740.0011 Pacific War/3876
The Ambassador in China (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 4.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose a copy of a memorandum of April 10, 1944,26 prepared by Second Secretary John S. Service, on detail to General Stilwell’s staff, describing views attributed to General Lung Yun, Chairman of the Yunnan Provincial Government, in regard to the Burma campaign.
Summary of Memorandum. Central News Agency has received from its correspondent at Kunming an account of an interview given to the press by General Lung which is critical of both General Stilwell and of the Chinese Expeditionary Forces in Yunnan. General Lung feels that there has been too much talk about the Burma campaign [Page 55] and too little fighting and that if the Chinese Expeditionary Forces in Yunnan were to move against the Japanese in western Yunnan the fighting in Burma might take a more favorable turn. End of Summary.
While General Lung’s desire to see Central Government troops in Yunnan Province take an active part in the fighting is understandable as a means of reducing their strength and number in relation to his Provincial forces, much comment has been aroused privately at Chungking over the failure of the Chungking troops in Yunnan to support General Stilwell’s American and American-trained Chinese troops by an attack on the Japanese forces in western Yunnan, which the Chinese are believed to outnumber to a considerable degree. The Chinese press continues to place the blame for the slowness of the Allied Burma campaign on the lack of British effort and many Chinese offer the insufficiency of matériel as an excuse for the failure of the Chinese forces in Yunnan to assume the offensive. The Chinese press has so consistently stressed these points that many otherwise impartial and unprejudiced Chinese observers feel that the Chinese are fully justified in not actively supporting the Burma campaign from the Yunnan sector.
Informed Chinese, however, are aware of the incongruity of large numbers of practically inactive Chinese troops in western Yunnan merely waiting for General Stilwell’s forces to advance through northern Burma into Yunnan. These Chinese realize that the time element is important as the monsoon season draws nearer and that military operations in north Burma will soon become increasingly difficult if not impossible when the rains begin and the effectiveness of Allied air superiority is reduced by the weather factor. They explain that the inactivity of the Central Government troops in Yunnan is due solely to the lack of orders from Chungking for an offensive and that the Chinese commanders cannot move unless and until the Generalissimo issues such orders.
There seems to be no valid excuse for the failure of the Chinese in Yunnan to assume the offensive against the Japanese in western Yunnan and northern Burma. This failure is all the more serious when one considers the following related factors: (1) the constant insistence of the Chinese upon the reopening of the Burma Road; (2) their repeated recent warnings of possible impending Japanese offensives on other sectors in the Chinese theater, which would necessitate the expenditure of large quantities of matériel by the Chinese; (3) the urgent necessity from the Chinese standpoint of reopening the land route into China in order to allow for the flow of additional military supplies to meet possible Japanese offensives (military supplies now in Yunnan would hardly be sent to other sectors in the event [Page 56] of a Japanese drive in view of the transportation problem and other considerations involved); and (4) the advantages to be gained from a standpoint of heightened Chinese morale and its subsequent effect upon the strained economic structure by the opening of the land route from India. These factors deal purely with the question from the standpoint of immediate advantage to the Chinese and only indirectly in relation to the advantages to the American air force in China or the defeat of Japan.
It is difficult to explain the Chinese attitude unless one assumes that the Generalissimo’s every move is influenced by the Chinese internal situation and his desire to conserve men and matériel for possible use against domestic enemies (that is, the Chinese Communists or other dissident elements which might arise in the future) and for the purpose of strengthening his own position, which he may feel would be weakened by the expenditure of military equipment in an “unprovoked” offensive against the Japanese. This lack of cooperation is but another instance of the Chinese failure to give full cooperation in the war against Japan, a failure which in the present case bears little or no relation to China’s economic and financial condition, and of Chinese belief that the United States and Great Britain will defeat Japan and that China can afford to rest on the “laurels” of her seven years’ “war of resistance”.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