Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

Bevin took a look at it and then handed it to his staff. Before coming to negotiate with China, Bevin had read the entire history of the two countries and reviewed all the signed documents. Bevin had done a lot of work in this regard. After all, Britain had previously treated China with condescension, but now it must learn to treat China as an equal.

Because he'd worked there, he knew what the document was the moment he saw it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have remembered such a document existed between China and Britain. After all, as the world's dominant power during the colonial era, Britain had signed countless documents with countries around the world. How could he possibly remember a document signed with the Nationalist government ten years prior?

Bei Wendao: "Mr. Zhou, what do you mean?"

"Mr. Foreign Minister, this is the document signed between Chiang Kai-shek's government and the United Kingdom. Our intention is very simple: the United Kingdom must abolish this document. Make it completely lose its legal effect."

Bevin glanced at the document again.

I finally understood what China meant. China was going to abolish this document and no longer recognize the McMahon Line previously drawn by Britain. After the founding of New China, they began to consider the border line in the southwest.

So Bevin said: "Mr. Zhou, this happened ten years ago and is no longer our business in the UK. If you want to resolve this issue, you should talk to the current Myanmar government. I don't understand why you are talking to me about this issue."

Bevin didn't understand.

What level of country is China and what level is Myanmar?

China had just defeated the UN forces in Korea, annihilating countless American troops. The military's combat effectiveness shocked the world, leaving the US humiliated. Even Britain was forced to bow its head and negotiate with China.

And what about Myanmar?

Myanmar has just gained independence and is plagued by warlords. The current Myanmar government is unable to deal with these warlords.

This is completely different.

If the UK encounters this situation, it will no longer care about the documents that have been signed.

Although Bevin was a leading figure in the socialist movement in his youth, he was educated in Britain and had a strong colonial mindset. Therefore, I don't understand why China is so obsessed with such a document.

"Mr. Foreign Minister, we originally signed an agreement with you. Now we need you to abolish this document, and of course we have to come to you. Your country forced us to sign an unequal treaty that was disadvantageous to our country. Shouldn't it be abolished?"

For the first time, the Prime Minister showed his anger.

He said, "Mr. Foreign Minister, it seems you really don't have sincerity this time. You said you couldn't meet the conditions before, and now you can't even do this?"

"Mr. Zhou, why are you so anxious? We can talk about it if there is anything."

Bevin spoke.

Bevin was determined to reach a deal this time.

Over 6,000 prisoners must be brought home. The only way to strengthen the Labour Party now was to resolve this issue. So Bevin stood up and spoke to the Prime Minister in a gentle and courteous tone.

The Prime Minister sat down and said, "Mr. Foreign Minister, we have been making concessions and retreating step by step. Our demands are already so low. We simply want to abolish the unequal treaty that your country forced Chiang Kai-shek's regime to accept ten years ago. If you can't even meet this one requirement, how can we believe that you are sincere?"

Bevin did not speak immediately.

After thinking for a while, he quietly discussed it with the person next to him. After a while, he said, "Mr. Zhou, I can agree to your conditions in principle. But the specifics still need to be agreed to by London."

"When your country agrees to this condition, our negotiations can continue. I believe you also want to resolve this negotiation as soon as possible."

"it is good."

Bevin nodded.

The first day of negotiations ended.

Bevin quickly sent a telegram to London outlining China's demands. After receiving Bevin's telegram, Attlee immediately consulted with some members of the Labour Party. Everyone agreed that the 1941 line was not a significant issue, nor a core British interest.

Just abolish it, it won’t affect British interests anyway.

That is a matter between China and Myanmar.

How they argue in the future is their business, and Britain doesn't care. For Britain, it doesn't matter whether this thing exists or not. Since China asked Britain to abolish the 1941 line, then Bevin soon received a telegram from London.

Attlee agreed.

Bevin and the Prime Minister continued negotiations the next day.

After Bevin agreed to this condition, the atmosphere in the subsequent negotiations improved significantly. Britain didn't care about the 1941 line, but China did. So after this issue was resolved, the two sides focused more on discussing trade issues.

The Prime Minister hopes to open up trade channels between mainland China and Hong Kong.

At the same time, he implicitly brought up the issue of money with Bevin.

He hoped Britain would grant China a low-interest loan. Bevin didn't care about this; before arriving, he had already considered paying China a sum of money. But Britain was, after all, a long-established imperialist power, and the term "indemnity" would be too unpalatable.

Therefore, Britain does not care about compensation under another name.

So the two sides finally reached cooperation in four areas.

