The Geneva Conference

In mid-June, the conference was at a standstill due to differences among the parties. Blending the views of the relevant countries in good time, China produced a proposal for settling the questions of Laos and Cambodia, a proposal which won applause from many quarters. The participants at the conference reached some agreements on ways to end hostilities in Laos and Cambodia, which advanced the Conference a big step forward.

The Chinese Delegation also played a significant role over how to delimit the regrouping zones for the belligerent parties in Vietnam. Premier Zhou Enlai??s meeting with new French Premier Mendes-France in Bern, his comparing of notes with President Ho Chi Minh in Liuzhou and his talks with the Soviet leaders in Moscow have further coordinated the views of Vietnam, China and the USSR. They succeeded in breaking the impasse over the delimitation of regrouping zones and thus removed from the conference the last and also the biggest obstacle to an agreement.

On 21 July, the Conference adopted a ?Final Declaration? which brought about an end to the war in Indo-China, termination of the long years of colonial wars carried out by France in this region and affirmed the national rights of the three Indo-Chinese states. This is an important milestone in the process of the struggles for independence by the people of the three Indo-Chinese states. At the same time, once again for the world as a whole, the Geneva Conference brought into sight the Chinese people?s positive role in their unremitting efforts for the security of their motherland, for the cause of world peace and human progress and for a negotiated settlement of international disputes.

The U.S. delegate refused to accede to the conference ?Final Declaration?. This indicates that it has other designs and foreshadowing its stepped up intervention in Indo-China.