Wednesday, 5 November

In the morning, we had the Readjustment Committee of the administrative sections meeting. After the meeting I lunched at Wang Chonghui’s. In the afternoon, Minister Wang Shijie invited diplomatic corps and foreign reporters, as well as others, to have afternoon tea at the Jialing Hostel. The Soviet Ambassador to China talked to me, saying that the military situation in Moscow was still tense, and he indicated he was willing to have more contact with us. I said I was really happy about that.

Afterwards I discussed with Minister Guo Taiji that in the past Wang Chonghui was too cold towards the Soviet Embassy. So that from the Soviet side on the one hand its diplomacy was conducted by Soviet military consultants, and on the Chinese side it was done by President Sun. As a result, the diplomatic path was chaotic, which was of absolutely no benefit to us. Recently, as the Soviet Ambassador to China repeatedly indicated, a change in attitude, as our job responsibility, we should not reject the Soviet Union as before. We hoped that, in the future, we could lead the Soviet Union to a normal diplomatic path. Both Guo Taiji and Qian Tai strongly agreed with me.