Cable from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, 'Draft Proposal to Strengthen and Develop Friendly Relations with Asian-African Countries after the Asian-African Conference'

The annex is top secret

Draft Proposal to Strengthen and Develop Friendly Relations with Asian-African Countries after the Asian-African Conference

The development of the international situation in the past year and the achievement of the Asian-African Conference have repeatedly proved that more and more people are in favor of peaceful co-existence. The Five Principles have become the banner of the peace-loving people in the world. Such development is conducive to the relaxation of the international tensions. But the imperialist aggressive force will not resign itself to the development of the peace cause without doing anything. On the contrary, it has been increasingly intensifying its conspiratorial activities in Asia and Africa. We must absorb the experience from the Asian-African Conference to carry out energetic work towards the Asian-African countries in order to promote the continuous relaxation of the international tensions.

The experience of the Asian-African Conference has proved that the People’s Republic of China has enjoyed a great prestige among the Asian-African countries and the policy of “seeking common ground while reserving differences” adopted by the Chinese Delegation for the conference is correct. We should fully take advantage of the favorable conditions and policy to develop friendly relations between China and the other Asian-African countries.

Reviewing our past work in accordance with the experience of the Asian-African Conference, it is not difficult to find out that our past understanding of the united front of international peace was rather narrow, we didn’t take the initiative to work, our attitude was not very active, and our understanding of the specific conditions of the Asian-African countries at a certain time and at a certain place was not in depth enough, we didn’t make a great effort to learn the Asian-African languages, and at the same time, we didn’t know the ins and outs of the imperialist conspiratorial activities in Asia and Africa.

In view of the above circumstances, we must take an active attitude to overcome the weak points, improve our work and create conditions for strengthening and developing our diplomatic work towards Asian and African countries. Our tentative proposal is as follows:

(1) Strengthen and develop friendly relations with Asian-African countries

1. Continue to exchange visits of high-leveled governmental delegations. The exchange of visits by the prime ministers of China and India, China and Burma, and China and Indonesia has proven that such exchange of visits by high-leveled governmental delegations is successful. At present time, we must continue to do our work well in the exchange of visits by the prime ministers of China and Pakistan, and the visit of the Saudi Arabian Prime Minister to China so as to open up a path for the contact with the governments of various Arabian countries.

2. Try our best and get ready to establish diplomatic relations with more Asian and African countries. Seize the opportunity to hold talks with Nepal on the establishment of diplomatic relations, and pay close attention to Israel’s attitude towards China in international affairs so as to agree to establish diplomatic relations with it at a suitable time.

3. Continue to consolidate and develop economic and cultural relations with Asian and African countries. To do well the trade work between China and Burma, China and Indonesia. Try to invite the Egyptian trade delegation to visit China and dispatch the Chinese trade delegation to visit Syria first. The recent years’ experience has proven that it is easier to open a channel for exchanging visits by trade delegations or art and cultural delegations. We must expand this kind of work.

4. Besides the economic and cultural delegations, there were also the exchange of visits by specialized delegations (such as educational, agricultural, medical, etc) in recent years. This is a new channel so that we will find out more ways to exchange visits by such kind of specialized delegations with relevant countries.

5. In regard to religions, we not only shouldn’t take an antagonistic attitude towards many religious countries in Asia and Africa, but also should promote friendly relations between China and Asian-African countries through religions. Therefore, we must be in a hurry to set up the Buddhist Association and the Islamic Association. Burma wishes to pay respect to the sacred tooth relic of Buddha, we should send it there. Ceylon is going to celebrate the 2500^th anniversary of the birth of Sakyamuni, we should be present. We should promote the realization of the pilgrimage by the Chinese Muslims to Mecca this year.

6. Continue to implement the policy of maintaining work relations with the Asian-African countries that have no diplomatic relations with China. The signature of the Summary of Talks between China and Egypt has provided the possibility for the further development of work relations so that we must strive to bring it about. At the same time, we should continue to take part in the Syrian International Expo, and seek the possibility to develop work relations with other Arab countries through it.

7. The departments in charge of foreign affairs activities, friendship and cultural affairs with foreign countries should consider inviting more guests with social or academic status to visit China. The visits may not be concentrated in the period of May Day or October First, the other time will be all right; the delegation may not be large, a few persons will be OK. Recently, there were some complaints both in China and abroad about the work of the Sino-Indian Friendship Association and the Sino-Burmese Friendship Association. Therefore, we must work hard to improve it so as to bring them into full play.  

8. The liaison departments with foreign countries of our trade union, women’s federation, youth federation, etc should work out a method for inviting guests according to the policy of winning over the Asian-African countries, which will not only achieve the goal of inviting the guests, but also avoid complaints about our method from the governments of the countries, where our embassies are accredited.

