[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Counselor of Embassy in China
(Vincent)
to the Ambassador in China (Gauss)
[Chungking,] July 14, 1942.
This morning I called on Dr. Henry Chang, Director of the American
Department of the Foreign Office. After we had finished with the
immediate business of my call (American radio stations in Chungking),
the conversation turned to the general situation in China in relation to
the war effort.
I wanted to get from Dr. Chang (and told him so) his impressions, as a
Chinese back in China after many years’ absence, of the China scene in
relation to the general war effort.
Dr. Chang said that the circumstance or condition which had impressed him
most upon his return was the fortitude with which the
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Chinese people were carrying on with the
war and the confidence with which they looked forward to ultimate
victory. He said that, from his own observations and from information
coming to him, he reached the conclusion that this fortitude and this
confidence were general throughout China, among the people in the
capital and in the provinces and among all classes. There was war
weariness, of course, but this did not seem to modify the feeling that
resistance must be continued until the Japanese were driven from the
country. Much hope had been placed upon the entrance of America and
England into the war in the Pacific and the initial reverses had, quite
naturally, made for disappointment. It was a fact that the economic and
the military situation in China had actually worsened as a result of the
general war in the Pacific but that morale had not. He said that Chinese
generally had a sincere expectation that the United Nations would win
the war.
Dr. Chang commented that Chinese with whom he was in contact felt that
China was not being given sufficient aid. He pointed to production
reports from the United States and said that the Chinese felt that the
China theater of the war merited greater support. He referred to talk of
a “second front” and said that China might be considered the “second
front”. I mentioned transportation difficulties He said that he had in
mind principally air support and the materials that would be required to
support an American air force in China. Materials for arsenals were also
mentioned. He expressed the opinion that some definite amount of
support, which took into consideration transportation facilities, should
be decided upon and that then definite provision should be made for
getting that support to China.
Dr. Chang said that he had never heard the matter of assistance from
America mentioned as essential to the continuance of Chinese resistance.
China needed assistance but China would continue to fight whether she
received assistance or not. He dismissed as baseless rumor any talk of
China’s entertaining peace proposals from Japan.
Dr. Chang thought, as many other Chinese officials, that the Japanese
were planning an attack on Siberia but were delaying action in the hope
that Russian reverses in Europe would soon present a more favorable
opportunity for their offensive. He considered the Japanese campaigns in
Chekiang and Kiangsu as offensives with a limited and defensive
objective. He did not anticipate any major Japanese offensive against
China at this time and did not consider as realistic prognostications
that the Japanese had plans for establishing rail connections between
Korea and French Indo-China through eastern China.
