Comment on the Issue of Replying to Birthday Congratulatory Telegrams
(December 30, 1951)

Comrade Wang Bingnan[1] of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Please check whether, after I sent a congratulatory telegram for Stalin’s birthday, there was a telegram of thanks in reply. If there was, then this telegram[2] may be sent; if there was none, then it should not be sent. The same applies to Romania.

Mao Zedong
December 30

[1] Wang Bingnan, then serving as Director of the General Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[2] Refers to the telegrams of thanks drafted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on behalf of Mao Zedong in response to the birthday congratulatory telegrams from Stalin and from Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party.