Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – September 9, 1992

I got up early. I prayed, took a bath and got ready for the trip. Mr. [Reza] Amrollahi, [the head of the Atomic Energy Organization] who arrived this morning, came and said that I should make a recommendation to the president that the relevant officials should cooperate with him.

We went to the airport with Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Iran Air's 747 plane came from Tehran to replace our carrier plane in order to comply with security measures. Changing the plane caused a delay of half an hour.

Mr. [Hamid] Mirzadeh, [Executive Vice President], [Akbar] Turkan, [Minister of Defense and Armed Forces Support], [Asghar] Ebrahimi, [CEO of Tehran Metro] and [Reza] Amrollahi, [Head of the Atomic Energy Organization], joined us for their work in China. Mr. [Mustafa] Moin, [Minister of Culture and Higher Education], [Syed Mohammad] Gharehi, [Minister of Post, Telegraph and Telephone] and [Mohammed] Saeedi Kia, [Minister of Roads and Transportation] returned to Iran. On the way, Mr. Turkan and Mr. Mirzadeh discussed their issues with China. We saw a good Iranian movie. Mr. [Mohammed] Asghari, the head of the Keihan Institute, complained about the wrongdoings of a group of extremists in the Keihan newspaper and asked me to help him. He is upset after losing the parliamentary elections.

We landed at Beijing International Airport at four o'clock China time. Resident and Iranian ambassadors and some Chinese dignitaries had come to welcome, but according to the Chinese tradition, the official welcoming ceremony was held next to the People's Hall in Asemani Square.

We came to the residence. The accompanying minister is the minister of social welfare. I asked him many questions on the way. He did not recognize the direction correctly. When we were going south, he thought we were going west. In the residence, which is very luxurious, after praying and resting, I read Mr. [Hamid] Mirzadeh's report.

It rained, so the reception ceremony was moved from the square to the hall. They were a little late. We went to the hall at half past six. Welcoming [Mr. Yang Shanken], the President and other leaders, the official ceremony was carried out with the firing of cannons with a thunderous roar and without a parade. Then we had negotiations that were general and ceremonial.

In another hall, we prayed Maghrib and Isha in congregation. We went to the dinner table, which was served with the national anthem of the two countries and continuous music, with mainly vegetable and seafood dishes. At the dinner table, I asked the Chinese president many questions, and he answered them all clearly. He said that they have established relations with South Korea, on the condition that they cut ties with Taiwan, which they did. I was surprised that South Korea made such a decision against the American policy.

He said that the situation in Russia is very bad and there is a high possibility of seizures. There is also the possibility of a coup. Mr. [Boris] Yeltsin, [President of Russia] is supposed to come to China in two months. If he can stay for another two months!! He believed that the Russians cannot easily return the islands to Japan, so their problem will not be solved, and the Japanese and Westerners are not willing to provide significant help to Russia. The US is preparing for the election to give 160 F-15 aircraft to Taiwan, which will save 5,000 jobs and the crisis of breaking relations with South Korea. China's reaction is not to cooperate with the disarmament conference and to sell weapons to others; This article was a green light for us too. Recently, China has also given missiles to Pakistan.

Tomorrow, they plan to announce cooperation in nuclear energy with Iran, and they will react against France and Italy, who are planning to give Mirage aircraft and warships to Taiwan. He said that the Russians have agreed to sell sensitive weapons in order to secure foreign exchange, and recently China itself bought twenty Sukhoi 27 aircraft from them at the price of thirty million dollars each. He also said many other things. We returned to the residence at nine o'clock at night.