893.00/12–644
The Consul General at Kunming (Langdon) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 18.]
Sir: I have the honor to submit an account of an address which was presented on November 24, 1944, before more than a thousand students of National Southwest Associated University by Dr. Shirow Y. Chang (Chang Hsi-jo), head of the Political Science Department of that institution. Dr. Chang decided on his own volition to discuss before the students his reactions to the ministerial changes in the National Government which were announced at Chungking on November 20, 1944.
Summary: Dr. Chang believes that the only solution to China’s present difficulties lies in substantial curtailment of the Generalissimo’s powers. The Generalissimo during the course of the war has greatly increased his power, and now assumes complete responsibility for all decisions in military, political, economic and educational matters. Any ministerial changes are without significance as long as Chiang exercises such power. No reform can be looked for from either within the government or the Kuomintang, as both form his personal retinue. The speaker recommended that the government [Page 722] convene a national convention, which should elect an executive council, and which should severely limit the powers of the Generalissimo, reserving major decisions to the council. The convention should also set up machinery for the establishment of a properly representative legislative body to which the council and the president would be responsible. End of Summary.
Dr. Chang is a prominent independent leader in liberal circles in Kunming. He is noted for his integrity and fearlessness; his speech which is the subject of this despatch is evidence of this. It is doubtful whether any other individual of prestige in this center of liberal thought would have had the courage under present conditions in China to deliver an address which was openly critical of the Generalissimo. Dr. Chang was an early revolutionary in Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s movement, served at one time in a senior position in the Nanking Government’s Ministry of Education, and has friends among the liberal elements of the Kuomintang.
[Here follows detailed report of speech.]
Dr. Chang’s address is regarded in Kunming as an amazingly frank public indictment of an individual and his system of government against whom criticism is customarily confined to personal remarks among trusted friends. The intense and sympathetic interest of his audience was revealed when, after his 90-minute address, Dr. Chang was asked questions for an hour. During the address an air raid alarm occurred, but when persons outside the hall called that an alarm had been sounded (the sirens were too distant to be heard inside the building) the students refused to permit an interruption to the address, erroneously presuming that the alarm was actually a ruse of the campus Youth’s Corps (Kuomintang) adherents designed to break up the meeting. No local newspapers have carried accounts of Dr. Chang’s address, and up to the time of preparation of this report no action has been taken against him by any agencies of the Central Government.
Dr. Chang informed the writer that he was confident that the substance of his address would be submitted to the Generalissimo by at least one of the secret police agencies operating in Kunming. When asked if he did not anticipate some form of action from the government, he admitted that it would be possible that the university would be ordered by the Ministry of Education to expel him from the faculty. In commenting on the speech, he said that he realized that it might prove dangerous to speak his mind so frankly, but that he felt that it was incumbent upon someone to speak out in this time of crisis. With reference to his proposal that a national convention should be convened by the government without delay, he confessed that he could not be very sanguine as to the ability of such a body effectually to limit [Page 723] the powers of a man with the personal political ability and shrewdness of the Generalissimo, if the latter was determined to remain a dictator. He pointed out that many Chinese liberals still entertained hopes that Chiang would compromise and satisfy himself with a Lin Sen-like presidency rather than face eradication from the political scene.
Respectfully yours,