The origin and role of the Sino -US ambassador -level talks

During the Cold War, from 1955 to 1970, China and the United States had held a total of 15 years and a total of 136 ambassadors in Geneva and Warsaw without diplomatic relations. During the period when China and the United States are isolated and hostile, the Sino -US ambassador -level talks are the only channel for the two countries to conduct official contact. Although the talks did not reach any agreement to solve the substantial issue of bilateral relations, it played a positive role in reducing misunderstandings between China and the United States, and accumulated conditions for the bonus of the two countries in the early 1970s.

Sino -US Ambassador -level talks started at the Geneva Conference in 1954. Soon after the Korean War was just over, China and the United States were in a sharp and opposed state. The U.S. government continues to adopt hostile China policies, and uses various means such as politics and diplomacy to prevent China from restinging the legal seat in the United Nations and blocking China economically. However, China has been recognized by the international community as a political country and has a stronger and strong influence on the Asia -Pacific region. It is unrealistic to avoid establishing a direct connection with China. This is the fundamental reason why the United States has to negotiate with China.

During the Geneva meeting, the United Kingdom proposed to mediate the Sino -US representative talks. Zhou Enlai, then the head of the Chinese delegation, immediately submitted a suggestion to the CPC Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and was approved soon. From June 5th to June 21st, 1954, representatives of China and the United States held four talks on the issue of citizens' return to China. Although the talks have not achieved any results, the two parties have agreed to conduct consular talks in Geneva from September.

The consular talks lasted until July 15, 1955, and a total of 17 times were held. The negotiations still did not achieve any results, but created conditions for the subsequent ambassador -level negotiations and became the beginning of the official contact between China and the United States.

In July 1955, under the mediation of the British side, China and the United States decided to raise talks from the consular level to the ambassador. On August 1, the Sino -US ambassador -level talks was held in the National Lianlian Building in Geneva. The Chinese representative is the ambassador to Poland, Wang Bingnan, and the US representative is Johnson, the ambassador to the Czechos Luozlovakia. The two sides reached an agreement on the agenda, that is, to solve the problem of civilians returning to China, and discuss other issues in the second stage. From August 1st to September 10th, the first stage lasted 40 days. A total of 14 negotiations were negotiated. Finally, an agreement on civilians returned to China during the talks on September 10. The reach of the agreement directly contributed to more than 130 scientists including Qian Xuesen, Li Zhengwu, Guo Yonghuai, and Wang Chengshu returned to the motherland. They played a very important role in the development of the New China ’s scientific cause and national defense industry. On September 20, 1955, the talks entered the second stage. As the United States adopted a perfunctory attitude, it was constantly entangled on the issue of the first issue that had been resolved, which made the talks difficult. In the 73rd talks of the United States in the 73rd talks in December 1957, officials who are not ambassadors talk to China. In this regard, China stated that he would no longer continue to negotiate with the United States. The unilateral downgrade in the United States has led Sino -US talks from the deadlock to interrupt. From September 15, 1958, the Sino -US ambassador -level talks recovered in Warsaw, but the negotiations have not achieved any results. In this regard, Zhou Enlai commented at a meeting at the end of the 1950s: "The Sino -US ambassador -level talks have not achieved substantial results so far, but after all, we have made specific constructive contacts on the problems of the two countries. A Qian Xuesen. For this incident, talks are also worthwhile and valuable. "

