893.00/4185: Telegram

The Minister in China (Schurman) to the Secretary of State

11. New Cabinet reported in my telegram number 4, January 3, 10 p.m.1 as without popular enthusiasm, encountering fierce opposition from Wu Pei-fu,2 hostile from the beginning and now exacerbated by the Government’s pardoning his Anfuite enemies. Wu in two circular telegrams appeals on popular issue of Shantung to Chinese people North and South to condemn Liang Shih-yi3 for his subservience to Japan in willingness, so Wu charges, to accept Japanese loan for redemption railway and having wired instructions to Chinese delegates Washington to avert this, Wu declares, of all evils, selling one’s country is greatest, and concludes telegram with appeal that Chinese people should rise up and drive away their enemy and further wire to their Washington delegates urging them to stick to their original decision of restoring railway to Chinese control without any connection with the Japanese.4

Rumors that Wu is recalling troops from Hupeh.

Schurman
  1. Post, p. 761.
  2. Inspector-General of Hupeh and Hunan.
  3. Appointed Premier Dec. 14, 1921.
  4. For Shantung negotiations, see pp. 934 ff.