893.00/7–644
The Ambassador in China (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to this Embassy’s telegram no. 1158, July 4, 1 p.m.,91 paragraphs two and three, and despatch no. 2740 dated July 5, 1944 on the subject of the current negotiations between representatives of the Chinese communists and the Central Government in Chungking, and in that same connection to enclose a copy of a memorandum92 covering a statement of the Communist representatives93 on the developments in those negotiations in the intervening week and setting forth their description of the Communist electoral system which is stated to be one of the points at issue in the negotiations.
Summary of enclosure. There has been, the Communist representatives asserted, only one further conversation between Mr. Lin and the representatives of the Central Government, in which no progress [Page 466] was made; there have been no other developments in the negotiations, and the July 2 issue of the locally published Communist paper was suppressed because it carried an interview with Lin quoting the latter as desirous of a successful issue in the present negotiations. No reports of those negotiations are permitted to appear in the Chinese press. They then proceeded to describe the “Communist” election system, the at least partial elimination of which is being currently demanded by the Central Government, they allege. In essence it amounts to the election every four years of a “Peoples’ Political Council” for the Border Region Government, and every three years of Hsien Councils in each of the Hsien and of Municipal Councils in each Municipality. The Chairman of the Border Region Government and the Border Region Government Committee are elected by the “Peoples’ Political Council”; the Hsien Magistrate and the Hsien Governing Committee are elected by the Hsien Council, and the Mayor and the Municipal Committee are elected by the Municipal Council. In the territories occupied by the Communists, a Hsien government is elected as soon as it is possible to organize the people for the election. Although it antedated the creation by the Central Government of its appointed “Peoples’ Political Council”, the existence of this system has never been recognized, and when it was once described in a report by the Communists to the Executive Yuan, the former allege that the only answer they got was a “cursing out”. End of Summary.
The Central Government would appear to be under great pressure from the developing military and political situation in which it finds itself to come to some negotiated agreement with the Chinese Communists, and it is natural that, in their statements to an officer of this Embassy, the Communists should attempt to convey an impression of themselves and their regime as favorable as possible to it, in the hope that the Embassy’s sympathy thus obtained might perhaps find reflection in the final outcome of the negotiations. Thus, for instance, their description of the electoral system in force in the Border Region and in many of the other areas under Communist control may well be an idealized picture. It must at the same time be stated, however, that reports from all available sources agree that actual elections have in fact taken place in the Communist areas, and that they have been the first to be held in this country.
Respectfully yours,