893.918/147
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Embassy’s telegram no. 999, June 23, 9 a.m., in regard to the general question of Chinese censorship; to the Embassy’s telegram no. 1291, July 24, midnight, in regard to recent difficulties encountered by the Chungking correspondent of the Institute of Pacific Relations; and to the Embassy’s airgrams nos. A–22 and A–23 of August 2, 1943, in regard to a reported growth of anti-American feeling among Chinese in official life, including Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
As regards especially the question of censorship, it is an interesting indication of the general situation that, according to foreign press correspondents, but one news despatch in regard to the Kuomintang-Communist situation (Embassy’s 1325, July 28, 6 p.m.3 and previous) filed by correspondents for sending abroad has been passed by the Chinese censors. This was a news despatch written by the Chinese chief correspondent of Reuter’s which contained an account of an interview with General Ho Ying-chin which was extremely critical of the Communists and in which General Ho accused the Communists of attacking Central Government troops and seizing their military supplies (the time of these attacks was not specified). Feeling that it was unfair to allow only this one article to be dispatched abroad, the New York Times correspondent as head of the Foreign Newspaper Correspondents Association at Chungking, together with two other representatives of the Association, called on July 28 on Dr. Hollington Tong, Vice Minister of Information, to discuss this and other matters adversely affecting the correspondents as a whole. Dr. Tong purported to agree with Mr. Brooks Atkinson that correspondents other than Reuter’s should be permitted to send despatches on the Kuomintang-Communist situation and promised to see that Mr. Atkinson received permission to report on the situation to the New York Times. [Page 84] Mr. Atkinson interprets this statement to mean that he would be allowed to send only a one-sided “Kuomintang” story; he states that he has no intention of writing and forwarding to his paper a propaganda article of that nature.
At the instance of Mr. Gunther Stein, Mr. Atkinson and his two colleagues questioned Dr. Tong in regard to the ban placed on Stein’s filing despatches for IPR because of the T. A. Bisson story in a recent issue of the Far Eastern Survey critical of the Kuomintang. Dr. Tong said that pending the receipt of some explanation from IPR, in which China felt that she was to a certain extent a “stockholder”, Mr. Stein would not be permitted to use Chinese radio facilities which are made available once each week to foreign correspondents free of charge for a so-called “Voice” broadcast of a story. Mr. Stein will be permitted to send material by mail and by Press Wireless (IPR cannot pay cable charges).
Respectfully yours,