Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, China, Volume VI

124.936/458: Telegram

The Ambassador in China (Gauss) to the Secretary of State

Chungking, March 13, 1944—1 p.m.
[Received 6:24 p.m.]

458. Your circular of March 8, 10 [2] p.m.⁸⁹ I am glad to learn this matter is now having study. So far as concerns China, the lack of adequate information from the Department has long been the outstanding weakness of our Mission.

In order that we may function efficiently and intelligently it seems to me that it is essential that we are kept fully and currently informed by telegram, naval radio or fast air pouch as circumstances in each instance may dictate, of all matters affecting China and Far East including all decisions on policy, long and short range, all discussion with Chinese and other foreign government representatives in Washington and elsewhere, all matters of other than routine character taken up at Washington by such Chinese and foreign representatives and all discussions and exchanges of view by Department officials and our representatives abroad with the Foreign Offices and other Ministries of other governments. We suggest that we should be furnished promptly copies of all memoranda of conversation, agreement and exchanges of correspondence. While so far as possible communications with Chinese Government should be channelized through Embassy when this is not done we suggest that we should be informed confidentially of what is transpiring outside Embassy channels.

We suggest we should be informed of all Congressional comment, inquiries and discussions on China matters. As Department is aware (our 1174, July 13)⁹⁰ we receive the Radio Bulletin only by mail, often irregularly and frequently a month late and badly garbled. The Department in its 1024, August 3⁹⁰ stated it would keep us advised by telegraph in regard to pertinent items appearing in Bulletin, but Department has not done so. When the bill for repeal of Exclusion Act⁹¹ was introduced we received many inquiries from Chinese officials and others as to its provisions and we were not able to give timely answer and even our telegraphic request for information failed to cause us to be furnished the detailed information desired in an explanatory form.

We suggest we should be fully informed of all press, magazine and other comment on China and the Far East especially press and magazine criticism of China which is always promptly reported to Chinese Government by their Embassy and often has sharp repercussions here. Examples: The Hanson Baldwin article of last August, the Bisson article of about the same time⁹² and recently articles in Time magazine on Madame Sun Yat Sen⁹³ and the replacement of Soong by Kung in Bank of China.⁹⁴ We receive early inquiries in regard to such matter and it is not only embarrassing to be uninformed, but we are not in position to take the helpful action which sometimes otherwise could be taken in conversation with Chinese leaders who raise such questions with us.

We also suggest that it would be helpful to all officers of the Embassy if we could have promptly as published, copies of all books relating to China and the Far East and all principal magazines and periodicals relating to China and the Far East.

It would be most helpful if we might have currently the Department’s comments and reaction to Embassy’s telegrams and reports on China developments and air recommendation as to policy, et cetera. In short, unless the Embassy is to be regarded merely as a transmitting agency, Embassy would be kept as fully informed as on its part Embassy is under obligation to report to Department. My criticism extends back over a long term of years in China. There have been times when the situation has been remedied, but the effort at Washington has not been sustained, and too often we have been entirely ignored or information has come belatedly and incompletely, and obviously as a casual afterthought. Our lack of information stands in sharp contrast to the British, Australians, and others. Even minor matters of approach by the Chinese at London are notified to British Embassy here. And, for example, while we have not even known that several months ago a Far Eastern official of the Department visited his opposite number in the British Foreign Office, my British colleague was informed and has received memoranda of the conversations. As for relations with our Missions in other countries, before the war there was an extensive exchange between China and Tokyo and the situation was entirely satisfactory. We are now the only Mission in the Far East. There has been no indication to us of any interest in China situation in other areas. Other Missions could be informed of the over-all situation on China if our telegraphic reports including our monthly telegraphic reviews were used in Department’s weekly secret bulletins which [relating] to China appear largely to be based upon press reports, including Chinese propaganda press reports, and are “bleached” of vital information on the actual conditions in this country (one glaring example was the account of the so-called student “Join the Army Movement” which must have given other Missions an entirely false impression—as clearly intended by the Chinese propagandists). In making this criticism, which relates also to the weekly memoranda from Far East to Secretary, I am not unmindful of the fact that we have had occasions in the past repeatedly to complain that our confidential telegraphic and other reports have leaked to the Chinese at Washington and been promptly reported by telegraph to Chinese Government with resulting embarrassment to us in the drying up of our sources of information. The information did not leak through the Department secret bulletins, but through other channels.

In general, I consider that we are now adequately covered in our information from Department on situation and developments in other areas except for special developments such as the Cairo Conference⁹⁵ and the background of the inclusion of China among the signatories of the Moscow Declaration⁹⁶ and our great and important lack is in reference to the area which is our primary responsibility.

Gauss

89. Not printed; this circular telegram concerned the “general question of how the missions in all parts of the world can be kept better informed as to matters of policy and action taken within the Department, also, as to how each mission may keep other missions better informed of action taken in their respective fields.” (124.06/410a)
90. Not printed.
90. Not printed.
91. For correspondence on repeal of the Exclusion Act, see Foreign Relations, 1943, China, pp. 769 ff. On February 8, 1944, President Roosevelt, acting under the power vested in him by the Act of December 17, 1943, repealing the Chinese Exclusion Acts, issued a proclamation (No. 2603) fixing the annual quota of Chinese immigrants at 105, effective for the remainder of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1944, and for each fiscal year thereafter (9 Federal Register 1587).
92. See telegram No. 1357, August 2, 1943, noon, from the Chargé in China (Atcheson), Foreign Relations, 1943, China, p. 81.
93. See despatch No. 2297, March 14, from the Ambassador in China, p. 376.
94. For correspondence on this subject, see telegram No. 269, February 9, 4 p.m., from the Ambassador in China, p. 329; memorandum by Mr. Augustus Chase, May 11, p. 69, last paragraph; and telegram No. 500, March 21, 4 p.m., from the Ambassador in China, p. 383.
95. For documentation on the Cairo Conference, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943.
96. For correspondence on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1943, China, pp. 819 ff.