861.77 Chinese Eastern/325
The Military Attaché in China (Magruder) to the Legation in China26
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5. Conclusions. From my investigations, I cannot avoid the conclusion, despite present official announcements, that the Chinese objective in their abrupt actions of July 10 and 11, was the complete recovery of the Chinese Eastern Railway and that only an unfavorable expression of world opinion and a menacing Soviet attitude forced an official renunciation of this objective and its replacement by demands for strict adherence to the Agreements of 1924. Official statements from Nanking have defended the final action taken at Harbin but, in order to retain a loop-hole, officials personally are encouraging the dissemination of the idea that the action was hasty, unforeseen and unauthorized. They suggest the mild propitiation of a scapegoat in the person of the President of the Board of Directors upon whom they show willingness to heap the load of responsibility for the affair.
While conceding that the officials concerned with handling the Chinese side of the Chinese Eastern are incompetent to deal with the important questions involved and to appreciate their international significance, it is inconceivable that the drastic steps at Harbin were taken by any Chinese official upon his own initiative. For some time Manchurian officials generally have favored seizure of the railway, the difference in opinion being only as to the method of procedure. Foreign advisers, it has been seen, advocated seizure. Russia’s various attempts this year to negotiate over the outstanding difficulties were met with rebuff. Nanking was made current with Chinese Eastern matters at least as early as June through the medium of Kao Chi-yi, and this important official was still in Nanking at the time of the coup. A significant meeting was held in Peking on the afternoon of July 10, by Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Hsueh-liang and C. T. Wang, immediately after which these leaders hastily dispersed, and the action in Harbin reached its climax the next day. The dilatory absence of Chang Hsueh-liang and C. T. Wang from their posts following the crisis is explicable only as an attempt to establish an alibi for some specific purpose. The official declaration of the Mukden Government of July 22, 1929, was submitted to Nanking for approval prior to its release. The first official statements contained no censure of the Harbin officials.
[Page 252]The foregoing facts create a strong suspicion that Nanking and Mukden were working in agreement, were aware of what was to take place in Harbin, and if the highest authorities did not order the Harbin action, they took no measures to forestall or check its execution.
Messrs. Donald,27 Ostroumoff and Lo Wen-kan, in so far as they exert influence in Mukden, have been directing their efforts toward urging China to recover full rights in the railway by steps which can be legally defended before world opinion. It is probable that the final, abrupt action was taken without the knowledge of the two foreigners, but it is difficult to believe that it was taken without the knowledge of higher authorities, including Nanking. Whereas I feel certain Mr. Donald advised against the methods employed, he tends to propagate the Mukden version that the Harbin authorities acted on their own initiative.
This crisis which has threatened to menace peace in the Far East was rendered inevitable by the insistence of Russia upon hitching a scheme for the propagation of her political ideas onto a joint commercial enterprise which had become the expression of Russia’s neoimperialism; and China’s determination, with her blundering or devious governmental mechanism, to gain complete control of a joint enterprise with scant regard for agreements, international practices and the responsibilities involved.
Strangely, in this discussion of a vital issue in Manchuria, Japan has not once been mentioned—nor does she warrant her usual unpleasant inclusion except very indirectly.
Major, General Staff