893.00/15094
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a report18 on conditions in Yeungkong, a district city on the southeastern coast of Kwangtung Province, submitted under date of July 19, 1943, by the Consul at Kweilin.
It will be noted from the report that Yeungkong is suffering from famine, despite the fact that it is a rich agricultural area and normally has a surplus of rice. This situation is said to be due mainly to the fact that rice is hoarded by moneyed interests and exported to occupied areas. Basic difficulties appear to be “landlordism” and official corruption, with wealthy absentee landlords adding to their wealth, by reason of the high prices, while tenants suffer from hunger and laborers and fishermen are destitute. The district magistrate, dominated by the landlords, is said to be rapidly becoming wealthy by various forms of dishonesty, such as smuggling and padding the army payroll.
Practically all the trade of the district is reported to be with occupied areas, the district being cut off from interior China by lack of [Page 301] communications. Cloth, medicines, paper, dyes, etc. are brought into the district from occupied China in exchange for rice and tung oil. Only salt is shipped to Free China. From a Japanese-occupied island about ten miles off the coast, there are apparently substantial shipments of wolfram.
According to a report from the Consul at Kweilin, dated July 6, 1943, conditions are somewhat similar in the district of Kityang, near Swatow, in northeastern Kwangtung. Kityang is also the center of a rich agricultural area, but people are starving. This is due partly to inadequate food supplies, a result of a lack of fertilizer, subnormal rainfall and a heavy influx of refugees from occupied areas around Swatow, where conditions are said to be even worse. Mainly, however, it appears to be the old story of corrupt officials and greedy landlords and merchants who hoard grain or export it to occupied China. There is a steady and quite open traffic across the Kityang river, which is the boundary between occupied and Free China, the Chinese officials excusing it by saying that if they prohibited the shipment of foodstuffs to occupied territory, the enemy might raid Kityang and take the entire supply.19
Respectfully yours,
Commercial Attaché
- Not printed.↩
- In a memorandum dated September 22 Troy L. Perkins of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs observed: “The report comes first-hand from an American source and the conditions described provide evidence for the contention of the Chinese ‘Communists’ that popular support of the war will sag where corruption and economic oppression are allowed to flourish.”↩