Marshall Mission Files, Lot 54–D270
Minutes of Meeting Between General Marshall and General Chou En-lai at 5 Ning Hai Road, Nanking, June 18, 1946, 11:15 a.m.
| Also present: | Mr. Chang |
| Col. Caughey | |
| Capt. Soong |
General Marshall stated that he had two matters to take up. He Tiad the revisions of the February 25 Agreement (handing copy to [Page 1084] General Chou).15 In other words, if the various agreements were accepted, this is the form they would probably have to go into. This, of course, he explained, deals with North China. This was not in shape last night, he said, so that he could get it to General Chou sooner. It had since been confirmed by the Generalissimo and typed up here. The other matter, he said, had just arrived and been translated about 30 minutes ago. General Marshall gave the Chinese copy to General Chou and asked that it be returned within two or three days. This is a copy of the message the Generalissimo’s Headquarters sent to Executive Headquarters,15 as indicated in the note. Instruction was received from the Generalissimo that, aside from dispatching this message ta Peiping Headquarters on 18 June, a copy was to be forwarded to General Marshall in the forenoon of the same day. General Yu Ta Wei brought it at about 8:30 this morning. Consequently, General Marshall had no knowledge of the contents last night when he wrote a memorandum to General Chou. He wanted General Chou to have it now; otherwise, it would go clear to Peiping and return through the Communist Commissioner.
General Chou said he received General Marshall’s memorandum last night and he quickly went over it because he did not want any further delay. After reading through it he himself was rather surprised, particularly the part pertaining to China proper. He believes this paper is entirely a proposal of the Generalissimo. As far as his authority is concerned he is not in a position to consider such proposal. All he can do is to get it translated and send it to Yenan, except for the part which stipulates the restoration of conditions in Shantung prior to June 7. The other parts are entirely beyond his expectation and he could not, when he went to Yenan last time, have thought of such suggestions. Therefore, he felt it a heavy blow on receiving the paper because he has been trying to make a compromise by all means on various issues. However, the attitude of the Government in drawing this draft seems not to pertain to solving the problems. He feels that not only he alone but the public, after reading the draft, would find it unacceptable. Despite all of that he is still trying to get the whole contents cabled to Yenan today because it is rather long and takes some time.
General Chou continued that because Yenan needs an explanation of the development of the negotiations in Nanking General Chou feels that he has to make some report on the progress. During the past 10 days he tried to work along the lines General Marshall suggested, by tackling problems one by one and by developing compromise, step by step. Though he was afraid that the entire problem [Page 1085] may not be possible to be solved within 15 days, but he still hopes that the framework can be laid clown within this period and the remaining problems can be taken up later. In this way, negotiations will not confront a total wreck, and so in his report to Yenan he has assumed rather an optimistic and helpful attitude during the past 10 days. Therefore, as far as he is concerned the paper he received last night was rather a surprise and he feels rather embittered to read it. As a matter of fact, two or three days ago the Government had already revealed a little of its intentions. General Chou heard from the Democratic League that a dinner party was given by the Kuomintang to the Middle parties. Mr. Mo Teh Hwei, the man from Manchuria, already indicated that the army reorganization plan was a hard nut to crack because the gap between the two parties was very wide and it touched not only Manchuria but also China proper. Even if Mr. Mo did not know the whole contents of the paper he must have known informally about the outline. General Chou did not believe what Mr. Mo said, but after receipt of this paper he found that Mr. Mo’s remarks had some foundation. Of course, early yesterday he already had some omen because of the change in the railroad communications draft. On June 15 when Colonel Hill came to speak to him, Colonel Hill asked if he would be ready to sign the paper providing General Yu Ta Wei would agree on the points included. General Chou said that in general it will be all right to him, having only read the exact English text. He made very few moderate changes. On the next day, June 6 [16], General Yu Ta Wei rejected the proposal.
General Marshall asked if by proposal he meant the paper.
General Chou said he did and continued that on June 17 General Yu Ta Wei made a new draft himself. So, after talking with Colonel Hill yesterday afternoon, General Chou already had some feeling that some trouble was going to arise since it seemed that the Government’s intentions in solving the issues were not developing along the lines General Marshall suggested or those General Yu Ta Wei had expressed to General Chou. Immediately after General Chou returned to Nanking this time the Government put some stumbling blocks in the way of a solution. In view of this General Chou feels obliged to make an immediate report to Yenan on the latest developments. Since he thought that General Marshall would be anxious to have an early reply from him, he worked until early this morning and still came as early as possible.
