893.00/9–2245
The Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Stevens) to the Ambassador in China (Hurley)64
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Embassy that reports are frequently heard here of armed clashes between Chinese Communist on [Page 568] the one hand and Central Government troops and Chinese irregulars on the other hand. More than one such report include armed Japanese units among the opponents of the Communists, and all are more or less specific as to time and place of the clashes.
I have been told by an officer attached to the First “War Area Headquarters in Sian that there can be no mistake regarding the occurrence within the past week of clashes with the Communists in Honan and Hopei. Fighting of this kind, he said, has been and is still going on at various places in Honan between Kaifeng and Shangch’iu, and at several (unnamed) places in southern and central Hopei. Another informant mentioned Shaho and Chengting, on the Ping-Han Railway, and Kuan, a road junction about 80 kilometers south of Peiping, as three Hopei places where fighting with the Communists has recently occurred.
Other reports of the kind, brought here from Peiping by American military personnel, mention almost daily “skirmishes”, in the environs of Peiping, between armed Japanese guards and surrounding Communist bands; while in northern Shansi, I have been told, General Yen Hsi-shan has purchased the services of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 Japanese regulars to attack Communist forces converging on Tatung from the east and southeast.
As viewed from this locality, the significance of these reports, if they be based on fact as most of them would appear to be, is that as yet there has been no settlement at Chungking of basic Kuomintang–Communist issues despite encouraging announcements to the contrary that have been released by the censors here for publication.
Respectfully yours,
- Transmitted to the Department by the Embassy in China on September 29 without covering despatch; received October 12.↩