701.9311/817
Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations (Hornbeck)89
In connection with the information which we have been given that the present Chinese Ambassador to this country has been recalled by his Government, I make certain surmises and I venture comments, as follows:
The decision has been made by Chiang Kai-shek. The decision is a “political” decision. It arises out of disappointment and impatience on Chiang’s part. Chiang has been carrying a terrific political and military burden for more than 15 years. Beginning in 1925, he first organized and led an army which marched, fought and won battles all the way from Canton to Pekin. He ousted the Pekin Government and set up the “National Government” in a new capital, at Nanking. He met with political opposition from several foreign powers and from various war lords in China. He won a number of important diplomatic victories; he defeated some war lords; he expelled the communists from the Kuomintang; he fought the communists on battlefields; he foresaw an attack by Japan on China and he made military preparations for resisting that attack; he had to restrain powerful elements among his own people who would have brought on war prematurely; he had to decide in 1937 whether to resist the Japanese invasion or to make terms; he chose to resist; he maneuvered the Japanese into fighting in central China rather than limiting their efforts to the north; he has held China together during five years of defensive fighting; he believes, rightly or wrongly, that by containing Japanese forces he has given Great Britain and the United States invaluable assistance in terms of time for them to prepare for their own resistance against Japan; he feels, rightly or wrongly, that China is an important unit in the United Nations military effort in a global war; he has been promised in large terms and repeatedly, generous assistance, especially of materials, from his allies; he has seen assistance sent to each of several other theaters in amounts infinitely larger than the amount sent to China; he feels, rightly or wrongly, that the strategy which his allies are following in world operations is making things more difficult rather than less difficult for China; he feels, rightly or wrongly, that China’s voice in allied strategy councils is given little consideration; he even entertains doubts regarding the quality of the strategy and the capacity of his allies in practical application to the problem of defeating Germany and defeating Japan; he is a hard pressed and a tired leader. To him, the situation which exists, most of all China’s situation, is the important and immediate problem; not [Page 136] the explanations and the reasons which lie under and behind the situation. To him, the situation as regards assistance from his allies is a situation in which the allies do not rather than one in which they can not. He has his representatives in the United States. These representatives do not succeed in getting from the United States the aid which he asks. The United States does not produce the aid which he asks. He therefore is impatient both of his representatives and of the United States. He has pled, he has argued, he has done everything but make threats; and he has allowed some members of his entourage (for instance, Sun Fo) to utter suggestions which amount to threats (in terms of the possibility that China might have to cease her active resistance to Japan). He now withdraws an Ambassador. This he does in expression of his exasperation: exasperation because the Ambassador has not achieved what his Government wants; exasperation because the American Government has not cooperated with China to the extent to which he feels that it should. (The replacing of Hu Shih, a capable and popular representative of China, is a gesture with inescapable political significance.)
The important thing about all this, to us, is not whether Chiang is being unreasonable or what may be said in condemnation or in justification of his action. The important thing is that this is another indication of a trend among the political currents in the Far East, especially in China. Until the end of 1941, the peoples of the Far East, whether they liked us (and the British) or not, had great respect for us and felt confidence in us. Events in the Far East—to say nothing of those in Europe—during the past eight months have greatly diminished their respect for and weakened their confidence in us. For a long time before December 1941, Chiang Kai-shek had been telling his people that they must depend upon themselves and fight their own battle. He hoped, however, that the day would come when he would receive substantial assistance from other countries that were imperiled by and were opposed to the aggression of Japan and Japan’s European allies. During the past eight months he has had many assurances that such aid would be given him. He has witnessed, however, steady progress by Japan, repeated defeats of American and British armed forces, encirclement of his own country, closing of his lines of communication with the outside world, and failure of aid in any considerable amounts to reach him. He has reason for doubts regarding the intention and the capacities of his allies as regards his country and the Far East in general. He has asked us over and over for comparatively modest amounts of war materials; he has been promised that he shall have specified modest amounts; he has seen the deliveries fall far below the amounts promised; he has heard the reasons given in explanation of non-deliveries; [Page 137] he does not accept the explanations at face value, he regards them rather as excuses; he knows that certain of our representatives in China and in India have reported that his armies and his soldiers are not and cannot be valuable assets in the allied military effort; he knows that in military councils in Washington and in London the majority of the conferees are preoccupied primarily with considerations of occidental security and that there still prevails the centuries-old concept of occidental superiority in practically all things relating to capacity and importance; there is being driven home to him the thought that West is still West and East is still East, that occidentals still tend to flock together; he wonders inevitably whether orientals should not, whether they like it that way or not, flock together; he has among his associates some men who have contended consistently that China ought not be fighting Japan; he knows that China cannot win against Japan unless she is given substantial assistance from the countries which have given her moral support, which now are her allies, but which, for whatever may be the reasons, fail to give her military support; he has warrant, not for entertaining the idea of making peace with Japan (which he has not entertained), but for seriously considering discontinuance of active military assistance [resistance?] to Japan.
