In July 1945 at the Potsdam Conference, representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union agreed to establish a Council of Foreign Ministers for the preparatory work for the post-war peace settlements. The first foreign ministerial conference was accordingly held in London in September 1945 with ministers from China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. However, the dispute between the US-UK and the Soviet Union made it impossible to reach agreements on many of the issues raised. The US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes had then already proposed a meeting for peace settlements, which was rejected by the Soviet Union. It was not until December of that year that ministers from the US, the UK and the Soviet Union did meet at Moscow and decided that by May 1, 1946 a peace conference be held for the 21 countries of the Allied to discuss treaties of peace being drawn up by the Council of Foreign Ministers.Although China was one of the five members of the Council of Foreign Ministers, it was not a signatory to the terms of surrender for Italy, and was accordingly not invited for drafting the peace treaties. For this very reason, the Soviet Union refused to accept China as one of the representative countries in the peace conference. But after the Chinese Minister to France Tsien Tai negotiated with the foreign minister of the Soviet Union, it was approved that China, with the US, the UK, France and Soviet Union, could take turns to chair the conference.Because of delays in the drafting process, the peace conference was not held until July 29^th, 1947, and eventually ended on October 15^th. Foreign Minister Wang Shih-chieh, on behalf of China, attended the conference. In addition to the Plenary Committee, there were nine separate commissions organized to scrutinize the draft terms of peace. The treaty of peace with Italy was the only one which had China's direct involvement, and corrections were duly proposed by Minister Wang regarding the terms of treaty with Italy. It was obvious during the conference to witness the emergence of both the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc and the US-led Western Bloc. China had tried to be neutral in the process of discussion, but it was not difficult to find too that China usually stood on the same line with the US and the UK.