Minutes of the Meeting between Vice Minister Zhang Hanfu and the Ambassador of the Soviet Union to China Chervonenko

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Minutes of the Meeting between the Vice Minister [Zhang Hanfu] and the Ambassador of the Soviet Union to China [Chervonenko]

—The Soviet Union’s Reply to our Memorandum dated 19 May on the Massive Illegal Cross-Border Flight of Chinese Residents to the Soviet Union—

(Not reviewed by Vice Minister Zhang)

Date: 8 June 1962, 5:00 p.m.

Venue: Meeting Room, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Attendees: Yu Man, Deputy Director of the Department of Soviet and Eastern European Affairs

Interpreter: Wang Gaiqing

Minutes Prepared: Zhang Zifan

Ambassador Chervonenko (hereafter Chervonenko): I asked to visit you today so as to continue out previous discussions on the massive flight of Chinese residents into the territory of the Soviet Union. The Government of the Soviet Union has urged me to make the following declarations to the Chinese government (the official translation of the document is attached).

Vice Minister Zhang (hereafter Zhang): I will report to our government and reply to you after studying [the document]. I would like to say something here.

First, the Soviet Union has taken certain measures recently, as you mention in the document. We have noticed this and we appreciate such efforts.

Second, I won’t repeat the process of how, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Chinese residents illegally crossed into the Soviet Union. We have repeatedly expressed our opinions [on this matter] and we still stick to such opinions.

Third, according to normal practices, the Soviet Union is obligated to repatriate any Chinese residents who enter the Soviet Union illegally. It is against international practices to refuse repatriation on the excuse of the entrants’ reluctance to come back.

Fourth, your memorandum criticizes the Chinese government for failing to take measures to dissuade such illegal flights and even assisting such behaviors. This kind of criticism is totally groundless.

I have to say we have tried to dissuade them from the very beginning and we are still trying to dissuade them now, not only at the borders, but also wherever there are signs of illegal crossings. We have taken considerable efforts towards this end. Since the Soviet Union put measures into place several days ago, our dissuasion work has been effective. We will continue to do this in the future.

Finally, we agree on the proposals in the memorandum to restore the normal conditions at the borders between China and the Soviet Union. China and the Soviet Union are two great socialist nations bordering each other and I believe this is something good for the both of us. We hope that, instead of affecting the bilateral relations, the situation which is taking place on our borders can come to an end as soon as possible. I hope normal conditions will be resumed on our borders as soon as possible.

Chervonenko: I also believe that this is the wish of both governments. I hope the conditions [on the border] will not affect our normal and friendly relations.

Zhang: I fully agree with you.

Chervonenko: I wish to reiterate our ideas from previous documents. However, we will never accept the criticism that the Soviet Union has ruined our bilateral relations at the border with Xinjiang. I have mentioned the reasons. Second, we can neither agree nor understand why the Chinese Government has refused to dispatch its personnel to the Soviet Union to persuade those fleeing residents to come back. The Chinese representative would receive the full and positive support from the Soviet Union. This is also mentioned in today’s document. I can hardly understand why the Chinese Government has refused to do this. I believe your personnel would play an important role in persuading those Chinese residents to come back. I believe our mutual efforts would contribute to the settlement of this issue and restore normal conditions to our border. We will do our best, and we believe that you will do the same too, in order to restore the normal order. We fully agree with your good wishes to settle the issue as soon as possible.

Zhang: We have expressed our opinions well and I am not going to repeat them regarding the sources of the current dilemma. We have explained our stance in previous documents on why we do not like to dispatch our personnel to the Soviet Union to persuade the fleeing Chinese residents to come back. I don’t think I need to repeat this here. We will study your document and reply to you soon.