Sino -US ambassador -level talks are a "buffer" to control the upgrade of crisis and prevent direct conflict between the two parties. The tension between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait area is the main end of Sino -US relations and core contradictions, and it is also a key obstacle to the Sino -US ambassador negotiations that cannot achieve progress. Since the Seventh Fleet entered the Taiwan Strait in June 1950, the US government regarded Taiwan as a strategic base for curbing China. In February 1953, the Eisenhower government, which was just on stage, announced that the United States will no longer implement a "isolation" policy on the Taiwan Strait, and began to implement the so -called "release of Jiangs out" to encourage and support the Kuomintang army's military attacks and disturbances on mainland China. The Taiwan Strait crisis broke out in the 1950s. The reason why the Taiwan Strait crisis has not evolved into a direct military conflict is that one important reason is that the Sino -US ambassador talks provides a relatively effective information transmission channel for both parties, so that the two parties can understand each other's policy intentions. , Avoid misunderstanding. This effect is most prominent in the second Taiwan Strait crisis. On August 23, 1958, the People's Liberation Army launched large -scale shells on the coastal islands of Fujian and other Fujian coastal islands. The United States immediately strengthened its military deployment in the Taiwan Strait area, but the United States was also worried that it would be dragged into the war. The Eisenhower government issued a statement on September 4 that it threatened to expand the defense of the United States in the Taiwan Strait to Kinmen and Matsu, such as Kinmen, Matsu, and said that the United States would not give up the hope of peaceful negotiations. On the same day, Mao Zedong proposed at the Standing Committee of the Politburo that it was ready to restore the Sino -US talks to cooperate with the struggle of the Fujian front line. Two days later, Zhou Enlai issued a statement that condemned the United States for serious war provocations to China. At the same time, it was announced that in view of the United States, the Chinese government had assigned ambassador representatives, and the Chinese government was preparing to restore ambassador talks between the two countries. On September 15, the Sino -US ambassador -level talks recovered in Warsaw. During the talks, China learned that the United States attempted to force Chiang Kai -shek to abandon Golden Gate and Matsu, causing the two sides of the strait to separate permanently. In addition, China also stated to the United States that it does not acknowledge that any foreign forces have the right to interfere with China's internal affairs and oppose any plot that may cause "two China" or "one China and one". Sino -US ambassador -level talks are the conditions for the normalization of Sino -US relations. On February 20, 1970, the last Sino -US ambassador -level talks was held in the US Embassy in Poland. Later, due to the beginning of the normalization of Sino -US relations, China and the United States jointly decided that the Warsaw channels were no longer used, and the ambassador talks withdrew from the stage of history. When evaluating the role of Sino -US Ambassador -level talks on Sino -US relations, one view that because the two parties did not put forward any new suggestions in the talks, their role in Sino -US relations was small. Kissinger wrote in the memoir that the Sino -US ambassador -level talks are "invalid" and "can't say a result". In his opinion, major breakthroughs in China have bypassed the ambassador -level talks, because the Nixon government shifted its main problems from Taiwan to a more broad geopolitical issue, that is, to deal with Soviet threats. However, this view ignored an important fact that China and the United States have established a minimum mutual trust in the interaction between China and the United States in more than a decade of restricting crisis and eased regional tensions. The establishment of mutual trust not only depends on the establishment and effective operation of information transmission channels, but also requires time to verify each other's diplomatic commitments or intentions. Therefore, if there is no ambassador -level talks, this information communication channel and long -term negotiation confrontation, China and the United States may have direct military conflicts in many crises in the 1950s and 1960s, and it is impossible to achieve major breakthroughs in Sino -US relations.

China and the United States have passed the information through the Sino -US ambassador -level talks, eliminating a crisis that may occur in the Taiwan Strait. In 1962, the Chiang Kai -shek authorities in Taiwan were preparing to use the economic difficulties facing mainland China to implement the "counterattack" military operations. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China instructed Wang Bingnan to meet Car Port urgently to report the situation to the United States, and asked him to make a clear statement. The United States immediately stated that according to the "existing treaty obligations", Chiang Kai -shek could not take offensive operations on the mainland without the support of the United States, and the United States would not support this action. This is a commitment made by Chiang Kai -shek in the United States when signing the so -called common defense treaty with the Taiwan authorities in 1954. The incident showed that the United States was unwilling to have a military conflict with mainland China for the sake of Chiang Kai -shek. Finding the top card in the United States was conducive to creating conditions for the normalization of Sino -US relations.

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The article is published in the "Learning Times" August 5, 2022 Edition 8 edition

Editor in this issue: Wang Xue

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