Cairo Conference of 1943

Cairo Conference of 1943 

a meeting held in Cairo on Nov. 22-26, 1943, which was attended by USA president F. Roosevelt, Great Britain’s prime minister W. Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek, the head of the Kuomintang government of China, and their military and political advisers.

The participants of the conference adopted a declaration, which was published on Dec. 1, 1943, after the Soviet government had become acquainted with it at the Tehran Conference of 1943. In this document the governments of the USA, Great Britain, and China solemnly declared that they “covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion.” The declaration stated that the Allies intended to deprive Japan of all its conquered territories, including all the islands in the Pacific Ocean seized or occupied by it since the beginning of World War I (1914-18). The declaration advanced the demand that “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores [northeastern China, the island of Taiwan, and the P’eng-hu Lieh-tao Islands], shall be restored to the Republic of China.”

The declaration also spoke of granting freedom and independence to Korea “in due course.” Thus, the countries that signed the declaration put off the granting of independence to Korea for an indefinite period. The prospects of military action in the Pacific theater of the war were discussed at the Cairo Conference. (In the course of this discussion serious disagreements were revealed, chiefly between the British and American delegations.) Certain questions concerning Allied strategy in Europe were also discussed.

As later events showed, the decisions reached at the Cairo Conference were a screen behind which the imperialist circles of the USA and Great Britain could conceal their plans of aggression.

After the capitulation of Japan on Sept. 2, 1945, British troops were again introduced into Hsiang-kang (Hong Kong). In 1950, under the cover of the United Nations, the USA unleashed a war of aggression against the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. In the same year the USA virtually occupied the islands of P’eng-hu Lieh-tao and the island of Taiwan, which belong to the People’s Republic of China. Thus, the decisions reached at the Cairo Conference were rudely violated.

PUBLICATIONS

“Soveshchanie Ruzvel’ta, Chan Kai-shi i Cherchillia v Severnoi Afrike.”
Izvestiia, Dec. 3, 1943.

REFERENCES

Boratyriski, S. Diplomatiia perioda vtoroi mirovoi winy. Moscow, 1959. (Translated from Polish.)
Israelian, V. L. Antigitlerovskaia koalitsiia, [1941-1945]. Moscow, 1964. Chapter 15.
America, Britain and Russia: Their Co-operation and Conflict, 1941-1946. Edited by W. H. McNeill. Toronto [1953].