Extracts from a letter from John J. Hearne to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
'Representation of China on International Bodies'
(Copy)

I have the honour to refer to your minute No. 408/114/18 of the 9th October¹ relating to the request of the Government of the Republic of China conveyed through Ambassador Wellington Koo’s² note of the 16th September for the support of the Government of Ireland for the continued representation of China by the Taipeh Administration in the International Communications Union and for its re-election to membership of the Administration Council of the Union. Your minute was received here on the 13th October. Ambassador Koo has been in New York since my return from Ireland until this week. I called upon him this morning at 11.30 by arrangement.

[matter omitted]

I informed Ambassador Koo that in instructing all Irish Delegates to abstain from voting on questions concerning the representation of China on international bodies, the Government of Ireland are mainly actuated by their desire to avoid taking any steps which might jeopardise the interests of such Irish missionaries as are still endeavouring to pursue their work on the Chinese mainland.

Mr. Wellington Koo listened very attentively when I told him of the extent of the Irish Mission field in China especially in the past twenty five years. I referred to the number of Irish missionaries, priests and nuns, in many religious orders, and, in particular, to the Columban Fathers and the Legionaries of Mary. I gave him a brief history of the origin and development of the Columban Mission and of the Legion. I said that our missionaries had endured great hardships since the Communists got control of so large a part of China and during the Communist invasion. Our Government, I said, were impressed by the necessity of doing nothing that would bring further suffering to those Irish missionaries who still carried on their work in China.

Ambassador Koo expressed his deep appreciation of my call to explain the reason for our abstention in voting at international conferences on the question of the representation of China on international bodies. He desired me to express to the Minister the Chinese Government’s sympathetic understanding of our attitude. He was aware, he said, for a long time, of the work of Irish missionaries in his country and of its effectiveness in bringing about an appreciation, whenever it was carried on, of the worth of the individual. An appreciation of the worth of the individual was, he added, the chief psychological and spiritual obstacle to the spread of Communism in China and the world.

[matter omitted]

The Chinese Ambassador kept on returning to the point that nothing would stand in the way of the policy of the Chinese Communists to root Christianity out of China, but was careful to add each time that he fully appreciated the desire of our Government and of the Holy See to avoid any act which would seem to provoke further persecution of Catholic missionaries in Communist China.