 | | Mao Zedong: The question needs to be further examined, keeping in mind the interests of both sides.
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| | Stalin: Let us discuss the credit agreement. We need to officially formalize that which has already been agreed to earlier. Do you have any observations to make?
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| | Mao Zedong: Is the shipment of military arms considered a part of the monetary loan?
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| | Stalin: This you can decide yourself: We can bill that toward the loan, or we can formalize it through trade agreements.
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| | Mao Zedong: If the military shipments are billed toward the loan, then we will have little means left for industry. It appears that part of the military shipments will have to be billed toward the loan, while the other part will have to be paid with Chinese goods. Can't the period of delivery of industrial equipment and military arms be shortened from five to three to four years?
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| | Stalin: We must examine our options. The matter rests in the requisition list for our industry. Nevertheless, we can move the date that the credit agreement goes into effect to January 1, 1950, since the shipments should begin just about now. If the agreement specified July 1949 as the time for the commencement of the loan, the international community would not be able to understand how an agreement could have been reached between the Soviet Union and China, which at the time did not even have its own government. It seems that you should hasten somewhat to present the requisition list for industrial equipment. It should be kept in mind that the sooner such a list is presented, the better for the matter at hand.
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| | Mao Zedong: We believe that the conditions of the credit agreement are generally favorable to China. Under its terms we pay only 1 percent interest.
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