893.00 P.R./8
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 20.]
Sir: In accordance with the Department’s instruction No. 78, of October 9, 1925,50 I have the honor to submit the following summary, with index, of events and conditions in China during June, 1928:
The Northern Expedition, actively resumed in April after a period of quiescence during the winter, was brought to a virtual completion early in June with the withdrawal of Marshal Chang Tso-lin to Manchuria and with the occupation of Peking by the forces of General Yen Hsi-shan. The Shansi troops had advanced under the [Page 154] aegis of the Kuomintang and the dream cherished by Dr. Sun Yat-sen of a Nationalist occupation of the ancient capital was realized.
As the month drew to a close, however, the suspicion previously entertained that Fengtien’s collapse would not of itself solve the Nanking Government’s gravest problems was given added force. It became apparent that the cessation of large-scale military operations, while viewed in all quarters with relief and hope for the future, emphasized rather than diminished the essential instability of equilibrium among the various elements associated under the Nationalist banner, but looking to Nanking in theory only as the source of ultimate authority. Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang, the chief individualist, balked of his desired objectives by the strength of the potential combinations against him, was believed to be merely biding his time and, although precluded by the strength of public opinion from forcibly relieving Yen Hsi-shan from his post of Garrison Commander of the Peking-Tientsin area, was felt to be doing all he could to create difficulties sufficient to cause Yen’s voluntary withdrawal. The quasi-independent Kwangsi Generals were determined to render permanent their possessions in the South and in the Yangtze Valley and, only mildly tolerant of the Nanking Government, were actually hostile to General Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek, on his part, was embarrassed by having under his command thirteen army corps only four of which had territories to which they could return and in which they would be supported. An apparently imminent acceptance of the Fengtien Generals into the Kuomintang fold, a development that would have strengthened Chiang Kai-shek’s position, had not taken place at the end of June.
The month closed on the eve of a contemplated meeting in Peking between Chiang Kai-shek, Yen Hsi-shan, Feng Yü-hsiang, Li Tsung-jen, Pai Ch’ung-hsi, Li Chai-sum, and other Nationalist leaders.
Respecting the mooted transfer of the capital of the country to Nanking, I was informally told on June 13th that the Foreign Office here would be closed as such from that date, a representative of the Nanking Government having arrived to take charge of the archives. It was reported in the press that at a meeting of the Nanking Political Committee on June 30th the decision was reached to rename Peking, Peiping, or Northern Peace.
Elimination of Chang Tso-lin
Marshal Chang Tso-lin’s position in Peking became increasingly untenable with the continuing advance during May of the associated forces of General Yen Hsi-shan, Marshal Feng Yü-hsiang, and General Chiang Kai-shek, an advance due in part to betrayals by Chang’s subordinates, and a withdrawal into Manchuria was determined [Page 155] upon. The Ex-Dictator boarded his special train at the Chien Men station early in the morning of June 3rd bound for Mukden, his departure, with full honors and to the accompaniment of music from two military bands, being not without dignity.
It is stated that the Marshal’s original plan had been to leave by automobile secretly and unostentatiously and that it was with some misgivings that he undertook to return to his stronghold in the Three Eastern Provinces in the open manner adopted. If that was the case his premonition of disaster was substantiated since a bomb explosion, mysteriously engineered by agencies as yet not determined, severely damaged his train as it was passing under a South Manchuria Railway bridge in the outskirts of Mukden on the morning of June 4th. Among the casualties resulting from this outrage was the death of General Wu Chun-sheng, Tupan of Heilungkiang, and one of Chang Tso-lin’s most trusted advisers. The Marshal himself was said at the time to have been only slightly wounded but there is reason to believe that he succumbed the same day. His death was not officially announced until June 21st, two days after the inauguration of his son, Chang Hsueh-liang, a much less able man, but from the Nationalist point of view a more amenable one, as the Acting Military Director (Tupan) of Fengtien. The delay in making known the Generalissimo’s demise was reported to have been due to the unsubstantiated fear, prevalent during several days of tension, that the Japanese thereupon would seize control of Mukden.
Negotiations between the Fengtien Party and the Nanking Nationalist Government, doubtless facilitated by the elimination of Marshal Chang Tso-lin, were going on in Mukden at the end of the month and it was felt that a union of some sort would eventuate from them.
Developments in Peking
In Tientsin a show of resistance was made by Generals Chang Tsung-chang and Chu Yu-pu, but Peking fell into Nationalist hands without the firing of a shot. There was little evidence of regret or enthusiasm at the result of the change on the part of the populace.
On June 4th General Chang Hsueh-liang and Yang Yu-ting together with the principal remaining officials of the Fengtien régime withdrew from Peking, and the task of administering the city during a transient interregnum devolved upon a Committee of Elder Statesmen.
The Committee’s duties were facilitated by the presence of a part of a Fengtien brigade, under the command of Pao Yii-lin, which remained behind, in accordance with a plan acceded to by the Nanking authorities, until the arrival of the Nationalists when it was to be [Page 156] permitted peacefully to depart. The Diplomatic Body supported the Committee in its endeavor to ensure the maintenance of peace and order in the city during the interim period by addressing identic telegrams to the Southern leaders51 in which expression was given to the gratification which would be felt were the arrangements in regard to General Pao’s force duly carried out.
