761.93/1546
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 15.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that in the course of a conversation with Doctor W. W. Yen, Ambassador of the Republic of China to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I asked Doctor Yen if he had discussed the question of Sinkiang with Mr. Litvinov. He replied that he had had a very full discussion of the question and one which had been on the whole satisfactory. He said that Litvinov had assured him categorically that the Soviet Union had no political or military designs on Sinkiang and that the only interest of the Soviet [Page 122] Union in Sinkiang was economic. He added that Litvinov seemed to be very apprehensive about the possibility that the Japanese might extend their westward advance as far as Sinkiang. Doctor Yen commented that he considered this absurd.
Doctor Yen then went on to say that the Bolsheviks were, however, actually in control of the Chairman of the Provincial Council of Sinkiang. He said that the Chairman of the Provincial Council for some years had had a guard of White Russians, that this guard had proved to be inadequate to put down insurrections of local authorities in Sinkiang, that the Chairman of the Provincial Council had then called on the Soviet authorities of Semipalatinsk for help, that these authorities had sent to his aid a large number of soldiers and some officers of the Soviet Army clothed as civilians. These men had then donned the uniforms of the Chairman of the Provincial Council and had become his chief armed force. Doctor Yen asserted that two thousand of these members of the Soviet Army today constituted the personal guard of the Chairman of the Provincial Council and had the Chairman completely under their control—a Praetorian guard.
Doctor Yen informed me that in the course of the summer he himself intended to make a trip to Sinkiang and asked me if it might be possible for me to accompany him. I replied that I thought that the effect produced if I should do so would be somewhat too spectacular to be desirable.
Doctor Yen further informed me that Hirota had recently asked Chiang Kai-shek if he might make a visit to Nanking to call on the Generalissimo this summer and that Chiang Kai-shek had agreed to receive Hirota in Nanking. Doctor Yen added that last summer Chiang Kai-shek had refused a similar proposal from Hirota. Doctor Yen said that Chiang Kai-shek had not in any way deviated from the general principles which he had enunciated to me in the course of our conversations of last November in Nanking but that he was having to make concessions to Japan in order to prevent military action by the Japanese Army. He said that Wang Chung-wei [Ching-wei?] had informed the Japanese that China was ready to accept Japanese advisors in addition to foreign advisors. Doctor Yen further asserted that he had private information that the military and naval groups of Japan had set a time limit to Hirota’s attempt to settle Sino-Japanese relations satisfactorily by peaceful means. He said that he understood that the military and naval leaders of Japan had informed Hirota that if he could not obtain a satisfactory settlement from the Chinese Government by June 30, 1935, military action would begin.
Doctor Yen stated that on his trip through Siberia and after his arrival in Moscow he had been treated with demonstrations of friendship and affection such as he had never known in the Soviet Union and added that he felt that the Soviet Government would now attempt [Page 123] sincerely to improve relations between the Soviet Union and the Republic of China.
Respectfully yours,