893.00P.R.Harbin/27
The Consul at Harbin (Hanson) to the Minister in China (MacMurray)53
Sir:
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July, 1929, proved eventful in the history of North Manchuria and of the Chinese Eastern Railway. In last month’s review it was stated that the return of the high administrative officials would soon reveal whether or not they would take decisive steps against Soviet influence in this district.
After the return of the officials, a series of meetings was held by them in regard to putting into effect the decisions reached at conferences held at Mukden during June. It evidently had been decided by both Nanking and Mukden that, basing their action on alleged evidence secured in the raid on the local Soviet Consulate General on May 27, 1929, the local Chinese authorities should take some measures to decrease Soviet and to increase Chinese influence on the Chinese Eastern Railway, principally by curtailing the powers of the Soviet General Manager, Mr. A. I. Emshanoff, and increasing the authority of the Chinese Assistant Manager, who had been merely a figurehead. (Details regarding documents and other material discovered during the raid were made public by Nanking and published in the Peking and Tientsin Times, Tientsin, under dates of July 25th, 27th, 30th and 31st, and August 1st and 2nd.)
Early in the month, the local Chinese official inspired Chinese and Russian press devoted much space in setting forth the Chinese desires in regard to increasing the powers of the Chinese Assistant Manager, realizing parity of employment, placing Chinese in control of the principal departments, curtailing the activities of Soviet trade and labor organizations and stamping out communism and warning the Soviet authorities that, if they did not take immediate steps to [Page 279] meet the Chinese wishes in these respects, the local authorities would act independently to secure the attainment of their desires.
On July 4th, Mr. I. O. Chuhmanenko, a Soviet member of the Board of Directors of the Railway, committed suicide, evidently because he realized matters were coming to a crisis, in which the Soviet side would suffer, and because he did not dare return to Moscow, to which place he had been recalled, to report failure and possibly to receive punishment there for this failure. According to a pre-arranged plan, the President of the Board of Directors of the Railway, Mr. Lü Jung Huan, on July 9th, appointed Mr. Fan Chi Kuan, a member of the Board of Directors, Assistant General Manager in place of Mr. Kuo Chung Hsi, who resigned, allegedly on account of sickness, but really because he was not considered able to handle the coming situation on account of his weakness and his lack of knowledge of the Russian language and of the Russians with whom he had to deal. Mr. Fan was educated in a technical school in Russia, where later he spent considerable time as a Chinese consular officer. At the same time Mr. Tu Wei Ching, Chief of the Traffic Department, an engineer educated in the United States but with little knowledge of Russian, was replaced by Mr. Kao Wei, who speaks the Russian language. These moves were made to pave the way for future action.
The next morning the Chinese authorities seized the Railway’s public telegraph and line telephone systems, a move which had been expected for some time, and closed the offices of the local Soviet trade and labor organizations. Later in the day Mr. A. V. Chirkin, the Soviet Vice President of the Board, had a meeting with Mr. Lü and protested against these actions. Mr. Lü urged Mr. Chirkin to accept the Chinese propositions in regard to the powers of the Soviet General Manager and of the Chinese Assistant Manager, to parity of employment and to the heads of the principal Departments. On account of the morning’s events, Mr. Chirkin flatly refused to accede to these demands, evidently basing his refusal on the fact that they were contrary to the Soviet-Mukden Agreement of 1924. In the evening, several minor Railway employees, including a prominent young communist, Mr. B. P. Kniazieff, who was chief secretary of the Administration in charge of personnel, i. e. who had much power in engaging and dismissing employees, were sent to Manchuria under arrest for deportation into Siberia.
It might be stated here that when reports in regard to the actions taken by the Chinese authorities on the 10th reached Moscow, the latter announced that it would send Mr. L. E. Serebriakoff, who had served as Soviet Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Railway several years ago, to Harbin to arrange a satisfactory settlement [Page 280] of these matters. For some unknown reason the Chinese Legation in Moscow refused to give him a visa to enter China.
