893.00/15054
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 15.]
Sir: There is enclosed, as an example of an unusually bitter attack on the Chinese Communist Party, a partial translation89 of a special article from the May 27, 1943 issue of the Lanchow Kansu Min Kuo Jih Pao entitled “Two Attitudes Toward Religion”, written by Pan Kung-chan, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang.
The main points of the article are as follows: (1) Communism is in its nature fundamentally opposed to religion (to blame the Communist Party for opposition to religion is like blaming a prostitute for being unchaste). (2) The Kuomintang safeguards religion and is for that reason accused by the Communists of being out-of-date in its thinking. (3) The Chinese Communist Party has made an opportunistic and temporary change in its tactics with respect to religion. Apparently adopting a policy of toleration it in reality is attempting to destroy all religions by playing off one against another. The Chinese Communist Party has selected the Muslims for special attention, fostering the false idea that they constitute a separate race. They do this because the Muslims constitute a forceful and cohesive community which the Communists wish to pit against the Han Chinese; the Communist Party, in this respect, is like a person of cannibal habits who fattens children in order later to nourish himself with their roasted bodies. The writer then expresses his confidence that the Muslims, being intelligent, will surely distinguish who is their savior and who is Satan, who is false and deadly and who symbolizes truth and love.
This article was presumably published in Lanchow because of that city’s large Muslim population and its location near Communist-controlled territory.90
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩
- In a memorandum dated July 27 Augustus S. Chase of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs made comment on the contents of the article: “It is an hysterical outburst which gives the impression of being inspired less by sincere conviction in the assertions made than by anxiety over the influence of the Communists among Chinese Mohammedans.”↩