893.00/14956
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Drumright)13
Yesterday, at a luncheon given by Chou En-lai, Chinese communist representative in Chungking, which was attended by Colonel Barrett, Colonel DePass, Mr. Clubb14 and the writer, opportunity was had [Page 202] to have an informal conversation with General Lin Piao. (General Lin Piao is a very noted Chinese communist military leader. Rather diminutive in appearance, he is 35 years of age and is a native of a village located not far from Hankow, Hupeh. In 1924 he was a student at Whampoa Military Academy at Canton under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. It is said that he was wounded three times in the course of the Generalissimo’s drive against the communists. He also sustained a serious chest wound in a clash with Japanese forces in western Shansi in 1938 or 1939. He directed the operations of the Chinese communist forces when they won their most noted victory over the Japanese at Pinghsingkuan in northern Shansi in the autumn of 1937. According to General Lin’s own statement the Japanese suffered 4,000 casualties in this engagement.)
General Lin said that he had left Yenan, Shensi, in the early part of October 1942 and that he had arrived in Chungking after about three weeks’ travel by truck. He said that life in Yenan is now very difficult, that the only staple food available is millet. He said that Mao Tse-tung, acknowledged leader of the Chinese communists, is in fair health but that he suffers from rheumatism owing to residence in the damp loess caves. He said that now although nearly sixty years of age, General Chu Teh, field commander of the Chinese communist forces, retains his good health. He said that General Chu is in the field, as is the vice commander, General Peng Teh-huai.
General Lin said that since coming to Chungking he has been received on two occasions by his old teacher, the Generalissimo. He said that the Generalissimo had received him courteously. It was gathered that he and the Generalissimo had discussed Kuomintang-communist relations; that as a representative of the Chinese communists he had requested that the blockade of the communist special area in north Shensi be lifted, that the communists be supplied with funds, ammunition and medicines. He went on to say that the Generalissimo had evinced sympathy but that nothing concrete had happened. He said that the Kuomintang had demanded that communist forces be incorporated into the national armies, but he said that he feared that this could not be accomplished so long as the National Government and the Kuomintang failed to give the people of China democracy. That had not been done, he said.
General Lin said that the Chinese communists are faced with an acute shortage of ammunition (bullets, as he put it in Chinese) and medicines, neither of which category is supplied by the Chinese National Government. He said that the Chinese communists have no [Page 203] supplies of copper whatsoever. He added that their production of military equipment is limited to hand grenades and mines. He pointed out that in the absence of military supplies—which the Chinese communists had hitherto obtained chiefly from the Japanese—the Chinese communists could do little more than be quiescent. He asserted that if the Chinese communists were only supplied with arms and ammunition and medicines they would go on the offensive and strike hard blows at the Japanese throughout north China.
General Lin expressed his views of the Japanese in the following terms: The Japanese have withdrawn very few troops from north China since the start of the Pacific war. They now maintain eight or nine divisions in north China (not including Manchuria), of which about four are in Shansi. It is the definite policy of the Japanese to eliminate all Chinese resistance in the occupied areas, to drive all Chinese troops therefrom, to consolidate their political and economic position in those areas, to utilize the manpower and resources of these areas to assist them in gaining hegemony of all East Asia. General Lin went on to express the opinion that the Japanese would fail to attain these objectives: the Chinese people would never give their support to Japan and the Japanese would fail in their endeavors to sweep Chinese resistance from the so-called occupied areas. General Lin also asserted that, given a good opportunity, the Japanese would certainly endeavor to wrest Siberia from the U. S. S. R.