A statement by Ambassador Liu Chieh, chairman of the Chinese delegation to the 17th session of the General Assembly.
October 22, 1962
Mr. President and Fellow Delegates:
Only ten months ago the General Assembly, in its wisdom, rejected the Soviet proposal for seating the Chinese Communists. That decision, it may be recalled, was arrived at after long and exhaustive discussion.
Now we are witnessing the spectacle of another Soviet campaign on behalf of the Chinese Communists. This, I submit, is more than a challenge to the rightful position of my Delegation in the United Nations. It has the gravest implications for the future of the United Nations itself.
The Soviet delegate speaks of "the restoration of the lawful rights" of the Chinese Communists. What effrontery! What absurdity! Can any rights be restored to a party that has no legitimate claim to such rights?
The Chinese Communist regime which the Soviet Union wants to be admitted to the United Nations came into being in 1949 as a result of Soviet aggression against my country. The facts are well-known. On 9 August 1945, on the eve of Japanese surrender, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Soviet troops poured into the Northeastern provinces of China known to the world as Manchuria until the whole region was under their military occupation. Moscow had pledged to my Government that its armed forces would evacuate Manchuria within three months of the Japanese surrender. Actually, the Soviet forces delayed evacuation until they could get the Chinese Communists to move in and received from them the vast stores of arms and ammunition surrendered by the Japanese Kwantung army. They in fact handed over Manchuria to the Chinese Communists. My Government was denied access to Manchurian ports and railways for the reestablishment of its authority in that strategic and rich region. Thus, with Soviet support and with Manchuria as their base, the Chinese Communists launched their armed rebellion for the seizure of the entire Chinese mainland.
This is the origin of the Chinese Communist regime. Whatever speculation there may be about the regime's present relations with Moscow, there is no denying the fact that it owes its very existence to the Soviet Union. The Chinese Communist leaders have been the first to acknowledge this fact. And there can be little doubt that they will continue to conspire with the Soviet Union for the communization of the world.
Thirteen years have passed since the regime's establishment. What a criminal record it has written for itself during these years! Here are some of the entries in this record:
From October 1949 to December 1952, the regime carried out what was euphemistically called a "land reform program". In the name of suppression of "feudal landlords" and "counter-revolutionary elements", some twenty million innocent men and women were liquidated.
The period between 1953 and 1957 was known as one of "Socialist transformation". During this period land was collectivized, private enterprises were confiscated, and all workers were compelled to undergo brainwashing. Non-cooperative elements numbering some three millions were either liquidated or put into labor camps.
1958 was the year of the so-called "Big Leap Forward" the "People's Communes", and the backyard furnaces. The masses of the people were so regimented that human beings were reduced, according to a first-hand report of the eminent Indian scholar, Sripati Chandra-Sekhar, "to the level of the inmates of a zoo" living in conditions "more terrifying than all the conceivable hells put together."
That year also saw another Communist military venture in the Taiwan Straits. In forty-four days of continuous bombardment no less than half a million Russian-made shells were indiscriminately poured on the island of Quemoy. It was only after their failure to destroy the morale of the garrison and civilian population on the island that the Chinese Communists declared that for "humanitarian" reasons they would henceforth only fire on odd days. And this alternation of "humanitarianism" and murderousness has continued to this day.
The consequences of the "Big Leap Forward" have been most tragic for the Chinese people. The abuse of nature as well as human nature has plunged the country into a man-made famine of unprecedented gravity. For more than three years the Chinese people have been facing hunger and starvation. In the countryside the only people who get enough to eat are the Communist cadres, soldiers and security police. Driven to desperation, the peasants have resorted to acts of riot, sabotage and other means of resistance.
In 1959, the Chinese Communists carried out their so-called "reforms" in Tibet in flagrant violation of their solemn promise to give the Tibetans, as one of the national minorities within the boundaries of China, the right of regional autonomy and the freedom of preserving their own customs, traditions, and religious beliefs. Resistance was ruthlessly put down. The Dalai Lama, spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet, was put to flight to India. The crimes which the Communists have since committed in Tibet, according to the Report of the International Commission of Jurists, add up to genocide.
