Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270
Memorandum by the Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Melby)79
Subj: Political Situation in China.
| Participants: | Mr. Chen Li-fu and an officer of the Embassy. |
In a conversation yesterday afternoon Mr. Chen Li-fu,80 following a long exchange of the usual cocktail party banalities, volunteered some observations on the current political situation in China. He started out by recalling that it is solely the fault of John L. Lewis that he is back in China since he was working in the coal mines in Pennsylvania in 1925 and had planned to stay there but gave up his job when Lewis called a strike which seemed to have no prospect of [Page 1046] ending. (Chen Li-fu, incidentally, is still a member of the United Mine Workers of America). He said that was his first direct experience with Communist penetration into the internal organism of a country and it had convinced him they must be destroyed. He said he had been fighting the Communists in China for 18 years and would fight them for another 18 if that were necessary.
He then went on to say that any negotiation between two parties must be based on sincerity and good faith and therefore any negotiations in China with Communists have been and would continue to be futile since what they say today they will deny tomorrow. He expressed the belief that there is almost no hope of any agreement during the present period which would prolong the present truce and that if by any chance any agreement is reached it will be meaningless. He added that one additional proof of this is that General Chou En-lai has just come back from Yenan and has unconditionally turned down all the recent proposals made by General Marshall.
He then went on to say that he does not however believe there will be civil war since the Communists are bluffing and can be destroyed with very little difficulty. Civil war will come only if the potential participants believe it will come and he does not so believe. He said the same is true of international wars. Those who believe there will be war will get war.
- Copy transmitted by the Embassy to the President of the Chinese Executive Yuan (Soong).↩
- Minister of the Kuomintang Organization Board and brother of Chen Kuo-fu, chairman of the Kuomintang Central Financial Affairs Committee and of the board of directors of the Farmers’ Bank of China. The two Chen brothers were leaders of the so-called C-C Clique of the Nationalist Party.↩