Abstract
On 1 October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Some three months later on 6 January 1950 the British government accorded diplomatic recognition to the new Chinese government. The decision of recognition, reached earlier by the Cabinet on 15 December 1949, was a very difficult decision for British policy-makers. Obviously London’s stance towards the newly formed Beijing government would directly affect British interests in China, indirectly, but equally important, it would also affect Britain’s position in colonial territories in Southeast Asia. For policy-makers in London all these concerns were further complicated by the prevailing Cold War climate; the communisation of China was a serious problem which had to be considered in the light of not only Britain’s direct interests in East Asia, but also its wider international repercussions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J. Melby, The Mandate of Heaven (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968) p. 271.
For an account of the Chinese civil war see Suzanne Pepper, Civil War in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).
The British government’s traditional attitude of recognizing the facts, however should not be regarded as an absolute principle. See Malcolm Shaw, International Law (Kent: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977) p. 173.
A general discussion of legal arguments concerning the recognition of states and governments can be found in I. Brown, Principles of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), Chapter V, pp. 89–108.
See also P. Calvert, Revolution and International Politics (London: Frances Pinter, 1984).
A detailed account of the incident can be found in Lawrence Earl, Yangtze Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst (London: George Harrap, 1950).
Reissued in 1980. An account from the Chinese perspective is Kang Moujiao, ‘The Amethyst Incident’ [Yingjian Zishuijinghao Shijian] in Pei Jianzhang et al. (eds) op. cit., pp. 33–46.
Noel Barber, The Fall of Shanghai (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1979) p. 164; private correspondence of Mr and Mrs Oakeshott, by kind permission of Mrs Jill Oakeshott.
CAB 134 288 FE(0)(49)63, Hong Kong to Colonial Office, 10 August 1949. The message was passed on to the governor from a former British Council representative in Beijing, Fitzgerald, who said that the message came from an Australian journalist, Michael Keon. But Fitzgerald also said two months earlier Zhou’s private secretary had asked him to meet Zhou and he would only be allowed to refer to Zhou as a ‘very high communist official’. The Americans also received a similar message. See also Nancy Tucker, Patter in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Controversy, 1949–50 (New York: Columbia University Press 1983) p. 48.
G. T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little Brown, 1971);
M. H. Halperin with the assistance of P. Clapp and A. Kantor, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington: The Brookings Institute, 1974).
Alexander Grantham, Via Ports from Hong Kong to Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965) p. 139.
Alan Sked and Chris Cook, Post-War Britain: A Political History (Brighton: Harvester, 1979) p. 15, p. 24.
Kenneth Morgan, Labour in Power, 1945–1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 46.
Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography (London: Odhams, 1960) p. 253;
Kenneth Younger interview transcript, Nuffield College, Oxford, pp. 10–11, quoted in Morgan, Labour in Power, p. 61.
For discussions about the government’s news machinery see M. Cockerell, P. Henessy, D. Walker, Sources Close to the Prime Minister (London: Macmillan, 1984) Chapter 4.
K. Younger, ‘Public Opinion and Foreign Policy’, British Journal of Sociology, 6 (June, 1955), p. 169.
Some studies of the role of public opinion in foreign policy are: B. C. Cohen, The Public’s Impact on Foreign Policy (Boston: Little Brown, 1973);
W. L. Lederer, Nation of Sheep, New York: W.W. Norton, 1961).
A study of the British media and foreign affairs is P. Elliott and P. Golding ‘The News Media and Foreign Affairs’ in R. Boardman and A. J. R. Groom, The Management of Britain’s External Relations (London: Macmillan, 1973) chapter 13.
For the role of the China lobby, see Ross Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).
An account of the China Association’s history and its relations with the Foreign Office at the end of the 19th century is: N. A. Pelcovits, Old China Hands and the Foreign Office (New York: King’s Crown, 1948).
L. Jensen, Explaining Foreign Office (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1982) p. 139.
See E. Barker, The British Between the Superpowers, 1947–50 (London: Macmillan, 1983) p. 169.
Walter LaFaber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–80, 4th edn, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980) pp. 50–59.
For a study of the US problems in China see Nancy Tucker, Pattern in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy 1949–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).
Memorandum by Charlton Ogburn Jr. of the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs: Decisions Reached by Consensus at the Meetings With the Secretary and the Consultants on the Far East, 2 November 1949; Memorandum by Troy L. Perkins, Office of Chinese Affairs, 5 November 1949, FRUS, 1949, Vol. IX, pp. 160–162; pp. 168Ű. An account of American thinking on the recognition question is Nancy Tucker, Pattern in the Dust, op. cit.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Toward Freedom: The Autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958) p. 368.
For accounts of India’s attitude towards the formation of the PRC see P. C. Chakravarti, India’s China Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962).
Nehru’s remark to the Indian Parliament in N. Jetly, India-China Relations, 1947–1977: A Study of Parliament’s Role in the Making of Foreign Policy (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1979), p. 11.
Mrs Pandit’s remarks see V. L. Pandit, The Scope of Happiness: a personal memoir (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979) p. 266.
Records of the Commonwealth High Commissioners’ meeting are in F0371 75822 F17330/1023/10. For a full discussion of the Canada’s policy towards the PRC see Paul M. Evans and B. Michael Frolic (eds), Reluctant Adversaries: Canada and the People’s Republic of China, 1949–1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), see especially Stephen Beecroft’s chapter, ‘Canadian Policy Towards China, 1949–1957: The Recognition Question’.
On Australia’s position see H. S. Albinski, Australian Policies and Attitudes Toward China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).
A discussion of Pakistan’s position is in J. P. Jain, China Pakistan and Bangladesh (New Delhi: Radiant, 1974).
For Ceylon’s position see L. M. Jacob, ‘Sri Lanka-China Relations’ in Ramakant (ed.), China and South Asia, New Delhi: Radiant, 1988), pp. 155–160.
FE(0)(49)78, Cf1B 134 288, Far Eastern (Official) Committee papers, 2 December 1949. The Dutch government’s problems in Indonesia has been discussed in G. M. Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952).
French Aide Memoire, 2 February 1949, CAB134 287 F.E.(0)(49) 9, 24 February 1949. An account of the difficulties France faced in Indo-China can be found in D. Lancaster, The Emancipation of French Indochina (London: Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1961).
F0371 75823 F17467/1023/10, French Aide Memoire, 12 November 1949. In fact the arrival of Chinese Communist forces at the Sino-Vietnamese border in December 1949 had an important impact on the Indochina War. See J. Taylor, China and Southeast Asia: Peking Relations with Revolutionary Movements (New York: Praeger, 1976) p. 4.
O. E. Clubb, China and Russia: The ‘Great Game’ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971) p. 380.
CAB 129/32 CP(49)180, 23 August 1949, Annex A. For a fuller discussion of Western expectation of Chinese ‘Titoism’ see B. Heuser, Western ‘Containment Policies in the Cold War: The Yugoslav Case, 1948–53 (London: Routledge, 1989) pp. 70–75.
F0371 75816 F14782 1 October 1949; F15283, Stevenson to Foreign Office, 12 October 1949; 13 October 1949. Legally speaking the terminology of official communications or declaration of recognition can take different forms without using the term recognition. Ultimately it depends on the intention of the government concerned. I. Brown, Principles of Public International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979) p. 93–4.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1992 James Tuck-Hong Tang
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tang, J.TH. (1992). The Decision of Recognition. In: Britain’s Encounter with Revolutionary China, 1949–54. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22349-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22349-7_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-22351-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22349-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)