How communist China negotiates

The involvement of the People's Republic of China in world affairs. is already considerable, and will increase. The Peking government now has diplomatic relations with over forty-five countries; it has negotiated border treaties or agreements, and treaties or agreements of friendship, with a number of countries.

The Peking government's most notable negotiation thus far has been the protracted conference on Laos of 1961-1962, which re sulted in the only international agreement as yet to have been signed by both the Secretary of State of the United States and the Foreign Minister of the Peking government. The records of the Laos Con ference have not yet been published. Nor has the inside story of the negotiations become widely known, because the crucial issues of the conference were worked out in a series of unpublicized meetings among the heads of six of the delegations at the conference-the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Communist China, France, and India. It was my good fortune to be one of the six delegates who participated in these core negotiations on Laos.

Clearly, the intricate and instructive story of the Laos negotiations should be told and should be analyzed in the context of the Chinese Communist theory of international relations. Such is the primary purpose of this book. To provide a broader perspective, I have also included general observations on the nature of the Chinese presence at international conferences and on the background and training of the Peking government's negotiators. Another supplementary chapter briefly analyzes three bilateral negotiations which led to agreements between the Peking government and three Asian states. These negotiations further reveal China's international conduct, particularly in dealings involving smaller states with which China has had tra ditional ties.