Such is the Chinese Communist record, a record splotched with the blood and tears of the Chinese people, a record of wholesale violation of human rights and of genocide, a record which, in brutality and terror, is unequalled in the annals of man.
Now, Mr. President and Fellow Delegates, can such an unspeakable and unregenerate regime represent the Chinese people and speak for them in the United Nations? I leave it to the Assembly to answer this question. My Delegation is convinced that they not only cannot represent the Chinese people, but that they are hated and will ultimately be overthrown by the oppressed people.
Turning to the international field, we find that the Chinese Communists have displayed the same lawlessness and aggressive violence. Less than eight months after their occupation of the Chinese mainland, they waged war against the United Nations forces in Korea, and for this they were condemned as an aggressor by the General Assembly in its Resolution 498 (V). And since the signing of the Korean armistice, they have never ceased to commit aggression against their neighbors in Asia. The role which they play in Laos and South Vietnam is too well-known to dwell upon. Their subversive activities in Thailand, Malaya and the Philippines are a matter of common knowledge. India, the country which has tried its best to be friendly with the Chinese Communists, has not been exempt from their military adventures. Lately, they have extended their infiltration and subversion to Latin America and Africa. Only the other day, on 3 October, the distinguished representative of the Federal Republic of Cameroon told the Assembly that he has proof that the Chinese Communists have openly trained and armed Cameroonian terrorists to overthrow the democratically established Cameroonian Government.
Mr. President, it is important to point out that the Chinese Communists not merely commit aggression; they make a virtue of it. They regard their expansionist activities as a sacred historical mission. They preach the inevitability of war. They advocate the violent overthrow of all non-Communist governments. They do so in the belief that there can be no peace until the entire capitalist system will have been liquidated. They consider it their duty to establish Communist regimes wherever their armies may choose to go.
An article published two years ago in the Red Flag, official organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party, declared that "when the armed forces of the socialist countries fight for justice, and go beyond their borders to counter-attack a foreign enemy," they should "exert their influence" to establish "the socialist system in these places". This being the official doctrine, it is obvious that no country sharing common boundaries with the Chinese Communists can ever be safe from their armed incursions or can be sure that its territory would not sooner or later be used for the "establishment of the socialist system". This doctrine of brutal force is manifestly a threat to international peace and cannot be looked upon with unconcern by the world community.
I believe that I have made it sufficiently clear that the Chinese Communist regime is tyrannical at home and violently aggressive abroad. Yet the Soviet Union has the effrontery to demand that this regime be given the seat of China. To yield to this demand is to betray the spirit, violate the letter and subvert the principles and purposes of the Charter.
The Chinese people, as I said from this rostrum on 4 October, have in fact repudiated the Communist regime. Speaking of the problem of Chinese refugees in Hongkong and Macao, I said among other things, this: "These men and women, for the most part young and ablebodied, are leaving behind their beloved ones and earthly possessions to seek refuge in a place where they know they are not wanted. It is more than mere hunger that they are running away from. Their decision to leave home can be accounted for only by their profound hatred of the Communist regime. By their action, they are asserting, in the clearest and strongest terms, their opposition to all that the Chinese Communist regime stands for. More than that, they are repudiating it. The mass exodus from the mainland has but one meaning: Where the Chinese people have a choice, they vote against Mao Tao-tung and Communist tyranny."
Now, Mr. President and Fellow Delegates, the United Nations was founded in the wake of an unprecedented world conflict. The founders had the memories of the Second World War fresh in their minds, and they wanted the United Nations, in the words of the Charter, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." To create conditions conducive to peace, the Charter enjoins its members to "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights" to respect justice and international law, and "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom".
These are the obligations which all member states have pledged themselves to carry out. It is not difficult to see why these are important. History bears witness to the fact that a regime that tramples upon the rights of men at home, that holds justice and international law in contempt, that has no concern for the well-being of its people, cannot be expected to respect the independence and freedom of other peoples.
