893.50/349
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Vincent)40
Mr. Chang41 invited me to call on him at the Mayflower Hotel where he had very recently arrived from China. He and I were good personal friends during my stay in Chungking.
Mr. Chang described at some length his years of connection with the Chinese Government and with the Bank of China and his services with the Kuomintang. He had been opposed to the Banjs of China becoming a government institution and had ceased to be head of the Bank as a protest against Dr. Kung’s and Dr. Soong’s plans for bringing the Bank more or less under Government control.
[Page 874]His resignation last year as Minister of Communications was due to a desire to take a needed rest for health reasons but I gather that he was not in accord with plans for communications development.
He is in the United States officially as an Adviser to the Executive Yuan. He has, however, a personal commission from President Chiang Kai-shek to investigate and report to President Chiang in regard to American collaboration in post-war reconstruction in China. His explorations will follow in general three lines: American financial and material support for Chinese Government plans for reconstruction; collaboration between private American and Chinese interests in the development of China; and development of Chinese-American foreign trade. He feels strongly that there is an opportunity outside of the Chinese Government’s plans, for American and Chinese businessmen to get together on a mutually profitable basis for the development of China.
We talked for some time with regard to the form and line that Chinese industrial development should take. I pointed out the need for a coordinated plan for Chinese development (at present each Ministry and special organization of the Government has its own scheme for development). I also mentioned the need that reconstruction enterprises be directly related to China’s economic situation; that China had an agrarian economy and that any industrial development that did not take this fact into consideration would be unsound. I also said that, in so far as possible, industrial enterprises should be self-liquidating. I said that these were phases of the matter in which I had found Americans interested.
Mr. Chang readily agreed. He said that it was along these broad lines that he expected to conduct his conversations in America. He admitted that there was too much talk now of the development of heavy industries; that greater emphasis should be placed upon raising the income of the agricultural population and on the development of light industries to supply consumers goods to the Chinese people. He said that he was not here to ask the American Government or American businessmen to “give” China something; that he was here to develop the thought that close economic association between China and the United States could prove beneficial to the peoples of both nations.
Dr. Chang said that he was going to Boston for a general check up and a rest; that in about a month he would return to Washington at which time he hoped to call on Mr. Hull, Mr. Acheson,42 Mr. Morgenthau and Mr. Harry White.43 He said that President Chiang had suggested that he make these calls. Afterwards he intends to discuss [Page 875] with American officials and businessmen his ideas for post-war economic collaboration between China and the United States.
Note: Mr. Chang is generally looked upon in China as a man of sound judgement. He is conservative in politics and business. I doubt that he is in position to speak with much authority in so far as Chinese Government interests are concerned but he does represent a typical Chinese businessman-banker’s point of view and in that respect it may be useful to hear what he has to say. He expects to be in America about one year.