Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, The Far East, China, Volume VII

893.00/3–1345

Report by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Service)⁵¹

No. 10

[Yenan,] March 13, 1945.

Subject: The Views of Mao Tse Tung: America and China.

Attached is a memorandum of a conversation with Mao Tse-tung. I consider this extensive expression of Chairman Mao’s views as of great importance at this critical juncture of China’s internal affairs.

Summary: The most important new point brought out in Mao’s talk is that Chiang Kai-shek’s persistence in pushing through plans for a Kuomintang-monopolized National Congress, without first unifying the country and admitting other Parties, will close the door to peaceful compromise. Chiang will have crossed his “Rubicon”. The result will be open division of the country. End of Summary.

I am as convinced as I was during my talks with Mao last year that American policy is a decisive factor in influencing the actions of the Chinese Communist Party—as well as those of the Kuomintang. Applied to bring about a true coalition government, the Communists will be cooperative. But devoted to support of the Central Government and Chiang, to the exclusion of the Communists, disunity will be stimulated and the consequences will be disastrous.

John S. Service

[Enclosure]

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Service)

[Yenan,] March 13, 1945.

Mao commenced by asking a number of questions about my recent trip to the United States. He was interested in American official and public opinion toward the war in the Far East, toward China generally, and toward the Chinese Communists particularly.

He then rather mildly observed that America, did not yet have a clear view of the issues involved in China, that it did not yet fully understand the Communists, and that although American policy as recently shown in China was still an enigma, he could not believe that it was fixed and unchangeable. America would eventually realize that support of the Central Government alone was not the best way to fight the war, to speed China’s progress toward democracy, or to ensure post-war stability in the Far East. “A few months ago”, he said, “we were told that the Kuomintang and the Communists were only this far apart”. (Holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart.) “Now it is certainly apparent that we are this far apart”. (Extending the thumb and forefinger in as broad a V as possible.)

From this introduction, Mao launched into a long discussion which may be summarized as follows.

Between the people of China and the people of the United States there are strong ties of sympathy, understanding and mutual interest. Both are essentially democratic and individualistic. Both are by nature peace-loving, non-aggressive and non-imperialistic.

China’s greatest post-war need is economic development. She lacks the capitalistic foundation necessary to carry this out alone. Her own living standards are so low that they cannot be further depressed to provide the needed capital.

America and China complement each other economically: they will not compete. China does not have the requirements of a heavy industry of major size. She cannot hope to meet the United States in its highly specialized manufactures. America needs an export market for her heavy industry and these specialized manufactures. She also needs an outlet for capital investment.

China needs to build up light industries to supply her own market and raise the living standards of her own people. Eventually she can supply these goods to other countries in the Far East. To help pay for this foreign trade and investment, she has raw materials and agricultural products.

America is not only the most suitable country to assist this economic development of China: she is also the only country fully able to participate.

For all these reasons there must not and cannot be any conflict, estrangement or misunderstanding between the Chinese people and America.

But the Chinese people are really the rural population, the farmers. Out of China’s 450 million, they number at least 360 million. The intellectuals, the civil officials, the merchants, the capitalists are only a thin crust on top. The peasants are China.

A country of China’s size and backwardness cannot be made over quickly. China must be predominantly agricultural for a long time to come.

The problems of the Chinese farmer are, therefore, basic to China’s future. China cannot industrialize successfully except on the basis of the solution of the agrarian problem, because the farmers must provide the real market for the products of that industrialization.

We have the example of Japan. She was forced to follow imperialism and aggression because she sought to industrialize on the basis of a feudal society. She did not start with the solution of her domestic agrarian problems.

Wallace⁵² and other American statesmen and writers (for instance a recent article by Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times on the “Chinese Farmer”) show a clear understanding of this fundamental fact about China.

The fundamental demand of the Chinese farmer is freedom from his feudalism condition of tenantry and dependence on the landlord–capitalist for credit and purchase of his products. There must be land reform. And democracy. The farmer must have independence and power to protect his own interests.

Neither the farmer nor the Chinese people as a whole are ready for socialism. They will not be ready for a long time to come. It will be necessary to go through a long period of private enterprise, democratically regulated. To talk of immediate socialism is “counterrevolutionary” because it is impractical and attempts to carry it out would be self-defeating.

The Kuomintang has no contact with the agrarian masses of the population. It is the party of the military and landlord groups who govern through a conservative and unimaginative bureaucracy. It has done nothing, and will do nothing, fundamental to improve the condition of the farmers, to carry out real land reform, or to do away with the still existing remnants of feudalism. It cannot, because to do so would be to attack the basis of power of its main supporting groups.

Afraid of real democracy, the Kuomintang is forced to be Fascistic. Thus we have the strange feudal-fascist combination of the present Kuomintang. This is a background and character from which the Kuomintang is unable to divorce itself.

Unwilling to solve the agrarian problem and thus raise the living standards of the farmers as a basis for industrialization, it turns toward the principle of rigidly planned, State directed and controlled industrial development. Unable, therefore, to create a solid basis for power at home or for cooperative and amicable relations with Russia and other neighbors, it concentrates on “national defense industry” and engages in the dangerous game of power politics.

The expectation of future conflict, internal and external, is implicit in these policies. If its policies are persisted in, this expectation of the Kuomintang is certain to be realized. Under these policies, which cannot be changed without a revolution within the Party and a whole new leadership, the Kuomintang cannot solve China’s basic internal problems, cannot lead the country to full democracy, and cannot be a stabilizing power in the Far East.