These obligations constitute the basic requirements of membership in the Organization. This is what is meant by the word "obligations" referred to in Article 4 of the Charter. Indeed, the very existence of Article 4 indicates that while universality is a desirable goal, it is not the primary purpose of the Organization or the paramount consideration for its membership. The reason is not far to seek. If the United Nations is no more than a motley assemblage of members who have no deep conviction of shared values and interests and no feeling of trust and confidence in each other's purposes, then it certainly cannot preserve peace and security by the united strength of all its members.
There are those who freely acknowledge the ruthless and aggressive nature of the Chinese Communist regime, but who nevertheless argue that "the facts of international life" require its being seated in the United Nation. The regime, we are told, is in physical control of the Chinese mainland. It would be unrealistic to ignore its existence. Therefore, say these people, however one may deplore its tyrannical rule at home and aggressive behavior abroad, it is not expedient to keep it out of the United Nations.
This, I submit, is a dangerous argument. The "facts of international life", I am constrained to say, do not call for the seating of the Chinese Communist regime; they call for a contrary course of action. In 1940, Hitler was in control of much of Europe, but no one except a few arrant appeasers advocated international approval of Nazism or international recognition of Nazi conquest. The Chinese people on the mainland may have temporarily been deprived of their freedom, but they are far from being subdued. My Government stands as a beacon of hope for these voiceless millions who, if they can only be heard in this hall, regard my Government as the only Government of China. No one denies the existence of the Chinese Communist regime. But, can it be said that it represents the Chinese people, their wishes, their aspirations, their way of life? On the contrary, that regime is the enemy of all freedom-loving Chinese.
The Government and people I have the honor to represent fought on the side of the democracies in World War II, took an active part in the framing of the Charter, and have since fulfilled all their obligations in the United Nations and other international bodies. It is in recognition of their sacrifices in the last war and their contributions to the cause of peace that the Republic of China is a permanent member of the Security Council.
My Government, as the legally constituted Government of China, is firmly established on Chinese soil. It is dedicated to the task of restoring freedom to the millions of our people who are being enslaved by the Communist regime. It therefore represents not only the eleven million in the province of Taiwan, but Chinese people everywhere, including the 600 million on the mainland. Had it not been for this government, the cries of anguish of the enslaved millions under Communist domination would not have been heard in this Assembly.
As a loyal member of the United Nations, the Government and people of China have looked to this Organization to help them to resist aggression and to uphold international justice. As far back as 1949, my Government brought before the General Assembly an item entitled: "Threats to the political independence and territorial integrity of China and to the peace of the Far East, resulting from Soviet violations of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance of 14 August 1945 and from Soviet violations of the Charter of the United Nations."
After three sessions of debate, the General Assembly passed a resolution [505 (VI)] recognizing the fact that the Soviet Union had been in default of its treaty obligations towards China. Unfortunately, as in other cases of Communist aggression in the past decade, no effective step has been taken by the United Nations to redress the wrong of which my country is the victim. If the United Nations cannot do anything positive to right the wrong done to my people, it at least should not go out of its way to help the Chinese Communist regime to consolidate its tyranny and thereby perpetuate the enslavement of the Chinese people, by putting upon it the seal of international approval.
The United Nations, Mr. President, is in danger of being perverted to serve the interests of the powerful warmakers and international bullies. The Soviet bloc of nations are here not to achieve the purposes of the United Nations, but are here to frustrate them. They do not act as individual members dedicated to making the world a happier and safer place to live in; they act, on the contrary, as a disciplined unit to forward the objectives of international communism. It is they who have shaken the common man's confidence in the United Nations. If the United Nations is to regain this confidence and survive as a meaningful and effective agency for peace and progress, it cannot afford to strengthen the forces of evil and add to its membership a regime which is the very negation of everything the United Nations stands for. On this fateful issue, no nation can be neutral. If neutrality means indifference to what is right or wrong; if to Member States, respect for justice and human rights becomes a burden and not their inspiration; if the Charter were to be regarded only as a string of pious platitudes to cover a multitude of sins, and not a living guide to true peace, —then the future of the United Nations will be dark indeed. But I am firmly convinced that such is not the case. Being so convinced, I have no doubt how you, my Fellow Delegates, will vote on the question of Chinese representation.
