Legitimate Status in the Security Council
Telegram on Issuing a Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(January 7, 1950)

Enlai, and the Central Committee:

At 1:00 a.m. today (the 7th), Vyshinsky [1] came to discuss three matters:

(1) Our request for the purchase of aviation gasoline can be met.
(2) Our request for surveying and repairing the dam of the Xiaofengman Hydropower Station can be met. The reply letters regarding the above two matters can be delivered to me tomorrow (the 8th).
(3) He suggested that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs send a statement to the United Nations Security Council, denying the continued legitimacy of the former Kuomintang government representative, Jiang Tingfu, as the Chinese representative in the Security Council. Vyshinsky said that if China issues this statement, the Soviet Union is prepared to take an action, namely, if Jiang Tingfu remains in the Security Council as the Chinese representative (it is said he is also to serve as the president of the Security Council this year), the Soviet Union will refuse to attend the Security Council. Vyshinsky sought my opinion on this. I immediately expressed that China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could issue such a statement. I also said that my telegram would arrive in Beijing on January 7, and the statement signed by Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could be issued on January 8 or January 9. I asked him whether, in addition to sending this statement to the United Nations Security Council and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, it should also be sent simultaneously to the Security Council member states such as the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and France. He said it could be sent, and the Soviet Union could then act based on China’s telegram. He stated that he was seeking my opinion on this matter in his capacity as foreign minister.

[1] Vyshinsky, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union.