Chen Yi was not acting as the foreign minister
virtually since early in 1967, and lost power to Wang Li in August. On 24
October 1967, Zhou Enlai asked the visiting President of Mauritania to pass on
three messages to Kim Il-sung, Norodom Sihanouk and Gamal Abdel Nasser: ‘We
always instruct Overseas Chinese that they should abide by the local laws; but we
can’t control their actions; we don’t conceal that our Embassies abroad made some
mistakes but we can correct them at any moment.’
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