General Chou wanted briefly to express his own views because he liked to exchange opinions with General Marshall, even though he had asked Yenan for instructions. Regarding the situation in China proper, except for the point that the status prior to June 7 should be [Page 1086] restored, none of the other points can be considered by him, as far as he sees it. Restoration of the status prior to June 7 is not such a simple matter, because the truce in China proper should be effected on January 13. If you want to return the status to the original position, then you should restore the position to that of 24 hours, January 13, as it has been directed by the General Directive No. 6 in Peiping.16
General Chou noticed that in General Hsu’s document concerning the 54th and 73rd Armies, he intimates that Communist troops have been attacking the Government positions since January 13. General Chou pointed out that the way General Hsu brought forward the question seemed quite all right to him because General Hsu stated that since January 13 the Communists have either occupied or besieged 17 towns or townlets. Actually the towns and townlets occupied alone, not to mention those besieged and still occupied by the Kuomintang, are more than 20, and in addition 2,000 villages have been captured by them. All of these places are off of the railroad lines and they did not draw attention of the public. If the field teams can be dispatched to make a survey then everything can be proved. Therefore, General Chou believes it more logical that the status of January 13 should be restored and not that of June 7. The cessation of aggressive action which commenced on June 7, as he understands, applies to Manchuria and not to China proper. In China proper the truce has been effective since Jan. 13.
As to the movement of troops the number of the Communist troops can in no way be compared with that of the Government troops. The Communist troops could only be moved on foot and in small scale and for the purpose of self-defense. While on the Government side they have moved 118 divisions and even excluding Manchuria it still amounts to nearly 100 divisions. General Chou said he had submitted a memorandum both to General Marshall and General Hsu, concerning these moves, and even General Hsu was not in a position to furnish a reply. Therefore, as far as the cessation of hostilities and the troop movements is concerned he fully subscribes to the survey by the field teams and restoration of forces as were held on January 13. He promised that the Communist troops would evacuate places they occupied after that date; the Government should give the same promise.
As to Manchuria, it is the Communist troops which first abided the 7 June agreement. Take the example of Lafa. The Government staged a very wide propaganda on this affair, while in the meantime they also occupied Faku, which is larger than Lafa, and they took it on June 9. Immediately after the Lafa affair broke out General Lin Piao17 wired Peiping and Mukden requesting a field team to [Page 1087] make a survey. It is interesting to note that the Government representative in Peiping objected to the dispatch of a field team to that place. Now, Communist forces have evacuated Lafa, leaving only local police behind. This is even admitted by General Tu Li Ming. On the other hand, the Government troops are still in Faku. Therefore, with regard to Manchuria they fully subscribe to the restoration of the status of June 7.
General Chou stated that with respect to the situation in China proper as of June 7, a series of events had occurred but the situation leading to those events developed prior to June 7th. He said he did not want to mention that, only to say that in May and June the Government had occupied about 5 or 6 towns or townlets held by the Communists. That was the cause which entailed the Shantung incident. If at that time they should only concern themselves with the source of the Shantung situation, that would no doubt be advantageous only to the Government, because of the Shantung hostilities Communists had occupied a few places and disbanded the puppet troops while in other places Government troops had occupied many different places. If that was taken by itself (the Shantung situation) that would hardly be acceptable to the Communists.
Regarding the Government demand for the evacuation from Chahar and Jehol, General Chou said the Government could produce no reason at all for that demand. Therefore, that was beyond the consideration of the Communist Party. If the Communist Party was pressed to consider that matter, that would inevitably result in counter-proposals such as to ask the Government to evacuate Peiping and Tientsin. That would, of course, only complicate the matter.
Regarding the third point referring to theoccupation of Chefoo and Wei Hai Wei by the Nationalist troops that was also made without foundation. He said the Government had a naval port at Chin-wangtao and Tsingtao which were quite sufficient. Chefoo is only a commercial port while the naval base of Wei Hai Wei had been abandoned for a long time. If the Communist Party were pressed to give up those places, then again they would make counter-proposals and have the Government evacuate Tsingtao.
As to the intention to send an army to Tsingtao to replace the U. S. Marines, that was also without reason for the Marines were stationed in those places for the purpose of repatriation of the Japanese. Once the repatriation was completed then the U. S. Marines should be withdrawn. As for the maintenance of local security, if the fighting should be stopped then the present strength of the Nationalist troops was sufficient and if some detailed arrangement would be worked out in accordance with the army reorganization plan which called for a larger strength of the National troops in those places then that was a [Page 1088] different matter which had no connection with the U. S. Marines. If hostilities would break out the U. S. Marines would be prohibited from entering the civil strife. So they play no role in China’s internal civil strife. If there should be no fighting then no reinforcement would be needed for the defense of those two cities so it appeared that there was no reason for that.
