Cable from the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Reporting on the Talks with the Vietnamese Attaché’

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cable

Level: Extra Urgent Advance

From the Moscow Desk

Received (65) No. 284

Reporting on the Talks with the Vietnamese Attaché

To the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Higher Education:

On the afternoon of March 5th, an attache from our embassy, Zhang Motang met with an attaché from the Vietnamese embassy who is responsible for the affairs of students studying abroad to discuss the events of the anti-American protest that day and inform the Vietnamese embassy of the stance we are presently taking.  The following are the primary points of the conversation:

(1) The Vietnamese embassy is deliberating whether or not to stage a protest against the Soviets.

(2)  They are researching the possibility of having each of the international students who participated in the rally sign a letter of protest against the Soviets, simultaneously denouncing the American imperialists' invasion of Vietnam and the aggression of the Soviets against the protesters.  (I expressed approval of this.)

(3) Have classmates from countries whose students were injured write separate letters of protest to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the police, or send a delegation of representatives to express their discontent. It still has not been decided which of these two options will be carried out.

Aside from these things, he also mentioned that the number of international students injured in this rally number was over 100, ten of whom were Vietnamese.  The number of serious injuries will be confirmed and reported on the 8th.

[Chinese] Embassy in the Soviet Union

5 March 1965