Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXII, Northeast Asia

76. Draft Paper Prepared in the Policy Planning Council⁰

Washington, October 26, 1961.

U.S. POLICY TOWARD CHINA

[Here follow a table of contents and 111 pages of text.]

V. Recommendations

Although a variety of considerations converge in some of the following recommendations, they have been arranged, for purposes of convenience, in related groups.

A. Basic Strategy

(1) We should pursue toward mainland China the general policy of seeking: (a) to hold ajar the door to a more satisfactory relationship with the US, (b) to mute our shared hostility, (c) to transfer to Communist China the onus for it, and (d) at the same time to build more effective barriers to the expansion in Asia of the Sino-Soviet bloc.

B. Manifestations of a Humanitarian Concern for the Chinese People

(2) We should proceed to lift the embargo on exports to Communist China of foodgrains (including flour) and medicines, and consider, in the light of other recommendations contained herein, whether trade with Communist China should not be put on a comparable basis with trade with the Soviet Union.

(3) If recommendation (2) is accepted in whole or part, we should adopt a policy of giving bunkering facilities at least to all ships coming to our ports with cargo for Communist China which is restricted to foodstuffs (or other items from which we lift the embargo).

(4) We should explain changes in the embargo, and the modification of bunkering restrictions, in terms of putting concern for the welfare of the Chinese people above our differences with the regime which rules them.

(5) When that may appear warranted by a situation of more acute privation on the mainland than now exists there, and provided Communist China has been abstaining from new commitments to export foodstuffs from its own stocks, we should extend an offer of foodstuffs to Communist China on a grant basis. Any supply of US grain to Communist China should be accompanied, in the unlikely event that it is accepted, by safeguards against subsequent Chinese Communist charges about its suitability for human consumption.

(6) We should actively seek to share with Communist China information about medical advances likely to be helpful to the Chinese people.

(7) We should supply consistently, by radio or otherwise, weather information including typhoon warnings derived from our weather satellites.

C. Removal of Unnecessary Provocations

(8) We should review US and GRC special operations against the Chinese mainland and thereafter desist ourselves, and try to keep the GRC from carrying out, ones which we conclude are likely to be more provocative than is justified by the anticipated return.

(9) We should review and revise US practices to ensure that our planes and ships do not without sufficient reasons, based on intelligence needs and operational requirements, penetrate Chinese Communist territorial waters and airspace.

D. Negotiation and Communication with Communist China

(10) We should continue the Ambassadorial talks.

(11) We should continue the policy of non-recognition of Communist China.

(12) We should determine what conditions we would set for recognition of Communist China and be prepared to restudy the question of recognition whenever altered circumstances, such as ones involving changes in the actions and apparent objectives of the Chinese Communist regime, and its own attitude toward diplomatic relations with us, may appear to justify such reconsideration.

(13) We should continue the present policy of attempting to keep Communist China out of the United Nations.

(14) We should initiate a study having as its aims the formulation of alternate objectives to be sought when and if it may become apparent that our aim of keeping Communist China out of the UN is no longer realistic, the tactics required to achieve those objectives, and the best timing for the initiation of the relevant efforts.

(15) We should consider the inclusion of Communist China in disarmament negotiations importantly involving its military capabilities if and when it may appear that substantive progress with the Soviet Union is likely.

(16) We should explore the feasibility of including Communist China in case of renewed negotiations for a nuclear test ban despite the likelihood that its response would be negative.

(17) We should endeavor to assure that any invitation to Communist China to participate in negotiations for disarmament or a nuclear test ban be portrayed in terms such that the onus for any refusal to participate would rest on the Chinese Communists.

(18) We should avoid hasty responses to Communist Chinese statements, no matter how provocative, as well as a shrill tone and any unnecessary vituperation in our own statements.

(19) Without exerting undue pressure, we should continue to seek access to Communist China by US correspondents and, within the limits set by concern for the safety of Americans in a country where we cannot afford them diplomatic protection, pursue the objective of gaining access to Communist China for other qualified American observers, scientists, scholars and, if trade is resumed, businessmen.

(20) We should utilize potentially useful Chinese Communist declarations, such as the self-imposed restrictions inherent in the five principles enunciated at Bandung, in contexts which may permit us to mobilize support for holding the Chinese Communists to them.

E. Military and Nuclear

(21) We should increase the non-nuclear military capabilities we maintain in the western Pacific area, including capabilities related to counter-guerrilla operations.

(22) We should develop and covertly disseminate in Asia such propaganda as may tend to reduce the impact which will be made there by the first Chinese Communist nuclear explosion, and to lessen its contribution to the belief that Communism provides a superior blueprint for national development.

(23) We should avoid statements or actions which unnecessarily contribute to the view that Communist China’s military strength and expected acquisition of nuclear weapons make it too powerful for its neighbors to resist.

(24) We should promote and support Japanese and Indian leadership of and assistance to other Asian states in the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy and materiels, and widest possible recognition of that leadership.

