Office of the Historian

740.0011 PW/1–2045

Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Chinese Affairs (Chase)

[Washington,] March 26, 1945.

Reference Chengtu’s despatch no. 1 of January 20, 1945.

[Here follows summary of contents of despatch.]

Comment: Mr. Service seems to feel that, while the reported understanding represents a threat to force the obtainment of American arms, it is nevertheless a serious threat which might well be carried out. Aside from the room for doubt on this point, there are several reasons to accept the information with reserve. For example, Lung Yun’s alleged participation in the understanding is hard to reconcile with recent reports that Chiang has arranged to give him considerable American equipment (unless such arrangements represent an effort by Chiang to bribe Lung into divorcing himself from the understanding).

Despite such weaknesses, the information is significant, for:

1.
It points up the increasing gravity of the indubitable fact that Chiang has long forced poorly-equipped provincial troops to do an unfairly large share of his fighting.
2.
The fact that dissident leaders tell the American Government, in effect, that Chiang’s overthrow is more urgent than their own war effort evidences the increasing bitterness of opposition to Chiang.
3.
The revealed intense resentment over failure to share American arms is doubly serious as it may soon be directed against us as much as against Chiang. We have recently heard that the Communists, disappointed over their failure to obtain American aid, are turning their hopes toward the Soviet Union. Our policy of arming only the Central Government thus threatens to alienate from us both the Communists (who appear to be the most dynamic force in east Asia) and all other important non-Kuomintang groups. If opposition to Chiang continues to grow at its present rate, such an alienation would mean that we would soon find the majority of politically conscious Chinese embittered against us for supporting a minority regime which could not maintain itself without our support. It would also set the stage for a head-on collision with Soviet Russia.