During recent weeks, American air forces in China have been making an interesting and effective showing. They have bombed various Japanese positions in China and they have destroyed a considerable number of Japanese planes. In the bombings, no small part of the property destroyed and of the persons killed or injured have been Chinese. The Chinese do not mind that, so long as these American operations are extensively damaging to the Japanese. But, one immediate effect of these operations has been the bringing on of new air operations by the Japanese. In those operations, it also is for the most part Chinese property and Chinese persons that are damaged. This, too, the Chinese do not, for the moment, mind. However, these developments create an obligation and a risk. We have “started something”; it becomes our obligation to keep the thing up and see it through. We have started something; we have created a risk that if we do not keep the thing up and see it through the damage to the Chinese which our operations entail will prove to have been damage without offsetting benefit. The current operations of our air forces in China are “all to the good” provided they be projected into the future, be sustained, be increased. If that condition is not met, the present Chinese approval and appreciation of this effort will evaporate, we will be discredited, China’s confidence in her allies will be further impaired, and China’s whole attitude toward the United Nations’ war effort will tend to become “sour.” By our launching of [Page 138] operations in China by U.S. armed forces, we have put ourselves in a position where it becomes of utmost importance that we maintain and extend the scope of those operations.
The United States has had a great deal to do during the period since the late months of 1938 with the fact that China’s resistance has continued. We have given China moral encouragement, financial assistance, some materials of war, and a great many promises. Presumably we have done this for the safeguarding and promotion of our own interests. During the past eight months those interests have obviously become broadened into and merged with the United Nations’ interests. Presumably it is desirable that China be kept in the war and remain an active belligerent. This country alone is in position to make the decisions and to take the action which will in major part influence the course of events as regards China’s remaining or China’s ceasing to be an active belligerent.
The reasoning and the decisions appropriately involved in dealing with this question are political rather than military. In simplest terms, the question is one of strategy in the field of distribution of war materials. But the political considerations which are an element in this particular problem are of greater importance than are the military considerations. The strategical problem is [primarily]1 that of keeping China in the war, not [rather than]1 that of placing a certain minimum [small]1 [amount?] of military materials at a point where they will necessarily have the greatest immediate military effect.
We have been confronted with problems similar to this at other moments and in regard to other theaters. Was not the decision to send large forces into the south Pacific and to make Australia a base for operations against Japan a decision based primarily on political rather than on military considerations? Was not the strategic problem immediately dealt with primarily that of defending Australia rather than that of defeating Japan?
Should we not look at the problem of aid to China as primarily a political problem and secondarily, for the present, a military problem? Is not what has happened simply this: our President has viewed the thing in its proper light; the President has considered it important that military supplies go from this country to China; he has declared publicly, and he has declared to Chiang Kai-shek in private messages, that such supplies shall go; and thereafter, various of the operating agencies of the Government have taken the matter in hand and, generally speaking, have found one reason after another in impediment or prevention of the carrying out of the declared policy?
[Page 139]The question which immediately confronts us is whether (a) the policy of the President is to be carried out, supplies to be delivered to China, and China to be kept in the war as an active belligerent or (b) the operating agencies of the Government are to substitute, in effect, a policy (positive or negative) contrary to the policy which the President has declared, supplies in large amounts to be sent to many other theaters, merely a trickle of supplies to be sent to China, and China thus to be permitted or even encouraged to cease to be an active belligerent.
China can be kept in this war at a comparatively small cost. China can be made a base of operations from which Japan can be greatly damaged, at comparatively small cost. China and the whole Far East can be lost as effective allies and, if lost, can be turned against the Occident—in absence of and for want of a little more of effort on our part to convince the Chinese that we mean what we say when we praise China for the fight she has made against Japan, when we laud her as an ally, and when we promise to send her aid.