Exercise of the Right of Reply on the Representation of China
Statement by Ambassador Liu Chieh to the XVII Session of the General Assembly, before the Plenary Meeting.
October 30, 1962
Mr. President,
I wish to take this opportunity to make a brief reply to those delegations which have taken the floor to advocate the admission of the Chinese Communists. They fall into two main groups: first, the Soviet Union and the East European countries and, second, some of the neutralist or non-aligned countries.
The Soviet representative, as far as I am able to discover, has advanced no new arguments. Significantly, however, he no longer dwelt upon, as in former years, the industrial and economic achievements or the "peace-loving" character of the Chinese Communists. Instead, he spoke of the impossibility of resolving urgent and complicated international problems without the participation of the Chinese Communists. At the same time, he re-stated the Soviet position that as long as the Chinese Communists are not in the United Nations, there can be no review of the Charter, no reorganization of the principal organs of the United Nations.
In regard to the first point, it is sufficient to point out that the problems with which the world is faced today have their origin in the cold war and that the cold war is the result of Communist expansionism. Therefore, so long as international Communism does not abandon its objective of world domination, the cold war will continue; and so long as the cold war continues, there will always be urgent and insoluble international problems. This has nothing to do with the so-called question of the representation of China. Indeed, as I have made it abundantly clear in my earlier statement, the participation of the Chinese Communists in the United Nations may well spell the ruin of the Organization.
As for the second point, it is even more untenable. To make the admission of the Chinese Communists a condition for Charter revision is, as my Delegation has more than once pointed out, blackmail, pure and simple. The question of China's representation is entirely irrelevant to the question of enlarging the principal organs of the United Nations. My Delegation has for years urged the desirability of enlarging these organs in order to reflect the increase in the membership of the United Nations. We have repeatedly pointed out that for this purpose the necessary amendments to the Charter involve only the numerical composition of existing organs and not the substantive parts of the Charter, and therefore may be effected without awaiting arrangements for a general conference. We also have emphasized the fact that the amending of the Charter under Article 108 does not require the prior consent of the Soviet Union or any of the permanent Members. It is even more inadmissible that such a procedure should await the admission of a regime which is in the first place not qualified to be admitted. The Assembly is certainly not going to let the Soviet Union dictate what it can or cannot do.
The East European delegations repeated one another ad nauseam. Their speeches, with slight variations, seemed to have come from the same script. I doubt if they really meant what they said or if what they said really reflected the views of their respective peoples. But I would like to point out to them that the cause of the Chinese people and the cause of freedom of the East European peoples are inextricably bound together. We are facing the same enemy on geographically different fronts. Just as the Chinese people on the mainland will eventually regain their freedom, so, I hope, will the captive peoples in Eastern Europe some day regain theirs.
Let me now turn to the neutralist delegations.
India has for some years played a prominent part in the debate on Chinese representation. This year, Mr. Krishna Menon is not with us. He is now in India directing the Indian army in a war with the same Chinese Communists on whose "peace-loving" qualities he had over the years lavished so much gratuitous praise.
This shattering experience of India confirms my Delegation's contention that good will is no defense against the dedicated wickedness of the Chinese Communists. The doctrine of force is rooted in Communist ideology, which calls for the overthrow of all non-Communist governments. The Chinese Communists have engaged in armed conflict with India, not just over a disputed boundary line, but as a part of their grand design on that sub-continent. In fact, they see the victory of Communism in Asia as inevitable. Their leaders have shown by word and deed that they intend to extend Communist dominion to all Asia and thence to the rest of the world. No amount of appeasement can deflect them from the path of military adventures. On the contrary, appeasement can only whet their appetite. The Indian Government should have known a long time ago that the so-called Panch Shila or "five principles of peaceful coexistence," to which the Chinese Communists pledged themselves in 1954 in their relations with India, was not worth the paper on which it was written.