(25) We should ascertain what bilateral measures, such as training indigenous forces in the use of US nuclear weapons and stationing nuclear missiles in the respective countries, or in the case of Japan perhaps eventually on ships at sea, seem feasible and best adapted to reducing Communist China’s opportunities to use nuclear blackmail against its Asian neighbors.

(26) We should endeavor to turn the prospective Chinese Communist acquisition of a nuclear capability to positive account as the rationale for rapprochements between Japan and the ROK, and of India with Pakistan, and their closer mutual involvement in such contexts as integrated air-defenses of the Korea-Japan area and of the Indian sub-continent.

(27) We should investigate the alternatives to stationing nuclear weapons on US-held bases close to the Chinese mainland, such as their transfer to US-held territories farther to the east.

(28) We should endeavor to convert pressures which may develop against our retention of bases in countries such as Japan to pressures for the development of independent indigenous military capabilities, and assumption of corresponding responsibility in respect of regional defense arrangements, as necessary prerequisites for any phasing downward of the military presence of the US.

F. Protecting the States on Communist China’s Periphery

(29) We should take steps designed to ensure that the requirements for preventing Thailand and other threatened Asian states from being successfully subjected to the Maoist cycle of infiltration and insurrection are analyzed, that the results are embodied in country-plans, and that they are met through the efforts of the threatened states, the US, and other cooperating countries.

(30) We should, as a matter of urgency, determine what change we should promote in the international relationships of the mainland states of southeast Asia, including relationships toward each other, in the interests of their survival in the face of Communist China’s growing power and the threat to them of ambiguous forms of Communist aggression.

(31) We should promote widest possible international recognition that bloc instigation and support of internal violence of the type now underway in Southeast Asia constitutes aggression directed at the national independence of the states involved, and endeavor to translate this recognition into appropriate inhibitory international action both within and outside the United Nations.

(32) We should, starting in FY 1963, program for the ROK economic aid of kinds and in amounts which appear required to put and keep it on the road to economic viability, and be prepared to accept the risks inherent in phasing down the size of ROK forces to levels which can be ROK supported.

(33) We should use our influence on and aid to Taiwan as means not only of protecting that island through our alliance with the GRC, but also of progressively promoting the timely emergence there of government based on popular consent and minimizing our over-identification with the GRC as it is now constituted and motivated.

(34) We should work, within the limits which the need for a continued useful relationship with the GRC will allow, for the damping-down of the GRC-Chinese Communist civil war and the evacuation of the offshore islands, considering as a first step seeking a major reduction in the garrisons on purely military grounds.

(35) We should, in dealing with Chiang, accept the risks inherent in pressing for change, in place of those which are implicit in letting the GRC pursue present courses, make appropriate elements of our aid conditional so it can be used as a lever in pressing for change, and time pressures for major specific changes so they occur in the context of maximum assurance of continued over-all US support.

(36) We should prepare for the contingency that Communist China may embark on a more aggressive but still sub-belligerent course, which might both require and make internationally acceptable the application to it of maximum pressure short of war, by a study exploring what forms of pressure might be applied, evaluating how much each element might contribute, and estimating how effective the totality might be if all acceptable components were combined.

G. The Sino-Soviet Split

(37) We should continue study of the measures we might best take in order to take advantage of the present Sino-Soviet split in the interests of widening it further or of otherwise exploiting it.

H. Internal and External Adjustment for an Altered Course

(38) We should center responsibility within the Department of State for affairs related to mainland China (and perhaps for the rest of Communist Asia as well) in an office different from that responsible for relations with the GRC.¹

(39) We should make such official efforts to inform the US public in regard to Chinese affairs, including facts regarding influences exerted directly on US public opinion by the GRC, as prospective changes in policies toward it may promise to require.

(40) We should consult with appropriate allies and other friendly countries, including especially Japan, in advance of altering courses toward either Chinese regime, in the interests of securing maximum international understanding and support for US policy in an area where we are now too largely isolated.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/10-2661. Top Secret. Drafted by Rice, according to a memorandum of January 4, 1962, to Ball from Robert W. Barnett of the Foreign Economic Advisory Staff in Ball’s office, which forwarded the paper to Ball with Barnett’s comments and the suggestion that Ball read the paper’s recommendations. (Filed with a covering memorandum of February 21 from Barnett to Harvey; National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, S/P Files: Lot 69 D 121, China) A memorandum of December 11 from Harriman to Rostow conveyed the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs comments on the paper. (Department of State, Central Files, 611.93/12-1161)
1. On December 26 the Office of Chinese Affairs and the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs were consolidated into the Office of East Asian Affairs, comprising sections for Japanese Affairs, Korean Affairs, Republic of China Affairs, and Mainland China Affairs (including Hong Kong and Macau). The Harriman memorandum cited in the source note noted that this recommendation had “already been anticipated” in the impending reorganization.