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

761.93/5–2045

Memorandum by Mr. DeWitt C. Poole of the Office of Strategic Services ³⁴

[ Washington ,] May 20, 1945.

The Situation in China

Summary of talks with T. V. Soong, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Dr. Victor Hoo, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs; Ambassador Wei; and Dr. Chu Hein-ming, Chief of the Russian Department, Ministry of Information.

Of the above-mentioned four Chinese gentlemen, Dr. Chu Heinming spoke with greatest frankness. He speaks, incidentally, not only fluent but faultless Russian. (Under-Secretary Hoo also speaks Russian without any accent.) According to the pro-Soviet magazine Amerasia, Dr. Chu Hein-ming is the Generalissimo’s main adviser on Russian affairs, and was criticized, along with the other members of the Chinese Delegation,³⁵ for his allegedly anti-Soviet attitude. He was born and educated in Harbin, Manchuria. He plans to accompany, together with Victor Hoo, Dr. T. V. Soong on his coming trip to Moscow.

T. V. Soong is most anxious to go to Moscow before the Soviet Union begins to fight Japan. The Chinese, who a year ago were very skeptical about a Soviet-Japanese war, now believe that this war is imminent. They do not know, however, when it will begin. They are naturally most anxious to discuss, and if possible to settle, the problem of their relations with Moscow before the beginning of Soviet Japanese hostilities.

T. V. Soong was informally invited to come to Moscow at a dinner given by Molotov in San Francisco. The same invitation was extended to six or seven other Foreign Ministers who attended this dinner (French, Czech, Yugoslav, Chilean, Austrian, and New Zealand).

No date, however, has been fixed by the Soviet Union, and the Chinese are now anxious to arrange this visit as soon as possible. T. V. Soong recognizes that it will not be an easy diplomatic assignment. The Russians, until now, have carefully avoided any discussions of their post-war relations with China. The Chinese have no ground for complaint about the present Soviet attitude towards Chungking, but they are now getting more and more worried over possible post-war trends of the Soviet foreign policy.

T. V. Soong admits that he has not much to offer to the Soviets during his forthcoming talks with them. His main asset, he believes, is the American support of the Chungking regime. All doubts expressed in the American press about the stability of the Chungking regime and all sympathy expressed by American newspapermen for the Chinese Communists weakens considerably the position of Chiang Kai-shek’s government with regard to Moscow. He was pleased, therefore, with the Reader’s Digest article on China.³⁶ He was very anxious to see the Americans become ever more aware of the importance of China, especially if he fails to reach an understanding in Moscow.

The two main Chinese worries are Manchuria and Korea. Manchuria is definitely much more important than Korea. The Chinese population of Manchuria increased during the last fifteen years from ten million to twenty-eight million people. It is one of the richest Chinese Provinces and can absorb, in their opinion, a part of the Chinese surplus population. They would like, therefore, to know what the Russian plans are for Manchuria. The Chinese are prepared, both T. V. Soong and Victor Hoo told me, to let the Russians use the Manchurian Railway, once owned by the Russians, for all their transit. They are also prepared to let the Russians use, custom free, Manchurian harbors, but, said Soong and Hoo, they cannot permit any Soviet military or air bases on Manchurian soil.

They are afraid that Soviet military action against Japan will start on Manchurian soil. According to the Chinese information, important Soviet troop movements took place one night during the last two or three months along the Manchurian border. The Chinese fear that the Russians will enter Manchuria for strategic considerations and stay there for political and economic considerations. This is why they are so anxious to find out what the Soviet intentions with regard to Manchuria are, and to reach, if possible, an understanding with Moscow before the beginning of the military action against Japan.

They are also somewhat worried about the situation in Sinkiang. The latest troubles in Sinkiang, where the non-Chinese Kirghizes and Kazaks began to shoot the Chinese, disturbed the Chungking government. The Chinese would like to find out whether the Soviet arms used by the non-Chinese population were left during the Soviet-Chinese condominium over this Province which ended two years ago with the withdrawal of the Soviet forces, or whether they were later brought to Sinkiang from across the border.

