The Foreign
Ministry opened 5,024 diplomatic records to the public for the
first time on Monday. The files, mainly records of diplomatic
affairs between 1949 and 1955, include telegraphs between China and
Asian countries on recognition of each other, establishment of
diplomatic relations and exchanges of ambassadors.
They also include some of the records of Sino-US consular and
ambassadorial talks and files on the Geneva and Bandung
conferences. These include materials about the Air-India
Kashmir Princess event, in which a chartered flight
mistakenly thought to be carrying Premier Zhou Enlai was blown up
en route to the Bandung Conference in Indonesia.
China declassified for the first time a batch of diplomatic
files in January this year. The Foreign Ministry says that more
will be opened up "at the proper time." There are still 2,000
diplomatic files remaining from the 1949–1955 period, and files
accumulated between 1956 and 1960 will be opened in late 2005 or
early 2006.
According to the law on archives?and related regulations,
historical files should be opened to the public 30 years after
their creation.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn July 20, 2004)
