740.0011 Pacific War/2703

The Ambassador in China (Gauss) to the Secretary of State

No. 515

Sir: I have the honor to transmit a despatch20 of Second Secretary John Davies, Jr., detailed to the Headquarters of the American Army Forces in China, Burma and India, enclosing a memorandum21 of a conversation with Chinese leftists who are close to General Chou En-lai and who are believed to state intelligently the Chinese Communist point of view.

These informants claim that the Chinese Communists retain considerable strength and, contrary to Central Government reports, are continuing actively to fight the Japanese: they accuse the Central Government itself of deliberately avoiding such conflict. They attach [Page 207] importance to pro-German tendencies of the present Chinese regime—which they feel have been strengthened by spectacular German military successes—and interpret the present clamor in China to “defeat Japan first” as a hope that such action might reduce pressure on Germany. Incidentally, they criticize the morale of Chinese military officers, American propaganda in China (as contributing to Chinese complacence regarding their part in the war), and American and British propaganda generally (for lack of imaginative, democratic appeal to the people of Germany and Japan).

As for the statement that the Central Government is not fighting the Japanese: the Embassy has repeatedly reported that neither the Communists nor Central Government are actively so engaged. There is undoubtedly admiration, especially in military and more reactionary Kuomintang circles, of German efficiency, organization and military might; but there does not appear to be justification for the statement that the present Chinese regime hopes for a German victory over Russia. Corruption among Chinese officers and large scale engagement in trade in areas adjacent to the unoccupied areas is unfortunately, by Chinese admission, a common occurrence. The Embassy has on several occasions called attention to the questionable advisability of the over-extravagant propaganda regarding China which has been coming from America.

Respectfully yours,

C. E. Gauss
[Enclosure]

Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Davies) to the Commanding General, American Army Forces, China, Burma, and India (Stilwell)

Conversation with Two Leftists

The information contained in this memorandum is derived from two persons close to General Chou En-lai and the Communist headquarters here in Chungking.

My informants stated that the strength of the Eighteenth Group Army (former Eighth Route) is between 500,000 and 600,000. Quoting a foreign source, they said that there are an estimated one million rifles in the Communist areas in the north. They maintained that Communist strength in North China has spread to a greater extent than is generally realized; for example, there is only one district in Shantung which remains under Central Government control. So-called Border Districts have been established by the Communists in [Page 208] several areas north of the Yangtze. One is in southern Shantung and northern Kiangsu. It is there that the Eighteenth Group Army and New Fourth Army are in contact. The Communists are organized even on Hainan Island, my informants stated.

With regard to Central Government charges that the Communist forces have been avoiding conflict with the Japanese, they maintained that fighting between the Communists and the Japanese continues and that Tso Chuan, Vice Chief of Staff of the Eighteenth Group Army, was killed in an engagement in southeastern Shansi late in May. The Central Government authorities refused permission, my informants declared, for the holding of a memorial meeting for Tso Chuan, presumably because of a desire to prevent publicity of the Eighteenth Group Army’s continued activity against the Japanese.

General Chou has declared, according to my informants, that in the event of a Russo-Japanese war he anticipated orders being issued by the Central Government to the Eighteenth Group Army to launch an offensive directed at Manchuria. If this develops, he would expect the Communists to ask for adequate arms to carry out the directive and the Central Government to refuse the request. He would then look for a request for at least small arms and ammunition, which he would also expect to be refused. Finally, the Eighteenth Group Army would appeal to the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain for the equipment necessary to undertake the offensive.

Commenting upon the Central Government’s reluctance to expend its strength against the Japanese, my informants stated that the Government felt that there was no reason for China to exert itself when Great Britain, which was receiving such vast quantities of American lend-lease material, was doing so little. Therefore, practically no resistance was offered to the recent Japanese incursions into Chekiang and Kiangsi. The Generalissimo was quoted as having stated to General Pai Chung-hsi that China’s policy must be one of conserving its strength.

My informants were critical of the extravagant praise in the American press of Chinese resistance, especially the parallels drawn between Chinese and Russian resistance. They said that American correspondents who had originally been responsible in a large measure for the exaggeration, out of motives of friendship for China, admitted that they had been at fault but could not rectify their error without causing an even more undesirable reaction in the United States. Even many Chinese are amused by American eulogies of China’s military exploits, they stated. They asked if Americans who really mattered in the United States realized the true state of affairs in China.

There exists a natural ideological affinity between the regime now in power in China and the Nazis, my informants stated. Within the [Page 209] Central Government there is a pronounced admiration of the Nazis which has been augmented by the conspicuous success of German arms. The only Chungking Germans confined to a concentration camp are three German Jews; the Nazi Germans move about freely. Sons of Chungking Chinese families were said still to be working as student apprentices in German factories.

