893.00/15198
The Consul at Kweilin (Ringwalt) to the Ambassador in China (Gauss)84
Sir: I have the honor to submit hereunder a report on General Hsueh Yueh, the chairman of the Hunan Provincial Government, and of various phases of his military and civil administration. The information and statements contained in this report are based entirely on [Page 374] personal conversations with a variety of British, Chinese and American officials, businessmen, physicians, missionaries, and Chinese smugglers during the writer’s recent brief visit to Changsha.
Summary: During the five-year term of office of General Hsueh Yueh as Chairman of the Hunan Provincial Government, he has shown little military or administrative ability. He has made little effort to impede the three relatively peaceful Japanese occupations of Changsha, and for the past year-and-a-half his troops seem to have maintained some sort of an understanding with the Japanese to live in peace with one another. There is a free exchange of rice from Hunan for salt from Hankow, and a substantial trade in raw materials from Hunan to Hankow in exchange for manufactured articles from Hankow, Shanghai and other centers under Japanese control is being carried on. Considerable friction exists between the Hunanese and the to them alien Cantonese administration foisted on them by General Hsueh Yueh whose chief advisers and subordinates are mainly from his native province of Kwangtung. There is a marked tendency to place all industrial enterprises under Government control much to the resentment of the individual Hunanese businessman. American citizens generally have received reasonable cooperation from local Chinese officials, and the fine work of the American air force in Hunan is on the whole appreciated. However, there is a strong anti-British sentiment prevalent throughout the administration. Soviet Russian advisers continue to train troops of the Ninth War Area Command.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
As far as this Consulate is aware, Hunan is the only province in Kuomintang-dominated China in which Soviet Russian advisers are still engaged. There is an undetermined number of Russian military advisers stationed to the north of Changsha. They hold themselves completely aloof from other foreigners, and converse with Chinese only through interpreters. There is a report which this office has been unable to confirm that Soviet-trained Chinese artillerymen were largely responsible for the discomfiture of the Japanese during their retirement from the Enshih area last summer.
Respectfully yours,
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in China in his despatch No. 1828, November 18; received December 10.↩