104 { China’s Quest
peacefully. China would strive for a peaceful liberation, “conditions permit-
ting.” This was the first time Beijing had publicly mentioned the possibility of
peaceful liberation of Taiwan.^27 It was intended to signal to Washington that
US disengagement from Taiwan would not necessarily be followed by an im-
mediate PLA attack, and to signal Taipei that Beijing was willing to negotiate
the terms of Taiwan’s integration into the PRC. Zhou indicated to the United
States, via the British chargé in Beijing, that the basic purpose of negotiations
with the United States would be to reduce or eliminate tension in the Taiwan
Strait. China was willing to negotiate with the KMT regime on Taiwan, but
would do that separately from talks with the United States.
In July, Washington informed Beijing, again via the British, that the United
States was prepared for talks, and proposed that talks between representatives
at the ambassadorial level be held in Geneva. Beijing agreed. Beijing expected
that the central topic of those talks would be the relaxation and elimina-
tion of Sino-American tension in the Taiwan Strait. Significant changes in
US policy toward the PRC were anticipated. Beijing also anticipated that the
ambassadorial-level talks would lead fairly quickly to higher, ministerial-level
talks (between Zhou and John Foster Dulles), which the MFA projected for
November 1955.^28 Those ministerial-level talks would then lead to a relaxation
and/or elimination of tension between the PRC and the United States in the
Taiwan Strait, with the possibility of the elimination of the danger of war
once the United States returned to its pre-1950 policy of handling Taiwan as
an internal affair of China.
The first US-PRC meeting occurred on August 1, once again between Wang
Bingnan and U. Alexis Johnson. Two days before the talks opened, Zhou Enlai
in a report on foreign policy to the NPC reiterated the key themes: the people
of China and the United States were friendly toward each other, China did
not want a war with the United States, and China was willing to use “peaceful
liberation” of Taiwan, “conditions permitting.” The way to achieve these
objectives, of course, was for the United States to withdraw from the Taiwan
problem. On the eve of the talks, Zhou was quite optimistic about achieving
improvements in ties with the United States.^29
Beijing’s hopes were disappointed. The Americans were not interested
in washing their hands of Taiwan. From the perspective of the Eisenhower
administration, Nationalist China had become a very important part of the
strong containment structure built by the United States against expansion-
ist Communist China.^30 The United States demanded that Beijing agree to
limit itself to use of nonmilitary means toward Taiwan. Adding insult to
injury, Washington proposed that this be done in the form of an agreement
to that effect with the United States. These ideas were anathema to Beijing.
As it turned out, the sole interest shared by the two sides was in securing the
release of their respective nationals. An agreement to this effect was signed
on September 10, 1955, at the fourteenth round of talks. This was the only