893.20/10–3044
The Ambassador in China (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 11.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose a summary2 of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s message of October 22, 1944, exhorting the educated youth of China to volunteer for the military service. Asserting that the joining up of educated Chinese youth is the most effective means of building up a modern and effective Chinese army, the Generalissimo states that the Chinese Government has decided to call up 100,000 educated youth between the ages of 18 and 35, and that the army formed of these youth is to be under his personal command and accorded treatment similar to that of the Chinese Army in India and the Chinese Expeditionary Force (in Burma). In support of his plea the Generalissimo marshals the following four points: (1) the army offers a good career to educated young men; (2) the enlistment of educated youth will wipe out the stigma of China’s armed forces being regarded as a “coolie” army; (3) only by Chinese educated youth joining the army and assisting in its modernization can China be assured of final victory; and (4) victory can only be won by exertion and the shedding of blood. The Generalissimo asserts that educated youth who enlist are to serve in the lower ranks and are to engage in actual warfare.
[Page 184]The lack of educated men in the lower cadres of the Chinese army has long been regarded as one of its major weaknesses. Indeed, it may be said that the rank and file of the Chinese army, especially in recent years, has been made up of those least able to escape the toils and hardships of army life. Or to put it in another way, Chinese eligible for army service who have had money or influence have invariably managed to escape induction. Among this latter class students have been an important group. In fact, students, as a general rule, have been exempted from military service and this has resulted in many young men entering educational institutions for the express purpose of avoiding military service.
Although prior to the start of the Sino-Japanese war the Chinese student group as a whole was among the most vociferous of those urging armed resistance to Japanese encroachment, only a small minority of Chinese students has entered military service and participated in the fighting against the Japanese: There are probably several reasons for this abstention: (1) the Chinese tradition that the army is made up of the lower classes; (2) the failure of the Chinese authorities to call up and make use of educated youth in military service; (3) the poor treatment of the rank and file of the Chinese army discouraged student military participation; and (4) a congenital reluctance on the part of wealthy and educated Chinese youth to expose themselves to the hardships and dangers of army life, a reluctance strongly shared by their parents and families.
On the whole, Chinese opinion appears to have accepted and taken for granted the abstention of the great majority of wealthy and educated Chinese youth from military service. The usual explanation has been that they are “only a drop in the bucket” of Chinese manpower, that they are needed in other than strictly military pursuits, and that their joining up would make no perceptible difference in the quality of the Chinese army. Only a few Chinese, chiefly those returning from abroad where they have observed the broad participation of educated youth in the armed forces of the United States and the European countries, have seriously suggested that China might make more effective use of its educated youth in the armed services.
The Generalissimo’s clarion call to the educated youth of China to enlist in the army apparently comes, therefore, as a radical departure. It suggests that the policy—if it can be called a policy—hitherto followed by the Chinese authorities of coddling and sheltering educated Chinese youth from the vicissitudes of Chinese army life has been abandoned, and that they are to be inducted, trained and sent to the firing line as modern fighting units. At the present time a large-scale campaign is under way in China to persuade educated youth to enlist. The Generalissimo is reported to have instructed his two sons to join [Page 185] the projected army and many other prominent Chinese have followed suit or have offered their own services. The newspapers are filled with exhortations to educated young men and campaigns are being conducted in the colleges and senior middle schools to gather recruits. If the quota of 100,000 educated youth cannot be filled by voluntary enlistment, it seems likely that some form of compulsory conscription will be resorted to in order to fill up the ranks.
The Generalissimo’s decision to form a volunteer youth army (eventually to be composed of ten divisions) apparently forms a part of a plan which he is reported to have projected in recent months for the reorganization and improvement of the Chinese army. His message suggests that he has arrived at the conviction, belated though it may be, that an infusion of educated young men is required if the Chinese army is to be rejuvenated and strengthened.
Certain Chinese of political convictions opposed to those of the Generalissimo have suggested that his motive in raising a volunteer youth army is not so pure as is stated in his message. They profess to feel that this constitutes a further attempt on the part of the Generalissimo to obtain control over and the loyalty of the cream of Chinese youth and to shape them into an instrument for his own purposes. It has also been suggested that the Generalissimo fears the reported growing restiveness of students in the colleges and middle schools and that he has adopted his program of student enlistment as a means of coping with potential disturbances on the part of students.
It is too early to attempt an appraisal of the Generalissimo’s program to create a new and modern army based on China’s educated youth. Properly utilized, the addition of educated youth to the Chinese army should result in its improvement, but it remains to be seen whether the Generalissimo will be able to organize, train and equip them so that they may be enabled to participate in the defeat of Japan.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