An interesting sidelight was thrown on the Chinese slogan of “Defeat Japan First”. It was suggested that concentration by the United Nations on the defeat of Japan would probably result in lightening the pressure on Germany and might even contribute to a German victory over the Soviet Union. Such a development would not be unwelcome to the regime in power in Chungking.

My informants declared that the influence of the von Falkenhausen group of German advisers22 (which returned to Germany in 1938) on the Chinese Army has been great. Many of the Chinese officers now of the grade of colonel and lieutenant colonel are products of von Falkenhausen’s training. They are professionally able and are strongly pro-German. Von Falkenhausen and his officers maintained excellent relations with the Chinese officers whom they trained. I was interested in the comment that von Falkenhausen did not teach the most up-to-date German military technique because he did not himself know that technique. He was a military man of the old German school, he ignored and was contemptuous of political indoctrination and guerrilla warfare and maintained that the only training necessary was professional military training. This theory well suited the Generalissimo who arranged for his own political indoctrination, however undynamic it was.

Captain Stinnes,23 my informants said, was still alive. He has a close German friend here with whom he has communicated, they stated, and he has also communicated with the Generalissimo. They declared that there is no question of Stinnes’s loyalty to General Chiang and that he has with Germans in Tokyo acted as a channel for messages from the Japanese to the Generalissimo. Stinnes was said to be close to Tai Li.

The experience of the Russian advisers was an unhappy one, according to my informants. They were insulated at their posts from contact with practically everyone but their Chinese liaison officers. It was remarked with laughter that the Chinese claimed that the Russians were seeking to learn the lessons taught by von Falkenhausen.

The suggestion advanced by the American Under Secretary of State that there be a long period of cooling-off and consultation between [Page 210] the termination of the war and the waiting of peace terms was mentioned with warm approval. My informants said that the peace conference must not be held in Europe; the hatreds are too great. Europe, they declared, must be unified despite the probable intensification of national feeling as a result of the war. The Netherlands was mentioned as a case in point. The Dutch have not been an intensely nationalistic people, but at the close of the war my informants expected to see a fierce, stubborn Dutch nationalism which would resist the unification of Europe. They then contrasted Beaverbrook’s24 advocacy of hate of every German and the ruthless crushing of the German people with Stalin’s25 discrimination between the Nazi regime and the German people. This revealed, they remarked, the sterile, negative British program of political warfare and the constructive, positive Russian program. British propaganda tells the German people that their leaders are lying to them; this the German people rather suspect anyway; British propaganda does not offer the German people anything better than a return to post-Versailles conditions, which were for the German people intolerable.

The American propaganda line directed at Japan was also criticized. The propaganda was seen as seeking to persuade the Japanese people that the present political situation in Japan represents a reestablishment of the Shogunate and that they should bring about a restoration of the Emperor’s power. My informants viewed this propaganda as reactionary and at variance with the American concept of this being a people’s war. A democratic revolutionary appeal to the Japanese masses they considered to be a sounder line, pointing to Spain as an example of a country which was generally regarded as the most religious and reactionary in Europe responding to a prospect of revolutionary liberation.

Of several Chinese personalities, my informants first commented on Pai Chung-hsi, saying that he is becoming increasingly identified with the Central Government; he is a general without an army, therefore in a dependent position. Shang Chen, they said, has little influence and what he does enjoy is due to the fact that he knows English. They described Wang Peng-sheng, chief of the International Problems Investigation Bureau of the Military Affairs Commission (and a man who appears to exert considerable influence on foreign policy) as a pseudo-expert. Although he is supposed to speak with authority regarding Japanese affairs, he was said to have made several glaringly inaccurate predictions.

Graft and smuggling by Chinese military officers is practically un-preventable, according to my informants, because of the low salary [Page 211] scale in the Army. By way of illustrating the low salaries paid officers, they told a current Chungking story. A Major General wished to take a certain local beauty as wife. He approached the young lady’s mother, asking her daughter’s hand in marriage. The mother was said to have replied, “Why I even told a truck driver that he couldn’t have her; do you think I would marry her to a Major General!”

John Davies
  1. Not printed.
  2. Infra.
  3. General von Falkenhausen and his mission were recalled by Adolf Hitler, German Chief of State, Führer, and Chancellor.
  4. Son of the German industrialist Hugo Stinnes, who did not return to Germany.
  5. Lord Beaverbrook, British newspaper publisher.
  6. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Chairman of the Council of Commissars (Premier) of the Soviet Union.