893.00/4–2745
Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in the Soviet Union (Davies)9
In attempting to estimate the course of future political and military developments in China, the following comments may be helpful:
1. Since the middle of the 19th Century China has been undergoing a revolution—political, economic, military and social. Japan’s attack in 1937 caught China in midpassage between medievalism and modern statehood. The old had not died and the new had not been born. Japan’s aggression imposed an armistice on the contending forces in China seeking to shape that country’s destiny. But the internal conflicts have been too great. The truce has begun to break down.
2. The principal contending forces in China are:
- (a)
- The National Government. Although it is a one-party (Kuomintang) Government, the party—and therefore the Government—is not of a single mind. A left wing faction is sympathetic to immediate multiparty coalition government. However, all Government factions, for opportunistic and other reasons, are more or less committed to the Generalissimo and his resolve to create a unified state under his personal preceptorship.
- (b)
- Residual warlords. They are mostly in West China. Because they wish fully to recover their feudal rights, they are anti-Chungking and anti-communist.
- (c)
- Separatist elements in South China. These are composed of politicians and generals who, during last winter, established practically autonomous regimes. The most prominent of these leaders has been making overtures to the Communists. These elements are anti-Chungking.
- (d)
- The League of Democratic Parties. The league is made up of several minority parties, individually of little strength but collectively significant, especially as the League has been working with the Communists. However, it is the only force here listed without troops—a critical weakness.
- (e)
- Chinese Communist Regime. The Chinese Communists are more than a Party. They are a de facto regime claiming about 650,000 square kilometers and 90 million people under their control and 600,000 regular troops, plus 1,500,000 militia. The Communists are the major challenge to Kuomintang supremacy.
- (f)
- The puppets. These outright opportunists with an estimated 300,000 troops in Manchuria and 900,000 in China Proper, work for the highest bidder. When collaboration with the Japanese ceases to be profitable, they will offer their armies and civilian retinues to whomever they believe willing and able to assure them the best terms. For [Page 335] the puppets, the Communists will be difficult (but not impossible) to do business with. Chiang will probably grant more attractive terms because his need of puppet aid is greater and his attitude toward the collaborators more tolerant. Those puppets in Manchuria and much of North China will, however, scarcely be able to establish military contact with Chiang’s forces and so will probably be compelled by circumstances to seek terms from the Communists—and possibly the Red Army.
3. In the confused Chinese domestic struggle, the Government-Communist conflict is paramount both in magnitude and future portent. The other forces tend to range themselves with one or the other of major contestants.
4. The prospect for the attainment of Chinese unity through negotiation would not seem to be bright.
The central issue in Chiang-Communist negotiations has been the establishment of a coalition Government. Chiang knows both the Kuomintang and Communists too well to accede to this seemingly innocent proposal. He knows that the Kuomintang is corrupt and vulnerable to boring from within. He knows that the Communists are so well organized and so well disciplined that they would sooner or later dominate the coalition. To understand the peril of coalition with the Communists, the Generalissimo need not refer to the current working of Popular Front governments in Eastern Europe. He need only recollect his own 1926 experiences with the then young and weak Communist Party.
As for the Communists, they are not likely to compromise with Chiang on anything short of coalition. They would like coalition because it would mean a relatively cheap acquisition of control over most if not all of China. But if coalition is not forthcoming, they can afford to wait. The Communists reckon that time is on their side. Their steady expansion southward behind the Japanese advances of last year continued as they negotiated. Expansion and consolidation presumably still continue in North, Central and South China. And then there is always the possibility of eventual positive support from the Soviet Union.
5. The prospect for the attainment of Chinese unity through military action by the Government is scarcely more hopeful. It is difficult to believe that Chiang’s armies, even though rejuvenated by American supplies and training, can accomplish what the Japanese have, in nearly eight years of effort, failed to do—effectively conquer North China. With the solid support of the masses (which the Government armies do not have) the Communist forces may be expected at the very least to hold what they now have north of the Yellow River.
Should the Red Army enter North China, the picture would radically change. In such an eventuality, we may anticipate that Chiang’s [Page 336] troops could not and would not advance into that part of North China occupied by Soviet forces.
Whatever action the Soviet Union may initiate, any serious attempt by Chiang to take over Communist areas by military measures will precipitate bitter and violent civil conflict. It is possible that with American help, Chiang can, over a period of years and at the cost of disruptive civil war, effectively conquer the Communist enclaves in the Yangtze Valley and South China. But most of North China would seem to be permanently lost to him.
6. If China cannot be unified under Chiang through either political or military measures, can his Government be strengthened to the extent that it will serve as a dependable balance and buffer in eastern Asia? The answer is: perhaps—depending on (a) the extent of foreign support given him and (b) whether the Chinese Government is able so to reform itself that it commands positive popular backing.
