Guo’s Geneva impressions contain one point of interest: the major role played by the United States in the expulsion of the Soviet Union. The USA staged the whole comedy with the South American republics and encouraged France every way it could. Bullitt

William Christian Bullitt, first US ambassador to the USSR, 1933–36; ambassador to France, 1936–40.

made a special démarche in Paris, after which Daladier called Paul-Boncour (head of the French delegation in Geneva) four times, insisting that extreme measures be taken against the Soviet Union. Paul-Boncour himself was against expulsion. According to Guo, the British took a more passive stance, and Butler initially spoke against expulsion. However, once he had learned of the position taken by the USA, he decided ‘not to object’. Or perhaps the British, with their customary dexterity, merely did a better job of simulating passivity?

Guo preferred to keep his counsel about the conduct of China in Geneva, but assured me most emphatically of the strength of China’s friendship with the USSR.

But this is all in the past. Today, Guo is concerned by the intensified talk in British political circles about the formation of two large, opposing blocs:

(1) ‘totalitarian and continental’ – Germany, USSR and Japan.

(2) ‘democratic and maritime’ – England, France and the USA.

Guo dislikes this talk very much and asked me anxiously what I thought about it. I did my best to reassure him.