On June 8th General Pao and his protective force left Peking with full honors under a safe-conduct from a Kuominchun commander outside of the city and immediately afterwards the first Shansi troops came in under General Sun Chu, whose Chief of Staff at once called upon the Senior Minister to inform him that, under the authority of Marshal Yen Hsi-shan, General Sun had taken over the responsibility of maintaining peace and order. The incoming troops were well disciplined and the turn-over was a quiet one but confidence in the good faith of the Nationalist Government was somewhat shaken when it was discovered on the following day that, in spite of the promise made by that régime, General Pao’s men had not been able to proceed more than sixteen miles from the city before being disarmed by the Kuominchun commander in the vicinity of Tunghsien and forced to return to the suburbs of Peking. It was not until July 1st, after protracted representations in which the foreign representatives took part, that these troops, minus a certain number who elected to remain within the Wall, were allowed to depart for Manchuria. The greater part of their arms was likewise eventually returned to them.
Communication with the outside world, other than by radio, was cut at this time and remained so for several days. Kuominchun forces were then to the south, east and north of Peking and a disposition existed to believe that Feng Yü-hsiang was preparing to force out Yen Hsi-shan. General Yen, however, arrived on the 11th and took up his headquarters at the Ministry of War as the Garrison Commander of the Peking-Tientsin area which post he still held at the end of June. This peaceful revolutionary, as he has been called, succeeded in maintaining order in the area although his administration was embarrassed by the numerous conflicting and overlapping appointments to office made by the Nationalist authorities. He was embarrassed also by General Pai Ch’ung-hsi who accompanied him to Peking and who lost no opportunity of forcing himself into the lime-light. General Pai apparently brought several divisions of Wuhan troops into Chihli, and, in view of their arrival at a time when their assistance would seem no longer to have been needed, it was a matter of surmise whether or not they had been dispatched [Page 157] with the approval of Nanking for the purpose of exercising a restraining and neutralizing effect upon the possible activities of Feng Yü-hsiang.
C. T. Wang Appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs
Since the resignation of General Hwang Fu on May 22nd, as the Nationalist Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Tong Yueh-liang, the Vice Minister, had been acting Foreign Minister. On June 6th the Political Council at Nanking appointed Mr. C. T. Wang as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and, in telegrams dated Nanking, June 14th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nationalist Government informed the various diplomatic representatives in Peking that Mr. Wang had assumed office on that day. The manner in which these telegrams were to be answered was discussed in a Diplomatic Body meeting of the following day. It was decided to send individual but not identic acknowledgments in the third person addressed to the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nanking”. Contact with the de facto Chinese governmental authorities on the now familiar informal basis was thus maintained.
Mr. C. T. Wang was Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs at Peking under President Li Yuan-hung, and Minister for Foreign Affairs for brief periods under President Ts’ao K’un and Chief Executive Tuan Ch’i-jui, and has occupied a number of other important posts under the Republic.
Nationalist Policies and Aims
A few days after Mr. Wang’s appointment the Nationalist Government issued, in characteristic language, a declaration of its policies and aims “now that the unification of China is being accomplished”.52 …
It may be of interest to the Department, in this relation, to quote again, in translation, Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s will, as written in March, 1925, which has been defined as the “Koran of the Kuomintang”:
“I have been engaged in the work of the national revolution for some forty years with the object of securing freedom and equality for China. As a result of the accumulated experience of these forty years I have come to realize that in order to attain this object it is imperative that we should awaken the masses of our people and unite with all the peoples of the world, who can treat us as equals, to fight jointly.
“As the revolution is not yet completed, all of my comrades should continue to struggle for the realization of the principles embodied in my two works, Plans for National Reconstruction, and General [Page 158] Outlines of National Reconstruction, and also the Three People’s Principles and the declaration of the first Plenary Kuomintang Congress. It is particularly important that the two planks which I recently advocated—the calling of a people’s conference and abolition of China’s unequal treaties,—should be realized within the shortest time possible.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Consulates at Changsha, Chungking, and Yunnanfu
- 1.
- While there were no well defined signs of stability in Hunan during June, certain favorable trends such as the recent dismissal of General Ch’eng Ch’ien; the consequent reorganization of the military establishment in that province; and the appointment of better disposed civil officials, led the American Consul General at Hankow to look for still further improvement in the general situation and to believe that the Changsha Consulate soon might be reopened. The city of Changsha was relatively quiet and while there was evidence of communistic activity in certain interior sections of the province Mr. Lockhart stated, in a telegram of June 18th,53 that a campaign to suppress communism was vigorously to be prosecuted.
- 2.
- Hostilities between Generals Liu Hsiang and Yang Sen, resulting in military operations along the Upper Yangtze together with the general instability of conditions in the province of Szechuan caused Mr. Lockhart to report during the month that the question of reopening of the Chungking Consulate should be held in abeyance for the time being.
I have [etc.]