First, Britain provided China with a low-interest loan of $3000 million at 1% through HSBC. Repayment was to begin in 1956 over a 10-year period. However, China assured Britain that the money would not be used for military purposes.

Although the Cold War seems to be a rift between the socialist bloc and Western nations, the US dollar is actually quite popular within the socialist bloc. This is largely due to the Soviet Union's inability to regulate its currency, making the US dollar more popular than the ruble.

Besides, once the Korean War is over, the embargo imposed by the United States will gradually be lifted.

The United States can't control it either.

By then, the US dollar will be more useful than anything else.

Even if China resells this $3000 in Hong Kong and lends it out, it can still make a substantial profit after a few years of repaying the loan. Because loan interest rates are currently very high, 10% is considered a relatively low rate. Therefore, a 1% interest rate is practically equivalent to no interest at all.

Second: The UK agreed to open a trade route between Hong Kong and mainland China. However, China must ensure that this trade route does not allow the import or export of prohibited items. If China uses this trade route to import or export prohibited items, the UK can close it at any time.

Third: The British government transferred two Shanghai woolen mills to the Chinese government. One was the Jardine Matheson Mill, historically Shanghai's fifth woolen textile mill. The other was the British company's woolen mill in Shanghai, the largest in the Far East. It was already a powerful woolen mill in Shanghai, and in 1950, the company continued to invest in expansion. They imported a complete set of wool top manufacturing equipment from Britain and expanded the wool sorting, scouring, and carding workshops, transforming it into a full-fledged wool yarn mill.

Historically, the Jardine Matheson Cotton Mill was sold to the Chinese government in 1954, and the Bodeyun Company's woolen mill in Shanghai was sold to the Chinese government in 1959. While foreign expansion was restricted after the Liberation War, the government invested over 1959 billion yuan in the textile industry during the First Five-Year Plan. As a result, by 1970, British textile mills no longer had a significant advantage over state-owned mills. The Dutch company, which held out the longest, remained in business until , when it was sold to the Chinese government.

This is also true for many overseas Chinese companies.

It was not until around 1970 that they completely withdrew from the Chinese market.

But this time the British government decided to hand them all over to China.

It’s actually compensation.

These two woolen mills were among the largest in China. Their value was estimated at approximately 1700 million RMB (Singapore Dollars). However, Britain could not directly pay them. Instead, they gave the money to British merchants, who were then instructed to transfer their textile mills in China to the Chinese government to offset the indemnity.

Fourth: The British government assisted a Chinese garment factory, providing it with 400 household sewing machines. It also assisted in the construction of a sewing machine factory in China with an annual production capacity of 3000 machines. Currently, the combined annual production capacity of all Chinese sewing machine factories is only 4000 machines.

This is called aid construction, but in fact it is all free.

It's also part of losing money.

On August 1951, 8, the negotiations between China and Britain on prisoners finally came to a conclusion and a contract was signed.

China's request was that Britain implement these measures first, and then China would release the prisoners. Of course, to show sincerity, China could first release a group of disabled prisoners. At the same time, it would allow Britain to send representatives to see the prisoners' condition.

886 Baosteel ribbon-cutting ceremony

The specific details and content of the negotiations between China and Britain have not been disclosed, but the success of the negotiations between the two countries cannot be concealed.

The British Labour Party needed this information to stabilize the domestic situation, telling them that the British government was about to resolve the prisoner issue. Of course, China couldn't keep it completely secret either, as the negotiations with Britain also required a heads-up from the Soviet Union. Telling the Soviet Union that the negotiations with Britain were solely about the prisoners and that China was only asking for money was crucial. Negotiations with Britain were definitely not about abandoning the socialist camp, reassuring the Soviet Union.

China is still paying great attention to this aspect.

Although China is a major country and has proven its strength in the Korean War, it has not considered following the path of Yugoslavia. Especially now that the United States and the Soviet Union are in the Cold War, China needs to rely on a big brother.

Therefore, China was serious about respecting the Soviet Union as its "big brother." It would not conceal any important matters from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was already worried that China would follow the path of Yugoslavia and that the Chairman would become China's "Tito." To allay these Soviet concerns, China had to be more vigilant in many areas. Negotiations with Britain were impossible without consulting the Soviet Union.

Of course, what China wanted was the "big brother of a fraternal party," the "big brother" in the revolution, not the Soviet Union as the "father party" and the "father" of China. The Soviet Union did not show any surprise at the negotiations between China and Britain.

After briefly discussing the negotiations with Britain, the Soviet Union didn't elaborate further. China had proven itself on the Korean battlefield. As long as China remained aligned with the Soviet Union on grand strategy, the Soviet Union wouldn't treat China like a smaller Eastern European power.

