China Can Have Only One Representative In The United Nations

Date: 1961-06
Source: en:FLP-Diplomacy
CHINA CAN HAVE ONLY ONE REPRESENTATIVE
IN THE UNITED NATIONS*
(June 13, 1961)
Date: 1961-06-13
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China.

Chairman Mao Zedong (hereinafter referred to as Mao): When the
President came last time, I said that we would not join the United Nations,
because Chiang Kai-shek's representative was in it. This has something to do
with the Taiwan question. So long as Chiang Kai-shek's representative is in
the United Nations, we will not enter it. We have been waiting for 11 years
and it does not matter if we wait for another 11 years or longer. We are not
eager to enter the United Nations. You do not have a U.N. question, but a
West Irian question, which is different from ours.
President Sukarno (hereinafter referred to as Sukarno): At present there
are two positions on the question of China's entering the United Nations. One
proposes that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan merge and enter the United
Nations as one country, and the other proposes that China enter the United
Nations first and then struggle with friends in the U.N. to drive out Chiang
Kai-shek's representative in the U.N. and make Taiwan return to China. Not
long ago, when I talked with Marshal Chen Yi, I told him about the two
positions and explained that it was not Indonesia's stand. Anyway, Marshal
Chen Yi explicitly expressed that only the former was acceptable; China would
like to do it in one step instead of two.
Mao: Only in one step.
Sukarno: I should like to give very good assistance in the struggle to realize
your one-step idea.
Mao: If Taiwan is handed back to China, China will join the United
Nations. If Taiwan is not considered a country and does not have a central
government and is returned to China, the question of its social system may
wait for talks in the future. We shall allow Taiwan to keep its social system,
which will be decided by the people in Taiwan.
* These are excerpts from Mao Zedong's talk with President Sukarno of Indonesia.
Sukarno: Is it like the way the Soviet Union and Ukraine are in the United
Nations?
Mao: Not the same.
Sukarno: I did not mean the social system, but whether it could be the
same as the Soviet Union and Ukraine having two representatives in the
United Nations.
Mao: China can have only one representative in the United Nations.
Ukraine and Belorussia having representatives in the U.N. has a historical
background. After the Second World War Ukraine and Belorussia entered the
U.N. and the Soviet Union was also in the U.N. That is how the Soviet Union
has three seats in the United Nations. At that time the Soviet Union ran into
many difficulties and it had to do so. Nevertheless, there was no question of
two Soviet Unions.
(From the verbatim record)