893.00/4–545
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 17.]
Subject: Vicissitudes of Marshal Li Chi-shen.
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s third person instruction of February 26, 1945,92 commenting, inter alia, on the Embassy’s despatch no. 9 of December 15, 1944,93 on the subject: “Conditions in Southeast China Since Its Isolation by the Japanese”. The Department stated that the future activities of the potential separatist groups in this area would be watched with interest.
There is now enclosed a copy of despatch no. 5, dated March 23, 1945,93 from Mr. Richard M. Service, Embassy Attaché on detail at Chengtu, entitled: “Vicissitudes of Marshal Li Chi-shen”, which contains further information on this subject. The despatch reports the alleged assassination of General Chang Yen, former Chief of Staff of General Tsai Ting-kai, and now a close associate of General Tsai and Marshal Li in their efforts to set up an autonomous regime in the Kwangtung-Kwangsi border region.
According to a Chinese informant of the Embassy who was formerly a co-worker with Dr. Liang Shu-ming in the latter’s rural reconstruction activities in Shantung, General Chang Yen was not assassinated, as reported in Mr. Service’s despatch. It appears that General Chang, while on a tour of southeast Kwangsi to stimulate interest in the Li Chi-shen movement and to recruit local militia groups, was taken into custody on the orders of General Teng Lung-kwang, a “blood brother” and the chief military subordinate of General Li Han-hun, the Chairman of the Kwangtung Provincial Government. [Page 326] General Chang was taken to Poseh, the present temporary capital of Kwangsi, where General Li accused him of being a Communist and demanded that he be executed. He was saved only by intervention of General Chang Fa-kwei who last month made a special trip to Chungking to see the Generalissimo on behalf of his friend and former associate.
The Embassy’s informant stated that in January, 1945, the Generalissimo again asked Marshal Li to come to Chungking in the interests of the war effort, but that the Marshal ignored the Generalissimo’s request and again wired him and General Pai Chung-hsi, stating that he and his associates had established a base on the Kwangtung-Kwangsi border and that they were devoting themselves to the promotion of democratic self-government and the reestablishment of a people’s militia. He is quoted to have said that it was only through working with the people and respecting their wishes that China could be saved. The Embassy’s informant acknowledged that the basic weakness of the Marshal Li movement was a lack of funds. He said that while there was plenty to eat there was no available money with which to purchase or manufacture arms and munitions and that given adequate financial backing it would be a simple matter to raise a sizeable army. The informant said that in January Marshal Li sent a message to the Communist forces operating in the Bias Bay area suggesting cooperation, but that he has so far received no indication whether or not this overture was favorably received by the Communists.
It would seem that in ravaging southeast China the Japanese have effectively, and perhaps deliberately, crushed an incipient popular rebellion against the authority of the Central Government.94
Respectfully yours,
- Not found in Department files.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- In a memorandum of May 8 the Assistant Chief of the Division of Chinese Affairs (Chase) observed: “Chungking’s despatch 279, April 5, 1945, and its enclosure from Chengtu indicate that Li Chi-shen’s attempt to build a local popular anti-Japanese government (on Communist lines) is collapsing through lack of funds and the failure of other ‘democratic’ elements to help Li with anything more substantial than sympathy.”↩