“...the supplies... stored in Hongkong by Dr. Eloesser ….were to be used for bribing the Chinese people into bowing to American imperialism…, we permit its (UNICEF’s) ..staff members in Peking to wind up all their affairs by the end of January 1950.
Hsiun chin Ting, Acting Secretary General
China Liberated Areas Relief Association
Peking December 30, 1949
China Liberated Areas Relief Association
Peking December 30, 1949
Just one year earlier relations between UNICEF and the new authorities had been going so well. The first training course of village health workers was nearing completion, and a second course was planned. Both UNICEF and CLARA were enthusiastic and confident about the results.
A Petty Dispute
Relations, however, started to fray in March. The problem was caused by exactly what the departing UNRRA personnel had warned against in 1948, and exactly what Junod, Borcic, and Pate had tried to avoid - supplies. UNICEF’s first shipments to the new government were supposed to arrive in late 1948. Delays in procurement, however, meant they began arriving only in March 1949. The shipments were tiny in comparison to past shipments to the Nationalists. The shipments to the Communist authorities only consisted of $105,000 worth of items ordered by Eloesser to support the village health worker training project.
CLARA wanted the supplies to be stored at the Central Warehouse near the port at Tientsin. Dr. Eloesser wanted the supplies stored closer to the new training site at Beijing. The two sides argued over this minor question without reaching agreement. At issue were two sentences in the Shijiazhuang Agreement they had signed in August 1948. UNICEF relied on a line of the agreement saying that all supplies should be under the supervision and control of UNICEF. CLARA insisted on a sentence of the same agreement stating that the government should be entrusted in distribution and handling of all supplies until they were consumed.
Eloesser upped the ante by asking UNICEF to hold any further shipments in Hong Kong until the matter could be resolved. Yet the issue was not resolved and instead festered through the summer with the new government increasingly sensing that the UNICEF team harbored a lack of trust and disrespect for their authority.
It is important to keep in mind that Leo Eloesser was a surgeon, not a diplomat. He had none of the experience of Junod or others in negotiating tricky politics. He and a dietitian, Helen Drummond, were the only UNICEF international staff in Beijing. In the south the last few UNICEF international staff were packing to leave. By September 1949 Perry Hanson would be the last UNICEF international left there.
In mid September the two sides gave up all hope of rescuing the agreement. Eloesser and the head of CLARA exchanged a final round of written demands concerning control of the supplies. Both understood that they were at a stalemate. Eloesser decided to leave for New York and had no plan to return. Drummond also left, meaning that there was no longer any UNICEF presence in Beijing. Only Perry Hanson remained in Shanghai.
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| Oct. 1, 1949 Mao proclaims PRC |
The PRC and the UN
The petty dispute between UNICEF and CLARA suddenly took on a more political significance. On December 30, 1949 China exited its only written agreement with the United Nations - the Shijiazhuang agreement with UNICEF. It was a small question at the time, but soon tied to much bigger questions of China's political representation in the United Nations.
On January 7th Mao telegraphed Zhou Enlai instructing him to inform the UN Secretary General of the PRC’s claim to China’s seat on the UN Security Council. He added that the Soviet Union had promised its full support, including a plan by the Soviet Union to boycott any meetings of the Security Council meetings in the event that the UN did not agree.
The next day Zhou Enlai sent the following telegram to Trygve Li, Secretary-General:
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| Zhou Enlai |
The next day Zhou Enlai sent the following telegram to Trygve Li, Secretary-General:
"...the People's Republic of China is of the opinion that it is illegal for the representatives of the remnants of the reactionary gang of the Chinese Nationalist Party to remain in the Security Council. It therefore holds that these representatives must be expelled from the Security Council immediately...I hope that you will act accordingly."
Two days later on January 10th the US announced that it would block any proposal to give China’s seat on the Council to the PRC. Following a vote of the Council on January 13th, the Soviet delegate, Yakov Malik, walked out saying that it would boycott until the Nationalist delegation was ousted. The next day in Beijing Chinese forces seized the US Consulate. |
| Yakov Malik, Soviet Delegate |
Three weeks later in Washington Senator Joseph McCarthy began a campaign of charges and hearings aimed at showing that the communist elements within the State Department and the UN had ‘lost China’. China and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of mutual assistance a few days later.
