893.00/15331
Memorandum by Mr. O. Edmund Clubb of the Division of Chinese Affairs35
Communist Organization in North China
The Embassy at Chungking, by attached despatch no. 2320,36 submits a report by two British subjects sometime resident in the Communist-controlled areas in north China. It is believed that the Embassy’s summary merits reading.
The area of Communist activities comprises much of the occupied area of north China as well as the northern part of the unoccupied [Page 416] Province Shensi. Despite recent reduction of Communist military control in the plains region of Hopei, Communist political activity evidently continues in the occupied areas. The report attests to the success of the Communist political strategy, based upon a system of self-government in the Communist-controlled regions, asserting that “the democratic machinery operates through the whole area, even filtering right into the heart of enemy-occupied towns and cities.”
The strength of the 8th Route Army and the New 4th Army has commonly been put at 500,000 by current observers. The figure is probably too high if it has reference to well-equipped first-class troops (by Chinese standards); however, it is probably too low if there be taken into account those forces of the character of popular militia. The report states that the leaders have the support of their troops and the troops generally have the support of the population of the Communist-controlled areas. The Kuomintang forces, on the other hand, are put by War Minister Ho Ying-ch’in at 5,000,000, but it is the consensus of informed opinion that the majority of those troops, by virtue of neglect in terms of equipment, training, and essential food and medical supplies, are not in a fit condition for battle service: a British observer has recently estimated that possibly 1,500,000 of the total might be counted as good troops by Chinese standards.
Contemporary reports have shown that there has been in 1944 no substantial détente of the tension which developed in Communist relations during the latter half of 1943. There has, in fact, been released through Chungking publicity evidently designed to create the impression abroad that (1) “the Communist problem” is purely a domestic problem and of no concern to any but the Chinese themselves; (2) the Chinese Communists are following a policy detrimental to the war effort in China; and (3) the problem will be solved by pacific political means rather than by military action. The Kuomintang authorities have shown themselves extremely reluctant to permit the presentation to the outside world of detailed information regarding the subject. The efforts of foreign correspondents at Chungking to effect a visit to the Communist-controlled areas have to date not achieved their object, although it is promised that they will be enabled to make the trip in due course. There is apparent among the Kuomintang leaders no disposition to change their fundamental attitude with respect to the question of the Chinese Communist party. The National Government is blockading the Communists with some of its best divisions which might otherwise be used against the Japanese.
The whole matter takes on fresh significance in view of the current Japanese drive along the P’ing-Han railway. Current Embassy reports indicate that the enemy is employing three divisions in the operation, and that in the same general area there are about 500,000 [Page 417] Chinese troops of inferior equipment, training, and spirit. In the near vicinity, in southern Shensi, however, are fifteen to twenty good divisions, and on the Japanese flank to the north are some 500,000 Communist troops who purport to want only a share of the National Government war matériel and minimum medical supplies to enable them to accomplish more than before in the Chinese struggle with the Japanese.
It is perhaps worthy of note that current Japanese radio propaganda seems designed to indicate that Japan has heretofore adopted a lenient attitude vis-à-vis the Chungking regime, that the Chungking leaders nevertheless have failed to see the error of their ways, and that the significance of the present campaign will not be lost upon them.
- A memorandum dated May 15, by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Grew) to the Under Secretary of State (Stettinius) and the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle), stated: “It is thought that you might be interested in reading the attached memorandum on the subject of Kuomintang-Chinese-Communist Party relations. The subject of that memorandum is thought to be of especial pertinency at this particular time, when the Japanese armies have just effected a junction of their forces in Honan Province and when, concurrently, a number of China’s best divisions are engaged in blockade of the Chinese Communist forces in nearby Shensi Province.”↩
- March 17, p. 381.↩