390.1115a/7–2544
The Consul General at Kunming (Langdon) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 14.]
Subject: Protection of Americans in Combat Areas in China.
Sir: I have the honor to enclose copies of letters43 exchanged with Major General Chennault, General Officer Commanding the 14th United States Air Force, in regard to the possible return to combat areas of American civilian residents, and to make certain observations on our present policy toward travel to and protection in Free China of such persons.
Following the circular to Americans in Southeast China issued on May 12 by the American Consul at Kweilin44 advising withdrawal to places of safety, and probably as a result of a similar circular issued by the British consular authorities at Kweilin, some 130 Caucasian Americans and about the same number of Caucasian Britons, missionaries for the most part, who had withdrawn from Southeast China to Kweilin as a result of the circulars arrived in Kunming up to last week and proceeded to or plan to proceed to India. The momentum of the movement slowed down in the past two weeks and now seems to have ceased. Probably the movement included all persons disposed to heed the consular advice, and it is likely that those persons who have remained behind do not intend to withdraw except under extreme necessity. According to this office’s registration file, some 300 Americans are still in Southeast China.
Brigadier General Edgar E. Glenn, Chief of Staff of the 14th Air Force, on June 6 privately asked me who had authorized the Consul at Kweilin to advise Americans to withdraw from Southeast China. I replied that consuls had standing instructions to use their discretion in developments such as those in that area to advise withdrawal to safe areas, and that in this particular case such advice was given only after consultation with the local American military authorities—actually General Stilwell coincidentally officially asked the Embassy that Americans be advised to withdraw. I then in turn asked General Glenn whether he did not approve of the Consul’s action. General Glenn answered that the evacuation that resulted from the consular circulars had had serious military repercussions, having taxed the Army’s air, motor, shelter and hospitalization facilities and alarmed the Chinese people and agitated our own troops. While the allegations [Page 134] about the effect of the withdrawal of Americans on military and Chinese civilian morale may be no more than a matter of opinion, it is a fact that a heavy burden has suddenly been placed on our passenger shipping facilities at Indian ports as a result of the concentration there of American refugees from China seeking passage to the United States.
As the British Acting Consul General in Kunming points out in his letter to General Chennault (enclosure 1), there will probably be a return movement of missionaries to their stations in free China with the improvement of the war news. Also, as has been mentioned above, some 300 Americans still remain in Southeast China. The question thus presents itself as to what our policy towards these groups should be, and in this connection I venture to offer the following observations:
- (1)
- The question seems to be political, and whether or not to allow Americans to return to their occupations in free China or to advise them to withdraw from free China to places of safety would appear to be matters for the Department alone rather than local American Army commanders to determine.
- (2)
- It would appear to be arbitrary to refuse passports to Americans with legitimate business in free China who are willing to accept the risks of residence there and to proceed there by commercial carriers, or to place any obstacles in their way. Important American properties and enterprises need the supervision and direction of a certain number of Americans, and it may be said that the maintenance of the American position in China is to some extent dependent on these persons.
- (3)
- Southeast China for a considerable time has been a combat area and not a “disturbed area” or an area “endangered by military operations” or a “place threatened with hostilities”, to use the phrases of Departmental instructions when we were neutrals in Chinese civil wars or in Sino-Japanese hostilities. Ever since Pearl Harbor, Americans in Southeast China have been subjected or exposed to aerial bombing and it seems inconsistent at this late date to advise these Americans to withdraw to safe areas. What is the difference, one might ask, between sudden death from a Japanese bomb and capture by Japanese.
- (4)
- A consular circular advising withdrawal and the mass departure of Americans that follows cannot be concealed from the Chinese community. They tend to confirm rumors and give rise to fears and disturb the calm needed by a belligerent population.
- (5)
- Americans and Chinese are co-belligerents and allies. In principle it would appear discriminatory to take measures of safety for the first alone, and the Chinese cannot but have felt that we draw the line between Allies and Allies when they noted that the Army provided facilities for none but Caucasian American and British civilians. One still hears of the resentment the Burmese felt when the British Army facilities at the time of the retreat from Burma were used for evacuating exclusively the white British civilian population.
The foregoing observations suggest that the Department might wish to give consideration to adopting a special wartime policy toward [Page 135] travel to and residence in free China of Americans. My views for such a policy until the end of the war are as follows:
- (1)
- In order that our cultural interests and general position in China may not suffer from lack of American supervision and direction, passports for travel to China to Americans might be issued not less liberally than heretofore, at least to men, in view of the improved commercial means of transport, provided, of course, that the holders understand that they will proceed to and reside in China at their own risk and may not expect special protection of any kind or protection different from that available to the Chinese.
- (2)
- Consuls should be instructed not to issue any more formal circulars advising Americans to withdraw to safer places.
Respectfully yours,