwan. When asked if he had noted a statement made by Secretary Dulles at a November 9 press conference that the United States would never start a preventive war, the Chargé replied that he had noted it but the only [Page 920] hope he could offer was that time and a change of personalities might alter circumstances. He declined to comment on what might be done in the meantime to avoid incidents.