France: Round 1 to Peking

When Charles de Gaulle recognized Red China last month, France insisted that no conditions to break off diplomatic relations with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese government were attached to the agreement. De Gaulle was obviously convinced that the move would be such a slap in the face to Chiang that he would initiate a diplomatic break himself. On the advice of the U.S., however, Chiang let De Gaulle stew. To France’s embarrassment, Peking then almost immediately began to pressure Paris to withdraw recognition of Formosa.

Last week, in an effort to extricate himself from his embarrassing predicament, De Gaulle was forced to twist Chiang’s arm. In Taipei, France’s charge d’affaires, Pierre Salade, called, at his own request, on the Nationalist Foreign Minister and told him that when the Red Chinese arrived in Paris, the Formosan diplomatic mission would “have lost its raison d’etre.” Asked if this meant that recognition would then be withdrawn, Salade said yes. Within hours, the Nationalist Cabinet met in emergency session and broke off relations with France—thus allowing De Gaulle, in the strictest sense of the word, to honor his pledge not to break with Chiang. But the diplomatic niceties did not conceal the fact that in Round 1 with Peking De Gaulle had come a cropper.