On the third day after the negotiations, China announced the release of 374 disabled British prisoners. Britain sent representatives to collect them and visit the prisoner camp. However, much remains to be seen regarding the precise nature of Britain's promise to China.

Britain also acted decisively.

While no one else was paying attention, he had already been handing over the work to cadres from the Ministry of Textile Industry in Shanghai.

The two woolen textile mills were transferred to the Ministry of Textile Industry.

The establishment of these two woolen mills changed the Ministry of Textile Industry's plans. Originally, the Ministry had planned to build several new woolen mills in Shanghai. But now that the British-owned woolen mills were already in place, they could expand on this foundation.

Building a textile mill from scratch and expanding it are two completely different things in terms of both difficulty and investment. This will not only significantly reduce government investment, but also yield better results. The total savings could reach tens of millions.

Soon, news of the agreement between China and Britain on the prisoners issue spread to other countries. Some countries, fearing to offend the United States, did not dare to approach China privately. However, that did not mean all countries were afraid to take action privately. France, in particular, immediately began to devise a solution after hearing the news.

After all, France also lost hundreds of people to China.

Canada and Australia, as Commonwealth countries, are also eager to make a move. Other European countries, such as the Netherlands, are also trying to negotiate with the Chinese government through Dutch companies in China.

If Britain could negotiate with China, why couldn't they? This was because the United States had only just become the dominant power in the Western world, but with Britain and France, two former colonial powers, it couldn't truly mobilize its forces. Britain was the first to negotiate with China, directly shattering the UN's supposed alliance. Even Commonwealth nations like Canada and Australia hoped Britain would help negotiate with China and get their personnel out.

Of course, this is something that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is busy with.

At this time, Wei Hongjun and Li Fuchun flew to Baotou.

Because Baotou Steel's No. 1951 blast furnace had already been erected, on September 9, 6, the furnace was about to produce iron, so a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held. Wei Hongjun and Li Fuchun, representing the Central Committee and the State Council, came to Baotou Steel to cut the ribbon. The speed of Baotou Steel's construction reflected the speed of New China.

According to the initial plan of Soviet experts, it would take at least five years for Baotou Steel to break ground and erect the No. 1 blast furnace.

However, the builders of Baosteel managed to shorten the time by one and a half years.

Construction officially broke ground in early 1948, and less than three and a half years later, the No. blast furnace was erected. The speed of completion astounded even Soviet experts. They had assumed the construction of the plant would take two years, but the North China Engineering Corps and workers, along with the support of local residents from Suiyuan, completed the project in less than a year. This was also due to the central government's massive support for Baotou Steel. The central government allocated cement from across the country to support Baotou Steel's need for cement. The early completion of Baotou Steel's No. blast furnace was the most visible result of the nation's concerted efforts to achieve this major undertaking.

In the past, this place was a desolate place, but now it is bustling with people. Not only are there factories everywhere, but there are also large residential areas. It has become a small city.

This is a big deal.

Gao Kelin, Secretary of the Suiyuan Provincial Party Committee and Political Commissar of the Suiyuan Military Region, Yao Zhe, Chairman of the Suiyuan Military and Political Committee and Commander of the Suiyuan Military Region, and Bai Rubing, Vice Chairman of the Suiyuan Military and Political Committee and Deputy Political Commissar of the Suiyuan Military Region, all arrived at the scene.

Following them were Ma Changgeng, commander of the North China Military Region's Infrastructure Construction Corps, and Zhao Ziyu, its political commissar, who had participated in Baotou Steel's construction, as well as Lai Jifa, the former vice minister of the Enterprise Department of the North China People's Government and the current Baotou Steel general manager.

And the local cadres at Baosteel.

Everyone is an acquaintance.

In addition to these people, another person attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. That person was Ulanfu, Secretary of the Inner Mongolia Provincial Party Committee. Ulanfu has long hoped to establish a unified Inner Mongolia, incorporating Chahar, Suiyuan, and Rehe into Inner Mongolia.

However, the initial disagreement from the North China Bureau prevented the plan from succeeding. Now that the North China Bureau is gone, the cadres from North China still disagree. If Chahar and Suiyuan were to be incorporated into Inner Mongolia, what would they do?

Besides, Chahar, Suiyuan and Rehe were all territories conquered by the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei and North China troops.

Why was it incorporated into Inner Mongolia?

So there was some tension between the two sides. But today was a good day, so both of them avoided the issue.

"Vice Premier Wei."

"Old Wei."

"Secretary Wei."

"Commander."

When Wei Hongjun greeted them one by one, he used all kinds of names.