893.00/11665: Telegram
The Consul General at Nanking (Peck) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 15—4:40 p.m.]
124. My 123, December 15, noon.90 The damage inflicted by the students on the Foreign Office buildings was comparatively slight. When they reached the Central Party headquarters a meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the Nationalist Party was in progress and had just taken the following action:
The resignation of Chiang Kai-shek from all his posts had been accepted and Lin Sen, who is President of the Legislative Yuan, had been appointed Acting President of the National Government and General Chen Ming-shu, commander in chief of the National Guard, had been appointed Acting President of the Executive Yuan; the committee refused to accept the resignations of the other Yuan presidents. After the students had forced the main entrance they were opposed by party officials and were met by Tsai Yuan-pei and Chen Ming-shu. The two latter were seized by the students and received severe injuries. The students were armed with staves and iron rods and at least one revolver, from which shots were fired. Some of the students wore communist insignia. There appears to be no general disorder here and there are no present indications of other important resignations or departures from the capital. Chiang Kai-shek has been persuaded by the Central Executive Committee to remain in Nanking and T. V. Soong returned from Shanghai while the arrival of Chang Hsueh-liang is expected. During the last few days the Government has utilized airplanes to scatter hand bills over the student demonstrations. The following is a translation of a typical leaflet:
“Patriotic fellow students. The Government has repeatedly announced that (1) it definitely will not negotiate directly with Japan, [Page 687] (2) it definitely will not create a neutral area at Chinchow but will on the contrary oppose that measure, and (3) there is no proposal to create joint control of Tientsin. Do not believe Japanese counter-propaganda”.
Legation at Peiping and Embassy at Tokyo informed.
- Not printed.↩