Asked by me whether in their belief Moscow would prefer to have for Manchuria a “Czechoslovak” or a “Lublin”³⁷ style of government, Soong and Hoo said that they expected rather a Czechoslovak style of government as a vehicle for Soviet influence. They are afraid that Moscow might find a number of candidates for the part of a Manchurian “Beneš”.³⁸

The Chinese are not prepared, however, to give up without a diplomatic battle their claims over Manchuria. They are much more pessimistic as far as Korea is concerned. Soong and Hoo remarked that Korea was never a Chinese province and that the independence of Korea is of importance to the Chinese strategical location. Dr. Chu Hein-ming was much more outspoken. He does not believe that there is any chance to assure Korea’s independence. Korea’s political life suffered much from the Japanese regime and its Korean puppets. On the other hand, Dr. Chu recognizes that both the so-called Korean government which operates under Chinese sponsorship and with Chinese subvention in Chungking and all the Korean nationalist leaders in the United States have no roots and no following in Korea. He believes that the Korea Communists, trained in the Soviet Union, have a far greater chance to take over the power in China [Korea] than have the Chinese and our Korean protégés. The Soviets, says Dr. Chu, have withdrawn many Koreans from border regions to more remote provinces in Turkestan during the purge of 1937–38. Those Koreans of whom the Soviets did not feel quite sure during the purge have been since then thoroughly trained and incorporated into the Soviet administration. Many of them reached responsible posts in different branches of the administration. Their administrative experience combined with the military and political prestige of their Soviet sponsors and backers may easily bring them to power in Korea.

As important as are Manchuria and Korea for post-war China, there is another problem which certainly overshadows the problems of those two countries. It is the problem of the Chinese Communists and especially of the support which they may find with the beginning of the Soviet-Japanese war from the Soviets.

All the Chinese, from T. V. Soong clown to Dr. Chu, recognize that the Soviets supported the Chinese Communists either materially or morally since 1937. But, Dr. Chu points out, while the Soviet leaders have spoken with a certain contempt of the Chinese Communists to General Pat Hurley and to Donald Nelson, they have on the other hand continued to describe the Chinese Communists as “Communists” in all Soviet publications and newspapers. This is, in the opinion of Dr. Chu, extremely significant. Should the Moscow leaders disapprove of the Chinese Communists they would have labeled them as “Trotskyites” or would have marked in some way or other the fact that they do not sympathize completely with the Chinese Communist movement. As long as the Chinese Communists are described as “Communists” in the Soviet press it means that they do enjoy the confidence of the Soviet leaders and that they might be used, when it is judged desirable, for the achievement of the Soviet objectives in the Far East.

The Chinese are still guessing what might be the long-range Soviet objectives in the Far East. They hope, although they are not very sure, that T. V. Soong’s trip to Moscow might bring some light. But they are perfectly certain that the Soviet diplomacy in the Far East is going to become extremely active within the coming months. What are, then, the Chinese chances to prevent the gradual Sovietization of China?

Dr. Chu, who it has already been pointed out, speaks more bluntly than the top Chinese officials, admits that the situation is very serious, if not already critical.

He does not pretend that the Kuomintang has all the virtues and qualities for the salvation of China. He admits that he was made a member of the Kuomintang quite recently and practically against his will, but he could not refuse the membership which was imposed upon him because of his official position. He disclosed that a number of high Chinese diplomats, including Victor Hoo, who have until lately managed to stay outside of the Kuomintang, were obliged to join the party about three weeks ago. This policy, says Dr. Chu, aims on the one hand to assure the growing loyalty of the Chinese officials and diplomats to the Kuomintang party line, hut on the other hand it has also a long-range objective. This policy aims to make the Kuomintang ever more representative of the Chinese people and to bring together different factions and political and social philosophies of the Chinese.

Dr. Chu frankly admits that China suffers terribly from the Chinese hereditary weaknesses. He does not deny that there is graft and corruption in the Chungking administration. He is more than aware of all the dangers which evolve from the ever-growing Chinese inflation. But he is anxious to point out that despite those very hard economic and financial conditions there is an ever-growing number of Chinese Patriots who serve the administration in posts where there is no chance for any graft whatsoever, and who are doing their very best to serve honestly their country. Dr. Chu is convinced that if only China could succeed in obtaining ten years of relative peace and of non-foreign interference in its domestic life the younger generation of Chinese Patriots, most of whom have been educated in American schools, could create, with American help and assistance, a new, sound economic basis for a politically sound China. He admits that the Kuomintang did not fully succeed until now but he is convinced that the Chinese Communists do not have a chance to succeed where the Kuomintang failed unless they will be backed by Soviet bayonets.

