Monday, 8 September

At seven in the morning I went to the National Government Memorial Week service. I returned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Deputy Minister Qian Tai. During Memorial Week service, I introduced Qian Tai. As a matter of fact, he has a longer history than I do in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and knows more people in the Ministry than I. However, as he was inaugurated today, as a custom I had to introduce him on behalf of Minister Guo Taiji.

In the afternoon, Guo Taiji told me in confidence that the Generalissimo had approved Li Shishun to be the first Chinese Minister to Canada. Therefore, what we had advocated as a reform of the diplomatic and administrative sides of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to adopt the principle of interchanging, this is the first reform being put into practice. I hope this can work, so it can give the embassies and consulates, as well as personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a fair chance of promotion. Given that they work hard, they can have hopes of promotion and need not manipulate relations to help them advance. So I have implemented a portion of that which the Generalissimo had instructed on tidying up diplomatic organisations. I have fulfilled what I wished. I also decided to discuss, with Minister Guo Taiji, that the employment rule for the embassy and consulate personnel, which is regulated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, should be fine-tuned and forwarded to National Conference, and then sent to the Legislative Yuan to pass, thus turning it into law. Even the Deputy Minister should abide by it. In this sense they, and we, could easily reject providing unnecessary favours. For diplomatic organisations, this will ensure that disorder from external forces will not be unleased, but I was not sure whether Guo Taiji had such a determination or not.

At 9.00 p.m. I went to visit Zhu Jiahua and we talked freely about the diplomatic situation and the state of the Chinese Communist Party. He fully agreed with my system of reforming the method for appointing embassy and consulate personnel. I returned home at ten-thirty in the evening.  I talked with Lou Tongsun and went to bed at 1.30 a.m.