The Chinese Communist Party, on the other hand, is the party of the Chinese peasant. Its program—reduction of rent and interest, progressive taxation, assistance to production, promotion of cooperatives, institution of democracy from the very bottom—is designed to bring about a democratic solution of the peasant’s problems. On this basis, and with its realization of the necessity of free capitalistic enterprise based on the unity, not conflict, of all groups of the people, the Communist Party will be the means of bringing democracy and sound industrialization to China. These are the only possible guarantee of peace and stability.

Just as the Chinese farmer cannot be ignored in China’s future, neither can the Communist Party. The Kuomintang is seeking to ignore it. But its guns cannot give it victory. After all, the great majority of the soldiers, as of the people, are peasants. We speak for the people of China because we are for and of the people. And the people know it by our record.

It is to be expected that Chiang will do everything possible to avoid compromise in which he and the groups supporting him will have to yield power and give up their dictatorship. But the road he is taking now leads straight to civil war and the Kuomintang’s eventual suicide.

Chiang’s refusal to permit any real coalition government and his announced intention of calling the National Congress in November, 1945, are the indications of his growing desperation. This Congress will be wholly a Kuomintang creature. Any invitation for a few non-Kuomintang persons to participate will be insignificant and intended only for window dressing. The delegates to this Congress were chosen by the Kuomintang machinery, with only the hollowest pretense of popular elections, at a time (1936) when there was open civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Those delegates cannot pretend to represent the people who have been fighting the Japanese and governing themselves in the liberated areas for the past seven years. They cannot even pretend to represent the people of Chungking-controlled China.

The election of Chiang as President and the legalization of his government as the “democratic government of China” by this assembly of stooges will be a farce. Such a body is not intended to, and cannot be expected to, do anything else. But the real danger is that this National Congress will be used by Chiang as the means for demanding that the Communists submit to its authority and lay down their arms. Unrepresented, and with the enemy not yet driven from their soil, the Communists and people of the occupied areas will refuse these unreasonable demands. They will then be proclaimed rebels and the stage for open civil war will be laid.

The danger inherent in this latest tactic of Chiang’s—the determination to set up constitutional government at once on the basis of the Kuomintang alone—must be made clear to liberals in China and to China’s most important friend abroad, the United States. This is the reason for our present seemingly violent propaganda campaign against Chiang. This issue is so vital that we have to make as big a noise as possible.

China’s liberals, in and out of the Kuomintang, are numerous and increasing. They include the Democractic Wing and affiliated groups of the Kuomintang, the Minor Parties, most of the intellectuals, and many of the modern capitalists.

But they cannot overthrow the Party machinery or change the present reactionary leadership of the Kuomintang. They will be powerless to control the new “constitutionalism” planned by Chiang’s group. Without the help of American influence, real unity and democracy will have to be won by a long and bitter struggle.

The only hope for a peaceful transition to constitutionalism that will democratically include and represent all the country is a coalition government. Such a coalition government must not wait, for it is also the only way to unify the country now and make effective China’s war effort against Japan.

Why does Chiang determine to push through “constitutionalism” now, before the country is regained from the Japanese and the people of the liberated areas given a chance to express themselves? Because he knows that they will not agree. For the occupied countries in Europe, it has been decided that the definite decision of the form of government is to wait until the country has been liberated and the people themselves can decide and choose their own political leadership. This policy is just and we commend the Allied leaders for adopting it. Why is China an exception? Shanghai is bigger than Athens, and occupied China a far larger country than Greece!

America does not realize her influence in China and her ability to shape events there. Chiang Kai-shek is dependent on American help. If he had not had American support, he would have either collapsed before now or been forced to change his policies in order to unify the country and gain popular support. There is no such thing as America not intervening in China! You are here, as China’s greatest ally. The fact of your presence is tremendous.

America’s intentions have been good. We recognized that when Ambassador Hurley came to Yenan and endorsed our basic five points.⁵³ He could not have endorsed them unless he knew that President Roosevelt thought likewise.

We don’t understand why America’s policy seemed to waver after its good start. Surely Chiang’s motives and devious maneuvers are clear. His suggestions of “war cabinets” and “inter-Party conferences” did not solve any basic issues because they had absolutely no power: they were far short of anything like a coalition government. His proposals of “reorganizing the Communist armies” and “placing them under American command” were provocative attempts to create misunderstanding between us (the Communists) and the Americans. We are glad to accept American command, as the British have in Europe. But it must be of all Chinese armies.

Chiang has tried continually to make it appear that the Communists are to blame for the failure of the negotiations. He has pulled a very smart propaganda trick—for foreign consumption—by the promise of immediate “democracy”, this year, through a false National Congress. We refuse to believe that Americans are so easily misled.

It is vitally important that America realize that in calling this Congress, Chiang is playing his “last card”. It will close the door. Once it has been convened, the die will be cast and compromise impossible. We will fight if we have to, because we will be fighting not only for the democratic rights of the 100 million people in the present liberated areas but for the rest of the masses of China as well.

The National Congress cannot be called while half the country is cut off or occupied by the enemy and while all parties but the Kuomintang are denied legality. What the situation requires, and the only thing that can save it, is a coalition government. We hope that America will use her influence to help achieve it. Without it, all that America has been working for will be lost.

J[ohn] S[tewart] S[ervice]

51. Received in the Department about April 27.
52. Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace.
53. See revised draft by the Chinese Communist Representative, Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. vi, p. 687.