(2) Strengthen propaganda work to the Asian-African countries

1. The experience in recent years has proven that when the Asian-African countries suffer oppression from imperialism, the sympathetic and supporting attitude expressed by the people’s Republic of China will have a major impact. With regard to the work of expressing our attitude through international propaganda institutions, we have done some, but not enough. Therefore, the department in charge of international propaganda should closely follow the development of the Asian-African countries and the imperialist conspiratorial activities in Asian-African countries, and timely and properly express our attitude towards major events occurring in Asia and Africa, exposing what should be exposed and supporting what should be supported to fulfill the responsibility of the Chinese people and speak on behalf of the Asian-African people.

2. The imperialist instigation and slander caused some Asian-African countries’ to misunderstand the New China, which has affected the development of relations with them. The experience of the Asian-African Conference has also demonstrated that the Asian-African countries knew little about China so that it’s of great significance to further strengthen our propaganda work to foreign countries. The relevant departments in China should study how to introduce foreign affairs, economy, culture, ethnic groups, religions, etc of the New China in a planned and systematic way to the Asian-African countries, the Arab countries in particular. In reply to Comrade Säypiddin Äzizi’s [Sai Fuding] telegram by the Central Government, the Central Government has approved to compile and print a complete set of picture magazines with a theme of introducing the Muslims’ life in Xinjiang, and consider making a movie about the said contents. The related departments should immediately get ready for the above-mentioned work.

3. The effect of propaganda work to foreign countries depends to a large extent on the distribution work. Therefore, we must study and improve the distribution of our overseas embassies’ bulletins and other magazines for propaganda, which requests to meet the goal for propaganda to foreign countries on the one hand and avoid that the governments of the countries, where the Chinese embassies are accredited, take it as a pretext for complaints about China on the other hand.

4. Movies are one of the most convenient and effective tools for propaganda to foreign countries. The relevant departments in China should intensify their work in making movies for screening abroad.

(3) Strengthen study on the Asian-African countries

1. The internal and external political situations of the Asian-African countries are in general very intricate and some of them are always in a state of unrest. Therefore, we must, first of all, systematically intensify the study of the development of the internal and external situations of these countries and make timely analytical appraisals for reference.

2. In addition to the study of the development of situations in the Asian-African countries, we should choose several long-standing unsettled and frequently occurring Asian-African issues to study, such as Goa, Palestine, etc.

3. We have a number of unsettled issues left over by history with some of the Asian-African countries. With the development of our relations with these countries, those unsettled issues will be put on the agenda one by one so that we should organize manpower to first study the relatively urgent issues. For example, we should start as soon as possible the survey of the China-Burma undefined boundary. We should formulate a secret stipulation on the status of Sikkim, Bhutan, Kanjuti, etc. We should also study one by one the double nationality issue of overseas Chinese in Burma, Malaya and Thailand in accordance with the experience in talks with Indonesia.

4. Expand the source of materials about Asian-African countries, especially the materials about Asian-African issues by the Soviet research institutions. The Publishing House of the People’s Daily should organize manpower to translate and print the surveys of the Asian and African countries from the Encyclopedia. The People’s University and the Institute of Foreign Affairs should sort out and print the lecture notes of the Soviet experts concerning the Asian and African countries, and translate and print the teaching materials of the High Party School of the Soviet Union in this respect for reference.

5. We propose that the Academy of Science shall set up an institute specialized in studying international issues, and first of all, its major task is to study the Asian and African countries.

(4) Prepare the cadres needed for development of the work towards the Asian and African countries

1. We still have no diplomatic or work relations with many Asian and African countries. Once we have developed relations with these countries, a lot of cadres will be needed so that we must have a long-term plan for training and educating the cadres, for which all relevant departments must make a full preparation.

2. In order to train a certain number of qualified personnel who understand Asian-African languages, we propose that Peking University and the Ministry of Higher Education will study how to further improve the present educational and study quality of the Oriental Languages Department and study the possibility of adding some needed oriental language classes, such as Persian, etc. At the same time, the experience of the Geneva Conference and the Asian-African Conference demonstrated that those who can generally use foreign languages to work among the present cadres are not enough, and those who have a good command of foreign languages are badly needed in particular. Therefore, besides intensifying the normal training of the Asian-African foreign language personnel, we should send some excellent students selected from the Oriental Languages Department and some on-the-job cadres to study abroad, or dispatch them to the Chinese embassies abroad to study languages as their only purpose in order to improve their foreign language level.

3. For the convenience of promoting the friendly relations between China and the Asian-African countries through religions, it’s necessary to train a certain number of cadres with Islamic beliefs to do foreign affairs work.

4. The Foreign Ministry should define a number of students in the Foreign Affairs Institute, who will be dispatched to the Asian-African regions in the future, and make a proper training plan for them.

5. With a purpose of strengthening propaganda work towards the Asian-African countries, we should consider dispatching some journalists to various countries in Asia and Africa so that they can continuously temper themselves and improve their professional standard abroad.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

12 July 1955