The extent of foreign intervention required to set up Chiang’s Government as a dependable balance and buffer should not be underestimated. Foreign underwriting of the Chinese Government militarily, economically and politically would be necessary. And on a scale which might well be repudiated by the electorates of the underwriting Governments.
Nor should there be illusions regarding the fundamental weakness of Chiang’s Kuomintang Government and its need of reform. It lacks active popular support. It has at present no program which promises to attract active popular support. It is venal, inefficient and stale. If it is to exist alongside a dynamic and disciplined Communist China and hope to survive, it must, in addition to receiving far-reaching foreign aid, radically reform itself. It is debatable whether the Kuomintang Government is at this late time capable of reforming itself. It may well be that, like the Bourbons, it has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
7. What is the nature of the Communist regime? The Chinese Communist Party began as an instrument of Moscow’s policy of world revolution. With the Kremlin’s abandonment, however temporary, of that policy the Chinese Communists were left pretty much to shift for themselves. Realizing that their strength must be based on the masses and recognizing that the Chinese masses are composed of conservative individualistic peasants, they revised their platform in the direction of moderation. They adopted agrarian democracy as their immediate goal, socialism as their distant one.
The trend in the direction of nationalist rather than international thinking was given further impetus by the formation of the United Front in 1937 and Japan’s invasion of China. This feeling has presumably been reinforced by the fact that the Chinese Communists [Page 337] have attained the status of a de facto regime and can look forward with some hope to functioning as the established administration of North China.
Although Communist political leaders at Yenan will not admit any disappointment over the failure of the Kremlin to aid them while acting as lightning rod for the Soviet Union, they would scarcely be human if they did not feel some resentment on that score.
With the growth of the nationalist feeling among the Chinese Communists, the shabby treatment which they have received from the Kremlin during the past nine years and the possible prospect of the Red Army invading Manchuria and North China and Russian suzerainty being imposed on the Yenan regime, it would seem to be logical to assume that there are at least some elements among the Chinese Communists who might welcome foreign support designed to ensure the continuance of their expansion and independence. Mao Tze-tung is not necessarily a Tito simply because he is a Communist.10
8. At this point it may be useful to examine the American position in relation to the problem of China. If we conclude that the Chinese Communist regime is here to stay; that China cannot be unified; and that we cannot with any assurance of success attempt to build up the Kuomintang Government as a balance and buffer in eastern Asia, is it worth our while to embark upon a policy of cooperation with and assistance to the Chinese Communists?
Before discussing this question, it should be said that an affirmative answer does not imply abandonment of Chiang’s Government. Presumably, such a policy would be predicated on the assumption that when dealing with as uncertain a situation as that which exists in China, it may be prudent not to commit all of our policy eggs to one basket.
- (a)
- In considering a possible American policy of cooperation with and assistance to the Chinese Communists, the first consideration is probably—will the Chinese Communists be willing to cooperate with us on terms equal to or better than those which they will extend to the Soviet Union? In other words, will they be voluntary creatures of Russian foreign policy? We do not know. And the operations of Communist-dominated regimes in Europe do not give us convincing indication of how the older and more self-sufficient Chinese Communist regime would react to American overtures. Further investigation of Moscow-Yenan ties by a competent observer at Yenan might throw more light on this important issue.
- What can be said at this juncture, however, is that if any communist [Page 338] regime is susceptible to political “capture” by the United States, it is Yenan.
- (b)
- If we set out to formulate a policy of aid to and cooperation with the Chinese Communist regime, we should recognize that such a policy will involve competing with Russian drawing-power rather than seeking to block it off, as would be the case were we to bolster Chiang as a balance and buffer. To have any chance of success, such competition would in the economic field have to be on about the same scale as now planned for Chiang’s Government and in the cultural field on a greater scale. In so far as political considerations are concerned, there would not seem to be reason for large-scale military aid and cooperation. Finally, American aid and cooperation in all fields would be utterly abortive if not integrated under expert and resolute political direction.
- (c)
- Even if the Yenan regime is willing to cooperate with us on the level and we undertake with maximum possible effect a campaign to “capture” politically the Chinese Communists, what would happen should the Red Army move into North China? Wherever the Red Army has thus far gone in Europe, Russian political domination has followed. There is reason to believe that the same pattern would probably be repeated in eastern Asia.11
If the Red Army enters North China, it should not be surprising if those Chinese sympathetic to the United States were liquidated and American aid and cooperation effectively obstructed or eliminated.11
However, the Red Army is not likely to invade North China without excuse. The excuse is the presence of Japanese troops. And it is one which, presumably, we are not prepared to attempt to remove either through military or political action.