893.00/14685: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China ( Gauss )
137. Reference Department’s telegram to Chungking, no. 58, March 13, 19416 and Embassy’s telegram no. 114, March 26, 1941.7
A report has reached us, presumably based on statements made by Edgar Snow8 and Chou En-lai, to the effect that, due to such factors I as (1) deteriorating economic condition of the people in areas under the control of the National Government, (2) deterioration of the National Government’s armies resulting from economic and financial situation and from the static condition of China’s warfare against Japan, and (3) the growing strength of the Chinese communist armies through defections from National Government armies and sale of arms to communist forces by soldiers of the National Government armies, the National Government may in the near future take repressive steps against the communists which might result in outbreak of civil war.
The Department would appreciate your views, without your making specific inquiries outside the Embassy, in regard to the foregoing report.
- Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. v, p. 490.↩
- Ibid., p. 492.↩
- Correspondent in China for the Saturday Evening Post and author of Red Star Over China (1938).↩