The representative of Nepal saw no connection between Chinese military adventurism along the Indian border and the question of Chinese representation. He even tried to condone the use of violence to settle border disputes by saying that no nation has yet renounced the use of force "completely." This is a surprising argument, coming from the Foreign Minister of a country which shares common frontiers with China and which may some day find itself in the same predicament as India has found herself. It is downright unbelievable.
Another Asian representative with considerable eloquence and imagination, painted a glowing picture of the Chinese Communist power. He waxed lyrical over the Chinese Communist economic achievements, picturing the Chinese mainland as being "strewn with thousands of industrial plants" and as being converted "into a land of steel and petroleum." Evidently, the representative of Ceylon has not heard about the economic debacle that has taken place since 1959. Evidently, he did not know that the vast Chinese mainland is now in the grip of an unprecedented manmade famine and that millions of people are starving to death. Evidently, he did not know that the industrial plants he spoke of are now mostly idle because the agricultural crisis has made the supply of raw material difficult and because the under-fed and over-worked industrial workers are in no condition to produce efficiently. Evidently, he has not even read the lates pronouncements of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party belatedly admitting all is not well with their economic development.
In all sincerity, let me remind these Asian representatives in this Assembly that the fate of the Republic of China is closely bound up with the fate of all Asia. Our stand is for a free Asia, where all nations will live as good neighbors and all men can breathe the air of freedom. I appeal to them to face squarely the ugly realities of the world situation, because timidity and wishful thinking can lead only to mortal danger. Those who set out to appease the Communists in the belief that they are serving the interests of their own countries will find, when it is too late, they are doing nothing of the sort. On the contrary, they are in truth serving the interests of international Communism at the expense of their own countries.
I wish now to examine certain other arguments that have come up in the course of the debate.
One of these is "realism." It is said that it is unrealistic to ignore the interests of the 600 million Chinese people. The fact, however, is that nobody is ignoring them. Certainly the Government I have the honor to represent is not ignoring them. It is precisely because we do not ignore the interests of the 600 million people on the mainland that we have pledged ourselves to struggle for their freedom. It is precisely because their interests should not be ignored that the Chinese Communist regime, which has inflicted on them untold suffering and misery, must be kept out of the United Nations. The kind of "realism" advocated by the Soviet Union and its supporters is spurious realism; it would have the Assembly go out of its way to help the Chinese Communist regime to consolidate its tyranny and thereby perpetuate the enslavement of the Chinese people by putting upon that regime the seal of international approval. This kind of "realism" is not in the interests of the 600 million Chinese people; it only serves to strengthen the Communist influence in the United Nations.
We of China are on the side of "realism." But in our view, true realism means an attitude of mind which takes account of all the facts of a given situation and not of one or two facts only. True realism eschews illusions and wishful thinking, and turns its back on outside appearances and holds fast to what is actually the state of affairs in Mao's Red Regime.
Those who have a different meaning for Socialism are bound to reap a harvest of bitter disappointment. Since India is uppermost in our minds these days, I may perhaps remind the Assembly of what Prime Minister Nehru had to say only recently about the border conflict. Quote: "I want you all to realize the shock we suffered during the last week or so. We are getting out of touch with reality in a modern world. We are living in an artificial atmosphere of our own creation and we have been shaken out of it." Unquote.
No words can be a more forceful commentary on the so-called realism of those who want the Chinese Communists seated in the United Nations.
Another argument is the so-called principle of universality. Granting that universality is a desirable goal toward which the United Nations should move, it still does not mean that membership in the United Nations is open to all who care to claim it. Indeed, the very fact that the Charter lays down certain conditions for membership is sufficient proof that universality is not the paramount consideration for membership. The Charter even provides for the contingency of expelling a Member State which has persistently violated the principles contained in the Charter. To use the principle of universality as an argument for seating the Chinese Communists is to distort that principle and deprive the United Nations of the last shred of moral authority. Without moral authority, the United Nations would cease to be a meaningful agency for peace and progress.
