Читать книгу CHINA BOYS: How U.S. Relations With the PRC Began and Grew. A Personal Memoir - Nicholas MD Platt - Страница 42

These years also marked China’s worldwide campaign to replace Taiwan as China’s representative in the United Nations. We reported extensively on Beijing’s progress, as country after country recognized the People’s Republic and broke formal ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan. As early as December 1969, we were asked for our views on what kind of UN member the PRC would make.

We replied in a memorandum that UN membership would not tame the PRC but would force its representatives to exercise discipline. As a Security Council member, we guessed that Beijing would not be a helpful influence on peacekeeping but would be less negative than many observers now thought. Beijing would champion the underdog against the superpowers and generate a larger number of Security Council meetings, but it would be careful in exercising its veto, assessing net impacts as other countries did.

We thought the PRC would be a baleful influence in the General Assembly for the former colonial powers and those like the United States that had bases overseas. It would oppose waste, slipshod procedures, and high-cost measures, and lobby for larger representation on the Secretariat. We estimated that China would observe our security and espionage rules sufficiently to avoid being thrown out of New York. The PRC presence at the UN would provide a convenient point of contact for the U.S. government. Perhaps most significant for U.S. diplomats who devoted months each year to lobbying in capitals worldwide on the issue, the Chinese representation question would be over, although Beijing would maintain pressure to prevent Taiwan’s participation throughout the UN system.

The vote that seated the PRC in the UN occurred in October 1971 and helped set the stage for Nixon’s visit in February 1972.