196 Commonwealth Government to Fraser

Your 89 [1] and D. telegrams 781 [2], 782 [3], 783 [4], Siam.

Text of our reply is being repeated to you. We feel progress of events foreshadows great preponderance of United States influence on Pacific and Asiatic settlement and while anxious to have United States committed in Far East believe some balancing factors necessary. We, therefore, support general line of British declaration. We have introduced reference to China in order to indicate to Chinese our cognisance of their position regarding Thailand and also to hint that omission of reference to China in clauses of Australian - New Zealand Agreement [5] dealing with Indonesia and South-west Pacific does not mean we ignore China's claim to voice in general Far East settlement.