893.00/15049: Telegram
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 7—4:22 p.m.]
1097. 1. Well informed Chinese has given an officer of the Embassy the following account, with his comment, of the Kuomintang-Communist negotiations and the return to Yenan of General Chou En-lai, Communist representative at Chungking, which were discussed in Embassy’s 1012, June 24, 2 p.m.
- (a)
- During the recent negotiations at Chungking Chiang Kai-shek offered
Chou and General Lin Piao, Communist representative from Yenan, terms as
follows:
The Communist Party to be accorded legal status with the right to establish its party organization throughout China provided it gives up its border government at Yenan and the district governments under its control and places its army under the command of the Central Government. (Communist army units would then be scattered throughout Free China.) Chiang requested that he be given an answer by the end of August and stated that in the absence of acceptance by the Communist Party he would be forced to take “appropriate steps”. The People’s Political Council is scheduled to meet in September and if the Communist Party rejects the proposed terms the Council is expected to issue a statement denouncing the Communists for their obstructive tactics.
- (b)
- The Communist Party is adopting a firm stand and it is unlikely that it will accept these terms. Future developments will then depend largely upon the international situation. If the Burma Road is reopened and the Central Government’s army received sufficient equipment to enable it to become a factor in driving the Japs from China, Chungking should be able to regain possession of the North China area. The Communists would then be in no position to oppose strong Central Government forces and the Kuomintang-Communist problem would no longer exist (by inference the Communists would be liquidated). If the Central Government troops are not sufficiently well equipped to become a factor in the defeat of Japan and if Jap withdrawals from China are caused by pressure from American and British naval and other forces, the Chungking Government will not be sufficiently strong to reoccupy North China and will instead be faced with a Communist occupation of that area and Manchuria. The Central Government would then not wish to bring matters to a head by attacking the Communists for fear of criticism that it had fomented civil war in China. The Communist Party would be well advised to accept Chiang’s proposals as it then would gain the good will of the people through this evidence of its willingness to cooperate for unity.
2. The informant is strongly nationalistic and his views may be assumed to represent at least partially those of the Chungking Government. They are at any rate indicative of the intention of the Kuomintang to obtain by one means or the other the removal of the Communists as a factor of any importance in China and in some respects they support the contention of the Communists that the Central Government’s appeals for military aid derive as much from the Government’s desire to liquidate the Communist army as they do from a desire to defeat the Japanese.