The Cold War was now well underway.
Cold War Becomes Hot War
There was enormous irony in the decision of the Soviets to walk out of the Security Council and other UN bodies. On June 25, 1950 North Korea - apparently with Soviet agreement - invaded South Korea. With no Soviet delegates in place, the US was able the same day to push through a resolution calling for use of force by UN member states to ‘restore peace’. Two days later a second resolution authorized the use of armed force by member states.
In October 1950 US troops fighting under the UN flag entered North Korea, sparking a counter-attack by Chinese forces. The UN was now at war, not just with North Korea, but also with China. The Korean War continued under the UN flag until an armistice was finally signed in July 1953.
In October 1950 US troops fighting under the UN flag entered North Korea, sparking a counter-attack by Chinese forces. The UN was now at war, not just with North Korea, but also with China. The Korean War continued under the UN flag until an armistice was finally signed in July 1953.
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| UN forces flag during Korean War |
UNICEF Keeps Trying
UNICEF, being the home of eternal optimists, somehow kept alive a hope that their relationship with the PRC could be rescued. In January 1950 UNICEF reversed its decision on holding further shipments of supplies. The Chinese side agreed to receive and utilize those supplies, but only if UNICEF sent them on an ‘unconditional basis’. UNICEF agreed and also released ‘unconditionally’ all the funds earlier allocated for a kala azar project. China accepted the funds but declined to accept the presence of any technical advisors.
Talk about leaving your field staff hanging in the wind!
Talk about leaving your field staff hanging in the wind!
UNICEF now chose to blame the whole dispute over supplies on “decisions taken locally by the China mission” who had somehow wrongly interpreted the terms of the Shijiazhuang Agreement and UNICEF’s own requirements for oversight on supplies. This left Perry Hanson, UNICEF’s last Representative in the country, in a very difficult position. The new government informed Hanson on the one hand that he no longer had any official status in the country and was merely a private foreign citizen; on the other hand they held him responsible for any and all actions taken by UNICEF either in China or in New York. They blocked his requests to travel within China and also refused permission for him to leave China. He and his wife remained under house arrest for a year and a half and were only permitted to leave China in May 1951.
Leo Eloesser later wrote:
“Gradually, reluctantly, perhaps indeed mistakenly, it seemed to me that further active participation was not in the cards and that UNICEF should withdraw. I regretted the conclusion at the time, and again in retrospect regret still more strongly. For had we remained with our foot in the door crack, UNICEF might finally have helped ... to open the United Nations door for China.”
“In retrospect I recognize my dullness in not perceiving immediately that UNICEF’s situation in China was an incompatible anomaly. How could China officially recognize and work with UNICEF, a United Nations agency, when the United Nations itself refused to recognize, let alone, accept, China? The fly, buzzing above the pudding, can see it and steer his course accordingly; once he’s in the sticky mess, he’s blind…”
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| Dr. Leo Eloesser |
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| General Wu Yun-fu PRC Delegate UNICEF Executive Board |
When the Board met on 27 November 1950, Rajchman recommended the seating of the PRC delegate as the representative of China. The result was a tied vote - 12 in favor, 12 opposed, and one abstention. The Board met again the same afternoon in an attempt to break the tie. A representative of UN Legal was called in on the question and advised the Board that it was legally permissible to seat the PRC, despite the dispute at the Security Council. The result of the afternoon vote, however, remained the same as in the morning, and so did not carry.
The Soviet delegation walked out of the Executive Board, accompanied by the Czech and Polish delegates. Rajchman was now in an odd position. While Chair of the Board, he was also the representative of Poland. Accordingly, he resigned and the delegate of Canada, Adelaide Sinclair, became the Chairperson of the Board.
The China Mission was finally over. Even then UNICEF kept trying. Pate wrote to Zhou Enlai in August 1951, saying that as a non-political humanitarian agency UNICEF was committed to helping children everywhere and was willing to continue providing funds and supplies. There was no reply. Other contacts ended in similar fashion.
There was only one significant visit by a UN official in subsequent years. Dag Hammarskjold visited Beijing at the end of 1954 to negotiate the release of American pilots who had been fighting under the UN flag and were shot down during the Korean War. His mission was successful, but after the pilots were released, and Hammarskjold's death in 1961, no longer term relations were established.
