Telegram, Zhou Enlai to Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and the CCP Central Committee, Regarding meeting with Tep Phan

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

On the 17^th Cambodian Foreign Minister Tep Phan came to see me with the documents pertaining to the introduction of foreign armaments into Cambodia and the election [in Cambodia].  I focused on two points in my talk with him.

(1) To the principle that foreign military bases should not be established in Cambodia, and that Cambodia should not participate in foreign military alliance, Mendès-France, Eden, Nehru, U Nu, and President Ho Chi Minh all expressed their agreement. However, after the Paris conference, it was reported that the United States wanted to absorb the three countries of Indochina into its alliance system in Southeast Asia, which had worried us. Tep Phan said that if they felt that the security of their country was facing threat, perhaps they would consider making alliance with other countries. He also expressed that they wanted the help of the United States for training their personnel.

(2) I said that the resistance force of Cambodia should be incorporated into the forces of the Kingdom, and should not be purged or discriminated against, and that the government of the Kingdom should unite with them, and should help find outlets for them, otherwise the war would not stop. Tep Phan said that because of the budgetary limits of the state the resistance force could not be absorbed, and that there should be ways for the civil personnel [of the resistance force] to join the government within the sphere of the constitution. Tep Phan said that to guarantee absorbing all of them was a question concerning [Cambodia's] sovereignty, therefore, Cambodia was only willing to issue a unilateral statement, rather than to follow the form of [entering] an international agreement.

Zhou Enlai
July 18, 1954