A third argument that has frequently been advanced in support of the seating of the Chinese Communists is that countries with different social systems should be allowed to exist side by side. The fact is that the Soviet Union, dedicated as it is to burying all non-Communist governments, is the one who is really against the coexistence of countries with different social systems. To the Communists there can be coexistence only on Communist terms.
Another argument is this without the participation of the Chinese Communist regime, which has at its disposal vast armed forces, no agreement on disarmament could be effected, and, even if such agreement could be reached, it would not be of much use unless it were a party to it.
This seemingly persuasive argument does not in fact hold water. The failure of the disarmament talks has not been due to the absence of the Chinese Communists from the conference tables. The failure has been due to the unwillingness of the Soviet Union to agree to any adequate system of inspection. The Chinese Communists, with their posture of militancy, would be even a greater obstruction to the course of disarmament.
With the armament race forging ahead at an ever-accelerating pace, the world is indeed faced with an explosive situation. But the question is, who has been responsible for this dangerous state of affairs? There can be only one answer to this question: the Soviet Union must bear the responsibility.
When the Second World War came to an end in 1945, the free nations in their eagerness to return to normalcy quickly disbanded their armed forces and dismantled their military establishments. There was a genuine desire to cooperate with the Soviet Union to make the post-war world a happier place to live in. The general atmosphere among the free nations was one of relief and hope and genuine good will toward the Soviet people. But all this was soon dissipated by Soviet hostility. The rearmament of the free world was a response to the Soviet challenge. Therefore, the whole armament question is of Soviet making. To link the seating of the Chinese Communist regime with the question of disarmament is, to say the least, to confuse the issues. This cannot be accepted as a valid argument.
Mr. President, world peace is being threatened at this very moment by two international bullies, one of them responsible for the grave situation in the Caribbean and the other on the Indian border. And, yet, the first has the effrontery to propose that the second should be seated in this Organization, whose primary purpose is to preserve world peace and security and to prevent this very kind of unprincipled and ruthless use of force. The Soviet draft resolution, in its operative paragraphs, seeks the expulsion of the Republic of China and the seating of the Chinese Communists. These two paragraphs have one single purpose and therefore are inseparable. I agree with the Soviet delegate, there is only one seat for China in the United Nations. But I want to tell him that if any Member is subject to expulsion, that Member is the Soviet Union, under Article 6 of the Charter, for her persistent violation of the principles of the Charter, even as she was expelled from the League of Nations for her wanton aggression against a peaceful and helpless neighbor.
As for the Chinese Communists, no stretch of the imagination can ever make the deeds and words of Mao Tse-tung and his regime tally with the purposes and provisions of the Charter. That regime must be kept out of the United Nations, whether we look at the problem from the point of view of Article 4 of the Charter in regard to admission, or in the light of Resolution 396 (V), adopted by the General Assembly, relating to the recognition by the United Nations of the representation of a Member State. That resolution "recommends that, whenever more than one authority claims to be the government entitled to represent a Member State in the United Nations, and this question becomes the subject of controversy in the United Nations, the question should be considered in the light of the Purposes and Principles of the Charter and the circumstances of each case."
In connection with that Resolution, I had this to say at the time, and I quote: "Where recognition by an individual state is a matter of policy within its soveignty and may be motivated by trade or other reasons, recognition by the United Nations should be based on the larger considerations of the interests of the organization as a whole." The validity of my observation twelve years ago, I believe, has not diminished with the passage of time.
The Chinese people, Mr. President and Fellow Delegates, are facing tragic times, fateful times. We are struggling for the freedom of the Chinese people. Those of us who are still free will continue to struggle until freedom is restored to the enslaved millions on the mainland. That is the reason why the Soviet Union cannot tolerate my Delegation's presence in this hall. The Soviet Union wants to place the Chinese Communist regime in China's seat and thereby complete the political conquest of the Chinese people. The General Assembly certainly cannot bow to the Soviet demand and throw the noble principles in the Charter to the winds.