Comments and Revisions on Two Documents Concerning Sino-Indian Relations
(May 13 and 15, 1959)

One

I have added a paragraph. Please consider whether it is appropriate, or perhaps we can discuss it.

Mao Zedong
4 a.m., May 13

(Printed according to the manuscript)

Two

Generally speaking, India is a friendly country to China. It has been so for more than a thousand years, and we believe it will be so for the next one thousand, ten thousand years. The enemies of the Chinese people are in the East. The U.S. imperialists have many military bases in Taiwan, in South Korea, in Japan, and in the Philippines, all directed against China. China's main attention and policy of struggle are in the East, in the West Pacific region, against the vicious and aggressive U.S. imperialism, and not in India, not in any country in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Although the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan have joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which is aimed at China, we still do not treat these three countries as our main enemies; our main enemy is U.S. imperialism. India has not joined the Southeast Asia Treaty; India is not our adversary, but our friend. China will not be so foolish as to make an enemy of the United States in the East and also make an enemy of India in the West. The suppression of the rebellion in Tibet and the implementation of democratic reforms will not in the least threaten India. You just wait and see. "A long road tests a horse's strength, a long time reveals a person's heart" (a Chinese saying). In the next three, five, ten, twenty, one hundred years, ... you will ultimately understand whether the relationship between China's Tibet region and India is friendly or hostile. We cannot have two focal points. We cannot treat friends as enemies. This is our national policy. The quarrel between our two countries over the past few years, especially in the last three months, is merely an episode in the thousands and tens of thousands of years of friendly relations between our two countries. It is not worth the great alarm of the broad masses of the people and the government authorities of our two countries. The words we said in the preceding paragraphs of this text, those principled stands, those lines of right and wrong, must be said again; without saying them, the current differences between our two countries cannot be resolved. But the scope to which those words refer is only temporary and partial—that is, it pertains only to a temporary difference between our two countries over the one region of Tibet. Indian friends, what are your thoughts? Will you agree with this way of thinking of ours? Regarding the viewpoint that China's main attention can only be placed on China's East, and cannot and need not be placed on China's Southwest, our country's leader, Chairman Mao Zedong, has spoken with the former Indian Ambassador to China, Mr. Nehru, on many occasions. Ambassador Nehru was very able to understand and appreciate this point. We do not know whether the former Indian Ambassador conveyed these words to the Indian authorities. Friends, as we see it, you also cannot have two fronts, can you? If that is the case, then the meeting point for our two sides is here. Please consider it. Please allow me to take this opportunity to send my greetings to the Indian leader, Mr. Nehru.

(Printed according to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China document)
(With Mao Zedong's manuscript)

Three

Return immediately to Zhou and Chen for their review and action.
Mao
The 15th

Four

Premier, Comrade Chen Yi:

Please consider distributing the Indian Ministry of External Affairs' communication of April 26 and our Ministry of Foreign Affairs' communication of May 16 to all embassies abroad and to the Party committees of all provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions at home (including the Tibet Work Committee), and also printing and distributing them to all comrades in Beijing as previously instructed, so that they may understand the Central Committee's policy on Sino-Indian relations.

Also, have Ambassador Pan find Comrade Ghosh and have him read these two documents once or twice, or give them to him directly.

Also, convene the ambassadors of the fraternal countries in one place and read and explain these two documents to them.

Please consider whether this is feasible and act at your discretion.

Mao Zedong
6 p.m., May 15

Also, have Chen Jiakang find Ambassador Nehru and read the two documents to him; this can be delayed for a few days.

(Printed according to the manuscript)