The Ambassador has the honor to enclose a memorandum prepared by Second
Secretary Robert S. Ward containing a statement of the projects and aims of
certain members of the Northeastern groups who formerly controlled Manchuria
as related by a member of one of those groups to Mr. Ward.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in
China (Ward)
[Chungking,] August 18, 1944.
The informant, Mr. Chow Ching-wen, stated that a secret meeting of the
Society of Comrades for Resistance to Japan (the formal name
[Page 512]
of a group of supporters of
Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang) is to be held in Sian shortly, at which he
expects that an already prepared project for the government of Manchuria
after the present war will be “approved”. The projected “government”
calls for the institution of democracy in Manchuria in two stages,
during the first of which the Young Marshal is expected to rule with the
“assent” of the people, who will be protected by laws guaranteeing their
basic liberties. The “second stage” will be inaugurated not later than
three years after the inception of the first with a general election in
Manchuria, in which a People’s Council, possessing both executive and
Legislative Powers, will be elected. Manchuria will thereafter be under
the “Autonomous Democratic Regional Government of Manchuria”, loosely
connected with what the proponents of the scheme envisage as the
“Federal Government” of China. Because this arrangement would (1) avoid
a government of Manchuria dominated by the Chinese Communists, and
therefore by Russia; (2) forestall the clash with Russia which might
result from the extension to Manchuria of the “Fascist” Central
Government; and (3) assure a regime whose social aims would not be too
different from those of the Russians, it would, its proponents claim, be
good for the peace of Asia.
This statement of the aims of Northeastern elements and the plans which
they are elaborating for achieving them is believed to be of interest
(1) because it affords further evidence of the extent to which various
groups, some of whom perhaps are more interested in gaining power than
in instituting liberal reforms, are taking advantage of the present
situation, and (2) as an indication of the centrifugal forces which may
operate to break down Chinese unity as soon as the present war is
brought to a close. It should be pointed out, however, that the
Northeastern groups whom the informant describes have no base of power,
their armies having been dispersed and many of their leaders killed in
the course of the war. It is therefore very unlikely that this movement,
taken alone and in itself, will be in any measure successful.
