893.00/1–1049
Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Davies)
The Chinese Communists and the Great Powers
Confident in their own strength, the Communists no longer feel that their survival or extinction depends upon foreign aid or attack. Therein they differ from Chiang Kai-shek and his Central Government. [Page 668] The Communists recognize, of course, that the powers can accelerate or impede their expansion. It is largely on this basis that they view the great powers.
The Soviet Union has traditionally been friendly to the Chinese Communists. But the Communists have never received much more than advice and money from the Russians. And since 1937 the Soviet Union has scrupulously withheld all aid from the Chinese Communists. Russian matériel has gone to Chiang and been used exclusively by him—in part to blockade the Communists.
Possible future Soviet assistance to the Communists is a subject on which Yenan leaders are uncommunicative. It seems obvious, however, that they would welcome such aid for what it would mean in extirpating the Japanese and giving impetus to Communist expansion into Central and South China.
With all of their strong nationalist spirit, the Chinese Communists do not seem to fear Moscow dominance over them as a result of possible Russian entry into the Pacific War and invasion of Manchuria and North China. They maintain that the U.S.S.R. has no expansionist intentions toward China. To the contrary, they expect Outer Mongolia to be absorbed within a Chinese federation. They do not see this or any issue causing conflict between Russian and Chinese Communist foreign policy.
Britain, the Chinese Communists believe, is determined to play its old imperialist game of dividing China into spheres of influence. They suspect an Anglo-American deal giving Britain a free hand west of the line Philippines–Formosa. And they fear a marriage of convenience between Chiang and the British whereby the Generalissimo would get British support in return for special concessions in South China.
Such an alliance would not, in Communist opinion, be fatal to them. But it might encourage Chiang to attack them and would make a civil war more costly for the Communists. For that reason they are suspicious of Britain.
The United States is the greatest hope and the greatest fear of the Chinese Communists. They recognize that if they receive American aid, even if only on an equal basis with Chiang, they can quickly establish control over most if not all China, perhaps without civil war. For most of Chiang’s troops and bureaucrats are opportunists who will desert the Generalissimo if the Communists appear to be stronger than the Central Government.
We are the greatest fear of the Communists because the more aid we give Chiang exclusively the greater the likelihood of his precipitating a civil war and the more protracted and costly will be the Communist unification of China.
[Page 669]So the Chinese Communists watch us with mixed feelings. If we continue to reject them and support an unreconstructed Chiang, they see us becoming their enemy. But they would prefer to be friends. Not only because of the help we can give them but also because they recognize that our strategic aims of a strong, independent and democratic China can jibe with their nationalist objectives.