Report from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, 'Draft of the Tentative Working Plan for Participating in the Asian-African Conference'

Signed by Zhou Enlai on Jan. 13

Top Secret

Draft of the Tentative Working Plan for Participating in the Asian-African Conference (Department of Asian Affairs)

It has been decided that the Asian-African Conference will be convened in Indonesia in the last week of April. The convening of this conference is of historic significance. If this conference goes on well, it will be conducive to the relaxation of international tension. There is no doubt that the participation of the People's Republic of China will greatly affect the conference.

The Bogor Conference has decided that 30 countries will attend the conference, including the fraternal country (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam), "peace and neutral" countries, as well as the countries closely following USA and hostile to China, among which the situation is complicated. Therefore, our country must take an active, but cautious attitude in order that the conference will play a positive role. In the process of the conference, we should concentrate our efforts to isolate the American force, actively win over the "peace and neutral" countries, and try to split the countries closely following the USA and hostile to China.

With regard to the relaxation of the Asian situation, the Asian-African Conference will be the further development of the Geneva Conference. But the contents of the Asian-African Conference are indeed different from the Geneva Conference. It is anticipated that the speeches and arguments in the meetings will not be as quibbling as that of the Geneva Conference, but the discussions and activities outside the meetings will be more frequent. Because of this reason, our delegation must have enough personnel for carrying out such activities.

The conference will probably not last too long, as short as one to two weeks ([Handwritten by Zhou Enlai] 5 to 10 days), or as long as three to four weeks. It is anticipated that all the participating delegations will not be too big, as little as ten to twenty persons, or as many as forty to fifty persons. Our delegation may consist of more persons, but we must take the whole situation into consideration.

As not much time is left, the preparatory work must begin as soon as possible. For this purpose, the tentative plan has been worked out as follows:

1. Task [Handwritten by Zhou Enlai] Forbid using the atomic weapons, hydrogen weapons, chemical weapons and all the exterminating weapons.

(1) Develop the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence, promote friendly relations among the Asian-African countries, expand the peace zone, oppose the formation of the warring cliques, and relax international tensions.

(2) Support national independence movements, oppose colonialism and the interference in the internal affairs and the violation of the sovereignty of other countries.

(3) Develop normal trade and economic cooperation, and strengthen cultural exchange among the participating countries.

(4) Strive to establish diplomatic relations with a number of Asian-African countries.

2. Organization

Members: The delegation consists of the head, representatives, secretary-general, consultants and working staff. A vice-minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the minister of the Ministry of Trade, an Islamic leader, the Chinese Ambassadors in India, and Indonesia, Burma and Pakistan are considered to be included in the delegation. The working staff will be determined according to the principle of competence and sufficiency.

Organizations [Handwritten by Zhou Enlai] The organization is too big and it wouldn't like the Geneva Conference

According to the experience of the Geneva Conference, the office or teams will be set up to provide more conveniences for the work of the leaders of the delegation as follows:

Head Office
Research Team
Trade Team
Information Team
Secretary Team
Protocol Team
Security Guards Team
General Affairs Team
Communication Team
Telecommunications Team
Documentary Team
Propaganda Team

The interpreters or translators will not form a team, and the Secretary-General will be responsible for selecting them and arranging their work.

3. The preparatory work

(1) Political affairs:

Investigate and study the issues the participating countries might put forward inside and outside the conference, and formulate the countermeasures. We anticipate that the conference will reach an agreement, so we must prepare an outline of the speech and motions; assume whether the conference will issue a declaration or set up a permanent institution, and what attitude our side will take.

(2) Documents:

Surveys of all participating countries, bilateral relations of all participating countries with China, other materials of special issues (such as West Irian, Kashmir, Morocco, etc.)

(3) Economic affairs [Handwritten by Zhou Enlai]This point is very important

Considering that the communiqué of the prime ministers of the five states at the end of last year specially stressed the strengthening of economic cooperation, the participating countries are now confronted with economic difficulties and want to find a way out, and imperialism is using the so-called economic "aid" as a tool to invade those countries, so that we should make specific preparations in trade, economy and technical cooperation.