Scene of the Geneva Conference

On April 26, 1954, the eye-catching conference was held in United Nations Headquarters, Geneva. Zhou Enlai, Molotov, foreign minister of Russia, and Nam Il, North Korean Foreign Minister, put forward the reasonable proposal that all foreign armies should withdraw from the North Korea and the national assembly election should be held in the whole Korea. Since the proposal was obstructed by representatives led by the American representative, no direct agreement had been made over the North Korean problem.

The US set up the United Nations Command. Actually, there were 16 countries which were manipulated by the US. The 16 countries made a 16-country declaration which refused to reach any agreement over the North Korean problem. Therefore, Zhou Enlai refuted their declaration and said that the problem of Korean unity should be resolved.

On May 8, the conference started to discuss the problem of restoring peaceful Indochina. The US tried to protract and even escalate the Indochina war. Although the US was forced to agree to attend the conference, it never gave up its intention of directly meddling in the Indochina war. Zhou Enlai came forward to fight against the US. He took advantage of conflict between Britain, France and the US and the conflict between the war fraction and the peace fraction in France, trying to win support from Britain and France which desired for peace to some extent. He won support from governments of Laos and Cambodia, and focused on fighting against disruptions of the US. Thanks to Premier Zhou's great efforts, the conference finally reached an agreement on July 21 which realized the truce in Indochina and ended the colonialist war of France which had lasted for years.