Telegram, Zhou Enlai to Mao Zedong and Others, Regarding the Situation at the Fourteenth Plenary Session

(Top Secret)

Chairman Mao [Zedong], Comrade [Liu] Shaoqi and the Central Committee:

The delegations of six countries of the Western camp spoke at the open meeting on the Korean issue on the 11th. Six countries (France, with Britain and Canada taking the initiative among the other five countries and New Zealand, Belgium, and Thailand giving their support) stated unanimously that if the conference cannot reach any agreement on the Korean issue, it should be returned to the United Nations. Although Bidault is usually the least interested in the Korean issue, he suddenly became active at this meeting in order to obtain more votes when the French Parliament decides on the motion of confidence on the 12th. He returned from Paris and intentionally showed the spirit of conciliation in proposing five ambiguous principles at the plenary session on the Korean issue. In his proposals, Bidault briefly mentioned that elections should be held throughout the territory of Korea, and also raised the issues of the withdrawal of foreign forces and international supervision. However, instead of emphasizing the necessity of the United Nations' supervision, he simply said that “once the unification has been carried out under legitimate conditions, the UN should be called upon to give their sanction [to this settlement thus reached].” From our side, both Nam Il and I spoke and expressed our complete support of Molotov's five-point proposal presented on the 5th. We also proposed that the conference should adopt this proposal as the basis for further discussion. I not only fought back Smith's threatening statement on the 5th that he would appeal to world opinion, but also focused on exposing his plot to interrupt the negotiations. I pointed out that since both sides had already achieved agreement on several points and agreement might be possible on some other points, there was no reason for the conference not to continue. The current situation is that the United States and South Korea want to sabotage the negotiations on the Korean issue, however, other countries who attended the sixteen countries' meeting on the 4th did not agree. Since Molotov's five-point proposal on the 5th was full of the spirit of conciliation, it made it difficult for our counterparts to reject it completely. Therefore, the United States cancelled the planned restricted session on the Korean issue on the 7th. At the same time, the US is attempting to mold public opinion and is preparing to end the negotiations at the right moment. At the plenary session on the 11th, the United States therefore instigated the six countries to distort our arguments recklessly and to emphasize that the differences could not be resolved, and attempted to end the conference by proposing to return the Korean issue to the United Nations. However, through the six countries' delegations' statements, we perceived that there were still differences among them. Although all six countries defended the United Nations, five of them did not support Pyun Yung Tai's sixteen-point proposal directly. Neither was their support of the United States enthusiastic. Bidault's proposals were not quite in step with the other five countries' statements. Neither did he raise the issue of the United Nations' supervision. Bidault simply said that [the settlement of the Korean issue] should be reported to and obtain ratification from the United Nations. Therefore, it is still difficult for them to end the meetings on the Korean issue immediately. Our side plans to let Nam Il propose our second original plan in next week's meetings on the Korean issue.

Zhou Enlai
13 June 1954