HC Deb 13 December 1965 vol 722 cc907-8
34. Mr. Warbey

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will now propose in the Security Council of the United Nations that the representative of Nationalist China be refused further admission to the meetings of the Security Council and that the Chinese People's Republic be invited to send a representative to take the seat of China.

Mr. George Thomson

No, Sir. As I told my hon. Friend on 15th November, Her Majesty's Government consider that the right organ of the United Nations in which decisions of principle about a change in Chinese representation should be taken is the General Assembly. As a result of the vote taken in the General Assembly on 17th November on this subject no change in representation has taken place.

Mr. Warbey

Is my hon. Friend aware that it has previously been stated that the Government are, in principle, in favour of the Chinese People's Republic occupying the seats of China in all the organs of the United Nations, and what is to stop the Government from taking an initiative in the Security Council which has its own procedural rules in this matter?

Mr. Thomson

My hon. Friend is quite right that the Security Council and the General Assembly are separate organs of the United Nations and that the decisions of the former are not binding on the latter. Nevertheless, I think it is the right view of the relations between the Assembly and the Security Council that the General Assembly should remain the appropriate organ of the United Nations for reaching decisions of principle about changes in China's representation.