One of the greatest Chinese plagues is the inflation. Because of it Chinese industrialists refused to produce as they were not sure that they would be able to replenish their supplies of indispensable raw materials. Donald Nelson and his technical advisers rendered a great service to Chinese economy by creating conditions which assured to every Chinese manufacturer the supply of the same quantity of the raw materials which he was using for his production. The result was a developed Chinese production. But, while these economic measures greatly contributed to the prevention of a greater Chinese economic chaos, the stability of the Chinese economy was compromised by the scarcity of rice which resulted from the recent Chinese military defeats in the rice basket Provinces. It is easier to keep the price control over the raw materials than over rice, the staple food of the Chinese peasant and worker. The latest inflation, explained Dr. Chu, was the tragic result of the scarcity of rice which had its regrettable effect on the increasing of the cost of labor.

Two conditions, in Dr. Chu’s opinion, can save China,—(a) Will American diplomacy succeed in protecting China during the coming ten years against Soviet intervention in Chinese domestic affairs?—(b) Will the United States help the Chinese to create a new Chinese economy?

There is, in Dr. Chu’s opinion, a real basis for a new, modern and sound Chinese economy. He remarked that the Japanese occupation paradoxically contributed to it by training hundreds of thousands of Chinese as qualified industrial workers and technicians. But the Chinese need both engineers and foreign capital. If they succeed in obtaining both the engineers and the foreign capital they will be able to build an industry which not only will assure China’s economic independence, without which there cannot be political independence, but it will also absorb an ever-growing number of the Chinese farm hands who cannot make their living in this over-populated country. Thus the Chinese industry will prevent dangerous social discontent which would be capitalized on by the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communists in the north of China.

Should these two conditions be fulfilled, the Soviet Union would probably discover that it is more advantageous for them to live in peaceful cooperation with the four hundred million Chinese than to assume the burden of China’s gradual incorporation into the Soviet political and economic system and risk a conflict with the United States.

At this moment the Chinese are making what is, perhaps, their last attempt to reach an understanding with the Soviet Union. They have eliminated Dr. H. H. Kung, who was known for his yielding [unyielding?] position with regard to the Soviet Union. T. V. Soong, his brother-in-law, cannot certainly be described as “pro-Soviet”. He is perfectly aware of the necessity to reach an understanding with Moscow, and will do his utmost to try to reach this agreement. If he fails, all the Chinese here with whom I talked are anxious to point out that it will not be his fault. But they are equally anxious to point out that he has practically no chance of succeeding unless he is fully supported by the American diplomacy. The Chinese are awaiting, therefore, with particular anxiety, the results of T. V. Soong’s mission to Moscow.

Dr. Chu predicted to me Soong’s promotion to the Premiership. He explained, moreover, that Ambassador Wei will probably not stay very long in Washington. Ambassador Wei, says he, is closer to Kung’s than to Soong’s school of thought. Should the chance for an understanding with Moscow increase Soong will very likely gradually eliminate the more outspoken anti-Soviet diplomats and replace them by more conciliatory, or at least less outspokenly, anti-Soviet men. The over-cautious and foxy Wellington Koo, Ambassador to London who is now also at San Francisco, wants to go to Washington as Ambassador should the United States become the seat of the International organization. Otherwise he intends to become, with Soong’s benediction, the Foreign Minister, as he is considered the best possible man for the new, most delicate phase of Chinese diplomacy during the coming months. Wellington Koo is most likely to be succeeded in Europe by my close friend, Victor Hoo, who served for many years as the Chinese Minister in Switzerland, and who will leave his Secretary’s job in order to go as the Chinese Ambassador either to London or to Paris.

34. Transmitted to the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Durbrow) on July 12.
35. Delegation to the United Nations Conference at San Francisco.
36. “Fate of the world is at stake in China”, Reader’s Digest, June 1945, vol. 46, pp. 13–22.
37. Soviet-sponsored Polish regime.
38. Eduard Beneš, President of the Czechoslovak Government in exile, who returned to Czechoslovakia as President in 1945.