740.0011 Pacific War/3419: Telegram
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:05 p.m.]
1649. Recent Allied victories have had a noticeably good effect on morale of the Chinese oligarchy of officials, bankers et al. The scenes of victory are however too distant to inspire Chinese Government and people to bestir themselves to increase China’s war effort which remains, as it has for so long, negative in the sense that resistance is negative as compared to offensive action. The Chinese continue to wait for the Allies (chiefly the United States) to defeat Japan.
[Page 112]First hope of an early turn of fortune for China seems for most Chinese leaders to lie in recapture of Burma and restoration of effective land and sea communication with outside world. There are, on the other hand, a few officials who fear an Allied attack upon Burma because it might impel the Japs to muster and expend sufficient effort to envelop Kunming and in due course make Chungking untenable. This apprehension is corollary to the fear of some provincial and other generals to risk their armies lest the basis of their personal position and influence in the oligarchy be dissipated.
Apprehensions in regard to a “Burma campaign” (as object of open, wide and lively discussion in Chinese official and other circles) are also related to deep suspicion (of which in some aspects we have reported before) that at least one of China’s Allies has no heart for such a project and will if campaign should be undertaken fail again to make an all-out or even creditable effort.
The summing up of determinative Chinese feeling is, we believe, that failure would be a body blow from which Chinese morale and Allied prestige and influence in this theatre could recover only by immediate American action such as a direct effective attack upon Japan proper or capture of China coastal bases for such attack which would entail greater effort and cost than would be required in the first place to make a “Burma campaign” successful.