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

893.00/1–1049

Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Davies)⁷²

American Chinese Relations During the Next Six Months

We should not now abandon Chiang Kai-shek. To do so at this juncture would be to lose more than we could gain. We must for the time being continue recognition of Chiang’s Government and give him nominal support.

But we must be realistic. We must avoid committing in China the type of error committed by the British in Europe. We must not indefinitely underwrite a politically bankrupt regime. And, if the Russians are going to enter the Pacific War, we must make a determined effort to capture politically the Chinese Communists rather than allow them to go by default wholly to the Russians. Furthermore, we must fully understand that by reason of our recognition of the Chiang Kai-shek Government as now constituted we are committed to a steadily decaying regime and severely restricted in working out military and political cooperation with the Chinese Communists.

A coalition Chinese Government in which the Communists find a satisfactory place is the solution of this impasse most desirable to us. It provides our greatest assurance of a strong, united, democratic, independent and friendly China—our basic strategic aim in Asia and the Pacific. Major General Hurley is now seeking through negotiations with the Generalissimo and the Communists to bring about a coalition Government. If Chiang and the Communists reach a mutually satisfactory agreement, there will have been achieved from our point of view the most desirable possible solution. If Chiang and the Communists are irreconcilable, then we shall have to decide which faction we are going to support.

Meanwhile we have no time to lose, especially if the Soviet Union is going to enter the Pacific War. While being careful to preserve the Generalissimo’s “face”, we should without delay begin to expand our limited representation and activities at Yenan. Then if a coalition government is established, we shall have the groundwork laid to launch immediate large-scale military cooperation with the forces in North China. If the present Chiang–Communist negotiations break down, we shall have existing well-established relations with the regime which will probably inherit North China and Manchuria.

If the negotiations break down we shall be confronted with a tough decision. We shall have to act swiftly and surely. The principal danger will be that we may fall between two stools—the British undercutting us with Chiang, the Russians undercutting us with the Communists and we left in between, impotent with indecision.

In seeking to determine which faction we should support we must keep in mind these basic considerations:

(1) Power in China is on the verge of shifting from Chiang to the Communists (in the present negotiations it is not the Communists but Chiang who is, for the first time, faced with the necessity of concessions);

(2) with that shift of power, and their dynamism, the Communists become the strongest and most constructive unifying force in China;

(3) in the latter phases of the war against Japan the Communists can be of far greater use to us than Chiang (a Communist base area on the Shantung promontory, for example, is 400 air miles closer to Tokyo than Saipan);

(4) the British oppose the unification of China by either Chiang or the Communists, accept the possibility of a Russian sphere of influence in North China and will be satisfied if they can have Chiang as a quasi-puppet in the area between the Yangtze valley and the Indochina border;

(5) if the Russians enter North China and Manchuria, we obviously cannot hope to win the Communists entirely over to us, but we can through control of supplies and postwar aid expect to exert considerable influence in the direction of Chinese nationalism and independence from Soviet control;

(6) if we openly declare ourselves for the Communists, the Chiang Government will promptly be reduced to the position of a local regime, there will be some chaos (but not as much as anticipated in some quarters), there will be large scale transfer of military, technical and administrative allegiance from Kuomintang to Communist China, and we shall have aligned ourselves behind the most coherent, progressive and powerful force in China;

(7) still presupposing a collapse of the current negotiations, should we reject the Communists and continue to back Chiang we shall be committed to a regime which has proved itself incapable of unifying China, a regime dependent upon Anglo-American support for its truncated existence, a regime of slight use to us in our final attack on Japan.

John Davies

Chungking , 15 November, 1944.

72. Copy also transmitted by Mr. Davies in his covering letter of November 16 to Harry L. Hopkins at the White House, with the explanation that the “policy memorandum on our relations with Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communists” submitted to the Headquarters of the U.S. Army Forces in China “is a western attempt at simplification of a complicated, tortured oriental situation.”