Ties Resumed at Last.
The standoff between the Nationalists and the PRC over which delegation should represent China in the United Nations continued for 21 years. Finally, on October 25, 1971 the General Assembly in Resolution 2758 ousted the Nationalist delegation, and agreed that the PRC delegation should take China's seat. Even with that milestone finally reached, resumption of China's participation in UNICEF bodies and UN representation in Beijing took time.
It was only in 1978 that UNICEF received an invitation for Newton Bowles to visit China. His visit to Beijing in October of that year opened the way to UNICEF's first pledge in 1979 of $200,000 in general resources and a study tour of UNICEF government counterparts from six Asian countries.
The first UN agency to sign a basic agreement with China was UNDP in 1979.
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| September 1979 - Brad Morse meets Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping |
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| 1981 - Jim Grant meets Cheng Fei, Vice Minister of the Ministry for Economic Relations |
A Chinese delegation attended the UNICEF Board session in May 1980. Jim Grant had become the Executive Director a few months earlier in January 1980 and so was able to welcome the Chinese delegation.
Jim was born in Beijing and was the son of Dr. John Grant who was known as one of the fathers of public health in China. Jim Grant left China in 1937 at the age of 15, just prior to the fall of Beijing to Japanese forces. He later returned with the US army in 1943 and in 1945 both he and his wife, Ethel, worked with UNRRA in China.
China and UNICEF signed a Basic Agreement in June 1981. Both UNICEF and WHO opened offices in Beijing that year. Ralph Eckert was UNICEF's first Representative.
Lessons Learned?
In the last segment of this long saga I quoted Perry Hanson’s later analysis of the mistakes on UNICEF’s side. They included:
1. The lost year of 1947 when UNICEF did not field a team or a Representative
2. The lack of clear guidelines on the respective roles of UNICEF and government in overseeing the distribution and use of supplies.
3. The lack of a political strategy to deal with authorities from different factions of a divided country.
I noted that the same problems have come back repeatedly in our history. To these we must add Number 4 - the failure to replace Dr. Junod when it became clear in early 1949 that he was very ill and unable to return to China. An experienced head of office or even a visit by a senior person from Headquarters might have led to solving or side-stepping the petty dispute over management of supplies.
How many times have we seen this mistake repeated? Amid a crisis, a Representative or other key leader has to leave and is not replaced until it is too late; a petty dispute breaks out in the absence of training or clear guidelines; a situation spirals out of control.
But who knows? With the Cold War well under way, the Korean War about to break, UNICEF still on a tentative emergency status, its funding almost entirely dependent on US financial aid, could anyone in UNICEF have kept the China Mission alive in 1949 / 1950?
1. The lost year of 1947 when UNICEF did not field a team or a Representative
2. The lack of clear guidelines on the respective roles of UNICEF and government in overseeing the distribution and use of supplies.
3. The lack of a political strategy to deal with authorities from different factions of a divided country.
I noted that the same problems have come back repeatedly in our history. To these we must add Number 4 - the failure to replace Dr. Junod when it became clear in early 1949 that he was very ill and unable to return to China. An experienced head of office or even a visit by a senior person from Headquarters might have led to solving or side-stepping the petty dispute over management of supplies.
How many times have we seen this mistake repeated? Amid a crisis, a Representative or other key leader has to leave and is not replaced until it is too late; a petty dispute breaks out in the absence of training or clear guidelines; a situation spirals out of control.
But who knows? With the Cold War well under way, the Korean War about to break, UNICEF still on a tentative emergency status, its funding almost entirely dependent on US financial aid, could anyone in UNICEF have kept the China Mission alive in 1949 / 1950?
What Remained?
Something though remained - the training of village health workers continued. The third and all subsequent courses were run without UNICEF help. The results were quickly seen in terms of reduced infant and child deaths, along with better control of all types of diseases. As Eloesser wrote:"By using the most promising trainees as teachers, the number of trainees will increase rapidly, geometrically rather than arithmetically. ...In two or three years the most urgent need should be filled. Whatever future UNICEF may have in China, these or similar courses will go on..“
And so they did - a lasting even if seldom recalled legacy of UNICEF's first China Mission.
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