Cable from Wang Guoquan to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Transportation, 'Renke Talked about Issues in the International Communist Movement and the Sino-Polish Relations'

Renke Talked about Issues in the International Communist Movement and the Sino-Polish Relations

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Transportation,

We invited [Marian] Renke, Deputy Director of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of Polish Communist Party, for dinner on the 28th [of September] in an effort to bring the Polish party around. At dinner, we had a general discussion with Renke and the atmosphere was amicable. From what we see, the foreign policy of the revisionist Poland is still founded on Polish-Soviet alliance, but Poland is nevertheless reluctant to fall out with us. Renke said: the Polish-Soviet alliance is a bottom-line issue and the achievements of the Polish-Soviet relations in the past two decades after the end of the World War II are fairly obvious. Talking about the Sino-Polish relations, he said that “The Sino-Polish relations cannot be viewed as separate from the entire international communist movement and the Polish-Soviet relations. But it is Poland’s hope that the relations between China and Poland will not only maintain the status quo but further develop; there are however conditions to make such development possible. Thanks to the efforts of both sides, the Sino-Polish relations have circumvented many misunderstandings and tensions that have come up in other quarters. The Polish leadership has been paying great attention to it [the development of relations with China]. For example, in his public talks about the debate, Gomulka always stressed on the achievements, role and deserved status of China and the Chinese Communist Party. We believe that this is the only way that enables our two sides to maintain positive relations.” Poland, as it seems, shows no sign to want the Sino-Polish relations to go bad. Renke said, “The China-Polish Joint Stock Shipping Company is a concrete example of the effective economic cooperation between our two countries, where the achievements of the many years’ cooperation between China and Poland are pretty obvious. Poland thinks that the problem of the company’s ship routes, having been resolved, won’t affect the political relations between the two countries. Poland hopes to maintain and develop the cooperation the two countries have in the company.”

Our comrades at the company who are stationed in Gdansk were right to stick to the principles and take a firm stand in the recent anti-capitulation campaign, but their approaches were too blunt and simple and they did a not-so-good job in communicating with the Polish side. And because of that, until today, within the company, the internal mood and relationship between the two sides are still far from desirable. Apart from our effort to bring them [the Polish side] around, we hope that the company’s Shanghai headquarters will pay attention to this problem.

Wang Guoquan

30 September 1965