Establishment of Sino-French Diplomatic Relations

Background

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, France continued to recognise the Republic of China government on Taiwan. During the 1954 Geneva Conference, French Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pierre Mendès France met Zhou Enlai at the Chinese embassy in Switzerland on 19 June, the first time the two sides discussed establishing relations. According to Zhang Jinling of the Institute of European Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhou told a French parliamentary delegation in November 1955 that China recognised one France and France should likewise recognise one China; in May 1957 former French Prime Minister Edgar Faure, visiting in a private capacity, was received by Mao Zedong. Charles de Gaulle became the first President of the Fifth Republic in January 1959. Beijing had regarded France's war in Algeria as an obstacle to relations; that obstacle was removed when France ended the Algerian War in 1962.

Faure's Visit and the "Main Points of Premier Zhou Enlai's Remarks"

On 20 August 1963 Faure called on Ambassador Li Qingquan at the Chinese embassy in Switzerland and asked to visit China in a personal capacity; an invitation was issued in the name of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs. De Gaulle wanted Faure to go as his representative and gave him a handwritten letter saying, "I fully trust everything you will say and hear"; China's Foreign Ministry describes the letter as "in fact written to the Chinese leaders". Faure arrived in Beijing on 22 October and held six rounds of talks with Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi in Beijing and Shanghai.

Taiwan was the crux of the talks. According to Zhang, Faure said it was difficult for France to cut all ties with Taiwan because de Gaulle had not forgotten standing with Chiang Kai-shek during the war; Zhou replied with a hypothetical foreign-backed regime opposed to de Gaulle, saying China would not on that account withhold recognition from the French government or "recognise both", and answered "impossible" to the idea of France keeping a low-ranking consular official on Taiwan. In early November (accounts give 2 or 3 November), the Chinese side set out a plan for direct recognition in a written document titled "Main Points of Premier Zhou Enlai's Remarks": France would send a note recognising the PRC government and proposing immediate relations and an exchange of ambassadors, China would reply welcoming it, and both notes would be published simultaneously. According to Ma Baofeng, a former counsellor in the Foreign Ministry's Protocol Department, the Chinese side also stated a "tacit understanding" on three points: France would recognise only the PRC government as the sole legal government representing the Chinese people; France would support the PRC's legitimate rights and status in the United Nations; and when Taipei withdrew its diplomatic mission from France, France would withdraw its own from Taiwan. Faure deleted wording in the first point that France would explicitly "no longer recognise" the authorities on Taiwan, substituting that this "automatically implies" the status no longer belonged to the government on Taiwan.

The Bern Negotiations and the Joint Communiqué

According to Ma, de Gaulle approved after hearing Faure's report on 29 November; from 12 December Jacques de Beaumarchais, head of the French Foreign Ministry's European Department, negotiated the communiqué's wording and timing with Li Qingquan in Switzerland. China's Foreign Ministry says the two sides finally agreed to announce relations first, with China issuing a statement on "one China" that France would tacitly accept. At 11:00 GMT on 27 January 1964 the two governments simultaneously released a joint communiqué: "The Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the French Republic have decided by common agreement to establish diplomatic relations. The two governments have agreed for this purpose to appoint ambassadors within three months." The next day the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the Chinese government had reached the agreement as the sole legal government representing the entire Chinese people, that recognising a new government of a country "self-evidently means" no longer recognising the overthrown old ruling group, and reaffirming that Taiwan is Chinese territory.

On 31 January de Gaulle explained the decision at a press conference at the Élysée Palace. He spoke of "the inevitable difference of national policies" between the Soviet Union and China and said France "must be able to hear China directly"; at the same time he said the decision implied no approval whatsoever of the political system governing China, that France "simply recognises the world as it is", and that other governments still holding back would "sooner or later" follow its example.

Taiwan and the American Reaction

Declassified US records show that on 18 January Secretary of State Dean Rusk called in the Republic of China's ambassador, Tsiang Tingfu, telling him that Washington regarded de Gaulle's action as "almost intolerable", had lodged a strong protest with France, and advised Taipei to take no immediate retaliatory action and not to break with France first, so as to put Beijing "to maximum test". According to Ma, Chiang Kai-shek had written to de Gaulle on 24 December 1963; de Gaulle later sent Zinovy Pechkoff, his former ambassador in Chongqing, to Taipei to explain France's position to Chiang.

On 10 February the French chargé d'affaires in Taipei, Pierre Salade, told ROC Foreign Minister Shen Chang-huan orally that once Beijing's chargé arrived in Paris France would regard him as the representative of China, and the ROC mission in France would lose its raison d'être. Chiang told US Ambassador Jerauld Wright the same day that relations had been terminated by this French communication. The ROC Foreign Ministry records the break as 10 February 1964, with the mission closed on 12 February. The State Department afterwards expressed disappointment that Taipei's announcement had failed to put the onus for the break clearly on France. The first French ambassador to China, Lucien Paye, arrived in Beijing on 27 May, and the first Chinese ambassador to France, Huang Zhen, took up his post on 2 June.

Impact and Assessments

The historian Garret Martin notes that this was the first time since 1950 that a major power had recognised the PRC. China's Foreign Ministry says Western media called the event "a sudden diplomatic nuclear explosion". On 30 January Mao Zedong received a French parliamentary delegation and said China and France shared two fundamental points: opposing bullying by great powers, and exchanges in commerce and culture. According to Zhang, the first French technology exhibition opened in Beijing in September 1964; according to Ma, several African countries established relations with China that year, and Italy and Austria agreed with China to set up trade offices in each other's countries.