Office of the Historian

761.93/6–945: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Hurley)

Washington, June 9, 1945.

White House Number 285. The President directs me to send you the following message:

“You are aware of an agreement made in February that the President would take measures to obtain from Chiang Kai-shek his concurrence in the understanding of the Soviet Government stated herewith following.

Stalin wishes to discuss his proposals directly with Soong in Moscow before the first of July.

1.
Stalin has made to us a categorical statement that he will do everything he can to promote unification under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.
2.
That this leadership should continue after the war.
3.
That he wants a unified stable China and wants China to control all Manchuria as a part of a United China.
4.
That he has no territorial claims against China, and that he will respect Chinese Sovereignty in all areas his troops enter to fight the Japanese.
5.
That he will welcome representatives of the Generalissimo to be with his troops in Manchuria in order to facilitate the organizations of Chinese administration in Manchuria.
6.
That he agrees with America’s ‘Open Door’ policy in China.
7.
That he agrees to a trusteeship for Korea under China, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

The conditions for Soviet participation in the war against Japan are as follows, and if these conditions are met, a Soviet attack will be made in August:

  • ‘1. The status quo in Outer Mongolia (The Mongolian People’s Republic) shall be preserved;
  • 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.:
    (a)
    the southern part of Sakhalin as well as all the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union,
    (b)
    the commercial port of Dairen shall be internationalized, the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base of the USSR restored,
    (c)
    the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South Manchurian Railroad which provides an outlet to Dairen shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese company it being understood that the preeminent interests of the Soviet [Page 898] Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria.
  • 3. The Kuril islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.
  • 4. The Soviet Union is ready to conclude with the National Government of China a pact of friendship and Alliance between the USSR and China in order to render assistance to China with its Armed forces for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke.’

Inform Chiang Kai-shek that President Roosevelt at Yalta agreed to support these Soviet claims upon the entry of Russia in the war against Japan. I am also in agreement.

T. V. Soong has been given this information.

You are hereby directed to take up this matter with Chiang on June 15th and to make every effort to obtain his approval.”

Grew