There is no doubt but that Mr. Lü had been instructed by Mukden, with the approval of Nanking, to secure an increase of Chinese influence at Soviet expense on the Railway. Just how detailed his instructions were and how far he was authorized to proceed in utilizing forceful measures are unknown to this office. It is known that a certain group of extremists in Mukden was impatient of his apparent failure to secure Soviet consent to the Chinese proposals and that there was a movement on foot to replace him. He was aware of this and … he evidently decided to act strongly. The feebleness of the Soviet Regime’s action, limited to protests, when its Embassy compound was raided and its Consulates throughout China were either attacked, closed or searched (including the Harbin Consulate General), and its Consular officers were abused and sent out of China, when the Chinese authorities seized the Railway’s valuable fleet of steamers and barges and the Harbin Telephone System, and when they took from the Railway control of the schools for which the Railway appropriated large sums each year, had made the Chinese believe that any move, no matter how drastic, they made would also be met with only protests on the part of Moscow. To a certain extent they were correct, as Mr. M. K. Gordeieff, former head of the Land Department of the Railway, who had been in Moscow a week before the storm burst here, informed me that he had urged the officials there to take a more active interest in the Railway’s affairs and was met with the reply that they were so busy with European and internal affairs that they could not pay much attention to railway matters in far off Manchuria.
On July 11th, early in the morning, Mr. Lü sent a note to Mr. Emshanoff, directing him to sign as General Manager an order bringing the Chinese propositions into life. This Mr. Emshanoff refused to do and was discharged by Mr. Lü. A similar demand was made upon Mr. A. A. Eismont, the Soviet Assistant Manager, who had charge of the Administration of the Railway in the absence of Mr. Emshanoff, and he also refused to sign the order. Upon his dismissal, Mr. Fan Chi Kuan automatically became the Acting General Manager, in the post of which he was confirmed by Mr. Lü. Mr. Fan’s first action as Acting General Manager was to replace the Soviet heads of the principal departments, such as motive power, accounting, commercial, telegraph and exploitation, by Chinese and Russians of Chinese citizenship, an action which was followed by wholesale discharges of those employees suspected of being Soviet sympathizers.
These bold steps were followed by still more drastic action … It seems their next move should have been to inform Moscow that [Page 281] they had found it impossible to work with and had suspended the General Manager, Mr. Emshanoff, from his position and to suggest to Moscow that it send a new General Manager, satisfactory to the Chinese, to replace him. After they realized that the foreign press in general was outspoken in condemning their drastic actions, which was characterized as the seizing of the Railway, they naively publicly announced that they had believed that the Board of Directors would appoint immediately a new Soviet General Manager (it should be here noted that Messrs. Lü and Fan are members of this Board) and that they would welcome a new Soviet General Manager from Moscow at any time. Instead of taking conciliatory steps, the Chinese authorities deported from China Messrs. Emshanoff and Eismont, who departed on July 12th from Harbin. A copy, in translation, of a proclamation issued by Mr. Lü, explaining his action, was enclosed with my despatch No. 1972 to the Legation.
Unexpectedly to the Chinese authorities, Moscow became incensed over the action toward the General Manager and the Soviet Foreign Office handed the Chinese Chargé d’Affaires at Moscow for delivery to Mukden and Nanking an ultimatum in the form of a note demanding the restoration of the former Soviet position on the Railway and an answer within three days. The text of this note was released at Moscow for publication in the press under date of July 14th.54 At the same time Mr. Serebriakoff’s instructions to proceed to Harbin were cancelled.
Strange to relate, this note had little effect on the local Chinese authorities, who had hypnotized themselves into the belief that the Soviet authorities would never go beyond verbal action. On July 15th, General Chang Ching Hui, the Civil Administrator of the Special Area, ordered that the Railway’s many libraries, containing hundreds of thousands of valuable books, be turned over to the Chinese Educational Administration, that the Railway’s land office be incorporated into the Chinese Land Administration, concerning which much has been reported to the Legation, and that twelve slaughterhouses and two disinfection stations operated by the Railway, be taken over by the local Chinese authorities. On the same date, Mr. Fan closed the Railway’s departments of labor rationalization and steamship affairs, the latter having been kept open by the Railway Administration with the hope that some day it would recover its floating equipment. Wholesale discharges and deportations of Soviet railway employees continued. Up until the present writing 3,000 Soviet employees have terminated their connection with the Railway.
