Roger Buckley, Valdo Ferretti, Neville Meaney and Ann Trotter

Published September 2001

---

Buckley describes how Britain took the independent step of recognizing the People's Republic of China, a step which led to problems about China being invited to the San Francisco conference. After China's entry into the war in Korea, Hong Kong's trade was squeezed through trade embargos imposed by the United States and its exposed security system was vulnerable, had it not been for the presence of the US 7th fleet in the Taiwan Straits. Ferretti shows that the leading ideas of Yoshida Shigeru on relations between Japan and the People's Republic of China did not change after the failure of the Dulles-Morrison Agreement as he continued to pursue normalization with the PRC. He had the idea of joining the Colombo Plan and entering the markets of Southeast Asia by establishing a preferential bilateral axis with Britain but this was ultimately rejected by Britain at the time of Yoshida's visit to Europe in 1954. Meaney describes External Affairs Minister Percy Spender's views on the need for a Pacific Pact. When it became clear from discussions with Dulles early in 1951 that the treaty with Japan would not be punitive or restrict her rearming, Australia called for some sort of security agreement with the United States. This came to fruition as the ANZUS Pact which was signed and ratified more or less simultaneously with the San Francisco treaty. Trotter discusses New Zealand's reaction to the Australian initiative over the need for a security pact. While she had considerable reservations, most notably over relations with Britain, she appreciated the need for security guarantees and joined the ANZUS Pact.