s de des.
DENTIAL
5. The Chinese do not appear to have been opposed to the continuation of flights between Japan and Taiwan, but sought to ensure that such flights lost any international status and assumed a subsidiary and local importance beside what was to be the trunk air route between China and Japan. Their emphasis on the political aspects of the negotiations apparently led them at one point to insist that political issues should be settled first, but they eventually allowed parallel discussions of
technical and political problems. The agreement itself covered technical points and was accompanied by an oral statement by the Japanese Foreign Minister dealing with the political aspects.
6. Chinese negotiating tactics appear to have been to outline problems in terms of broad principles, then await Japanese comments and proposals. The Japanese side would seem to have been obliged to arrive at its own decisions on what arrangements would be reasonable, then hope for Chinese acquiescence. China would thus appear to have left itself some room for manoeuve should it decide in the future that it wished to exert further pressure on Japan to curtail the present arrangements for air services between Japan and Taiwan, or, alternatively, to allow their expansion.
Progress of negotiations with China
7. An outline Japanese draft was handed to the Chinese in November 1972. This appears to have covered questions of routes · and frequency of flights, and to have dealt neither with the political question of Taiwan nor with the choice of Japanese airline, though official preference went to Japan Air Lines (JAL) over All Nippon Airways (ANA). In the absence of any formal air service agreement or even informal administrative agreement between Japan and Taiwan, the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau was at that time issuing operating permits to China Air Lines (CAL) as a private Taiwan company, while the authorities in Taiwan issued permits to JAL as a private Japanese company. (The Hong Kong arrangement between CAL and Cathay Pacific Airways (CPA) is similar). The Japanese at that stage were hoping that China would be prepared to tolerate such an arrangement and allow JAL to continue flights to both China and Taiwan.
4
8. The opening round of negotiations was held in Peking in mid-March 1973 and threw up three problems: Chinese unwillingness to see the same airline - JAL - operate flights to both China and Taiwan, and to see a continuation of CAL services to any major Japanese airport, and Chinese refusal to allow Japan more than one onward route from Peking. A second series of negotiations was held, also in Peking, from 27 April to 3 May, 1973, but made no progress. Taiwan remained the stumbling block, with the Chinese opposed to any aircraft bearing the Taiwan national flag flying regularly to Japan. The Japanese took the view that the general principle of their relations with Taiwan had been resolved in the Joint Statement of September 1972. Nonetheless the Chinese were unwilling to take the talks forward and looked to Japan to take an initiative over Taiwan.
9.
For the Japanese Government, ability to take such an initiative called for a co-ordination of views between it and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party which contained a strong pro-Taiwan element. The problem was compounded by C nese
/opposition
CONELINA TAL