Chinese step into new UN era

By David Winder | Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

New York

After 22 years of exclusion from the United Nations the official delegation of the People’s Republic of China made a triumphant entry into the United States on a raw and gusty Thursday afternoon.

It was not that the Chinese played to the crowd or uttered any dramatic statements that made this such a momentous event.

They were in fact relatively subdued both in their remarks and in their dress, predominantly drab gray and black topcoats and upturned peaked Mao caps. Two women members were also somberly dressed.
It was the pent-up excitement at the airport that history was in the making and that the arrival of the Chinese delegation was the final act of the Communist fight for international recognition which began in the 1949 revolution that gave this occasion such drama.

The response was extraordinary.

Hundreds of Chinese appeared from nowhere and with large Mao placards and dazzling red flags and welcoming signs.

The press were lined several feet deep and stacked up on two white mobile passenger ramps and two baggage trailers.

After the diplomats’ welcome, the tall, rather stooped figure of the chairman of the delegation, Chiao Kuan-hua, in a gray topcoat and red muffler, walked up to the microphone.

Above the airport noise an unintelligible flow of Chinese followed. Then a Chinese woman said ever so softly the word everyone was waiting for:
“It is a pleasure today for the delegation of the Government of the People’s Republic of China to come to New York to attend the 26th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.”
For the rest of the speech, just a brief 224 words, Mr. Chiao, Vice-Foreign Minister and close confidant of Prime Minister Chou En-lai, stressed the peaceful character of the Chinese Government.

There was no applause. The delegation melted into the awaiting limousines, and the thick wall of pressmen burst like a dam as correspondents from all over the world scattered to tell the world that a new chapter in international history had begun.