In the meantime Soviet troops were moved towards the frontier near Manchuria Station and Suifenho, and Chinese forces likewise. [Page 282] Mukden did not reply to the Soviet note, but Nanking did and its reply was not considered satisfactory to Moscow, which ordered the withdrawal of its Consular, trade and Railway representatives from China and closed the frontiers, thus preventing through passenger traffic and through mail service to and from Europe via Manchuria Station. An exodus of Soviet citizens, including deportees, commenced. The local Soviet Consul General, Mr. A. A. Melnikoff, and Mr. Chirkin and Mr. Izmailoff of the Board of Directors of the Railway were the last to leave, due to difficulties in securing Chinese visaes, and they took with them thirty-four foreign through passengers who had been held up at Harbin. Before leaving on July 25th, Mr. Melnikoff made a hurried visit, which he and his Soviet friends tried to keep a secret, to Changchun in company with Mr. Tsai Yun Sheng, Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and former Taoyin at Harbin. At this place he had a conference with General Chang Tso Hsiang, the Governor of Kirin Province, which borders on Siberia and which is exposed to a Soviet attack. It has been difficult to ascertain what happened at this conference, but it is presumed that General Chang, independently of Nanking and, perhaps, Mukden as a whole, made certain propositions, among them one that the General Manager of the Railway would be a Soviet citizen in accordance with the terms of the Soviet-Mukden Agreement of 1924. This is in accordance with a statement made by General Chang Ching Hui in an interview given by him on July 24th (Vide despatch No. 1982, dated July 27th, to the Legation). On the day of his departure, Mr. Melnikoff visited the 39 prisoners arrested during the raid on his Consulate General, gave them Local $2,500 and some supplies, and promised them their speedy release. At the railway station, he told some of his acquaintances that he would see them again soon. Local Soviet affairs were turned over to Doctor G. Stobbe, the German Consul General.
On July 22nd, Mr. Li Shao Keng, who was educated in Harbin Russian schools and who is a member of the Board of Directors of the Railway, was appointed by Mr. Lü to assist Mr. Fan in the Administration of the Railway. He and Mr. Tsai left Harbin for Manchuria Station, a day’s journey, on July 29th to meet Mr. Melnikoff and to continue informal discussions with him. The first meeting was held on July 31st at a small station No. 86, a few miles from Manchuria Station, on the Chita Railway. Soviet troops and airplanes maneuvered near the delegates in order to impress the Chinese visitors. Subsequent meetings were held at Manchuria Station on August 1st and 2nd. As far as can be learned at present, these meetings were devoted to informal discussions about the arranging of a conference, the mutual withdrawing of troops from the frontier and the restoring of through traffic.
[Page 283]On August 1st, the Soviet Foreign Office received a note from Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang containing a proposal that the present situation on the Railway be legalized, but omitting the proposal, previously made, that the General Manager be a Soviet citizen, appointed by Moscow. The next day, Mr. Karelian55 gave out for publication his reply, which stated that the new proposals of the Mukden Government were contrary to the Soviet-Mukden Agreement and to its former proposals, and were unacceptable. This would indicate that either Nanking or General Chang on his own initiative had decided that Mr. Tsai had offered too favorable terms to the Soviet side.
Mr. Ch’u Shao Yang, appointed Minister to Finland and, ostensibly, Nanking’s delegate to confer with the Soviet representatives at the border or in Moscow, arrived at Harbin in the morning of August 5th and left in the evening of the same day for Manchuria Station, after spending a few hours here calling on the leading local officials. Upon his arrival at Manchuria Station the next day, he immediately had a conference with Messrs. Tsai and Li.
It is believed that during his stay at that place, he did not succeed in arranging an interview with any Soviet representative, owing, according to one version, to the fact that the Soviet side desired to talk to a delegate of the Mukden Government and not of the Nanking Government, with which Soviet Russia never had any diplomatic relations, and, according to another version, to the fact that Mr. Ch’u wished to talk with a fully empowered Soviet delegate, which he claimed Mr. Melnikoff was not. Messrs. Ch’u, Tsai and Li returned to Harbin on August 15th, but were silent upon their arrival.
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The situation at present is deadlocked. General Chang Tso Hsiang of Kirin, the outstanding leader in Manchuria, does not want war. Neither, really, does the Soviet side, but its intimidating actions on the frontier might precipitate graver troubles at any time. A breach appears to be widening between Mukden and Nanking over the manner in which to handle the situation which has arisen. If Chang Tso Hsiang should negotiate directly with the Soviet side, as he probably would like to do, yielding much, the Japanese could also claim the right to negotiate direct with Mukden and not with Nanking in regard to questions in which they are interested. Mukden is in a quandary. A stiff front on the part of Nanking against the Soviet Regime would place Manchuria in grave dangers from the Siberian side. For Mukden to negotiate over the head of Nanking, would subject the former to direct Japanese pressure and further [Page 284] explode the theory that Manchuria is linked to China proper in unity. Mukden is therefore torn between the fears of National aggression from the south and Soviet pressure from the north. How its leaders will extricate Manchuria from the present complicated situation, leaving their predominant position intact, is a problem, which will be hard to solve.
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