Regarding the status quo in North China, that was still all right to be considered, but on every other subject they were all beyond consideration, that was, the withdrawal from Jehol and Chahar, and Chefoo and Wei Hai Wei and the dispatch of additional troops to permit the withdrawal of U. S. Marines.
General Chou said General Marshall had requested his concrete thoughts on Manchuria and he would immediately try to discuss it with General Marshall and to tell him what he had in mind. So far as China proper was concerned he thought the proposal was impossible and had General Marshall inferred to him, [sic] but since both of them were not informed beforehand about it he had not mentioned that.
General Marshall said he knew of the proposal a few days before, but he was not able to express it to General Chou.
General Chou asked if the Generalissimo would insist on those places or would he be able to make adjustments. General Chou said if the Generalissimo insisted on all those points he thought his trip to Yenan would not help the matter.
Speaking of Manchuria, as General Marshall had been told by General Chou, the Communists had two fundamental points in mind. The first one was regarding the strength of the Communist forces. The Communists had asked for 5 divisions and General Marshall had proposed three divisions. That was still open for discussion. The second point was in regard to the distribution of troops. General Chou had suggested that the Communist troops be stationed in places now under Communist control. That point had apparently been taken into consideration in drawing up the plan. The other aspect of the plan was that certain places would be left ungarrisoned and that the Government troops would not come into places now under Communist control, but according to the draft the Government troops had entered many places now held by the Communists such as Harbin, Mutankiang, Paicheng, Antung, Tunghwa. That was beyond the expectation of General Chou. As General Chou previously stated, he wanted to have some place left empty without garrison troops and as to what measures should be adopted for those places, that was still left open for discussion.
General Chou said the crux of the issue now seemed to be whether the Generalissimo wants to solve the question of [or] that he rather tended to complicate the matter to the utmost. If that was the case, [Page 1089] then it would be difficult for General Chou to consider the various issues. For example, he had already stated on the situation in China proper and would not repeat it. On the communication problem he had made large concessions so that without awaiting the settlement of the other issues they could go ahead with the repair work. On the fortification problem they also made a large concession. As he had explained to General Marshall the previous day, if they accepted the present paragraph there would be no destruction of the fortifications at all. He thought it might be better that no fortification be erected than to have a paragraph as it was phrased. General Chou said he also made no points on the fortifications in the other areas beside what had been mentioned. In principle, he had already concurred on the two original drafts produced by Colonel Hill. But those drafts were revised by General Yu Ta Wei. The main points were taken away by him in drawing up the new draft. For example, if all kinds of communications would be restored then while on the one hand it should be agreed that the unified control of the Ministry of Communications should be reorganized, on the other hand there should be representation of the parties concerned in the various levels of the Ministry of Communications. That stipulation had been left out by General Yu Ta Wei. On the other hand, General Yu Ta Wei advanced the question of the railroad guards and he did not make a concession on that point. The problem of the railroad guards had not been contained in the original draft nor was it ever stipulated in the previous agreement on the restoration of communications. Regarding the troop movement it was stipulated in the cease fire agreement and the restoration of communications agreement that no troop movement should be made in any place. General Yu Ta Wei proposed that only in the section under Communist control would no troop movements be made. If that proposal were accepted it would make the movements of troops legal. On the communications problem, they had reduced to such a point that the Communists make concessions that they would agree to the repair work on the railways and do not take it in connection with the other points. General Chou said he was again afraid what the Government might make the power of final decision another issue. He said he did not know what counter-proposal General Yu was going to propose. Also, he had not read the new paper on the army reorganization. He did not know whether new complications would be involved in that paper or not. So from all the different aspects, it seemed to General Chou that the Government was making the proposal for them to accept because they were forcing them to make concessions far beyond the agreement of February and January, while in the political matters no assurance had yet been made. General Chou said it was not his intention not to make [Page 1090] concessions but the concessions should come from both sides as General Marshall had also said. He said he made the concessions with the view that they would get some assurance on the political matters, but as it turned out, the Government was demanding concessions be made by the Communists and the Government actually made no concessions. The Government troops would not evacuate some places they had occupied while the places the Communists had occupied in retaliation should be evacuated. The Government has made no concession on the strength of the troops. So, General Chou stated, after weighing the proposals altogether, he felt were he simply a representative of the Communist Party and not thinking about his position as a Chinese citizen and not thinking that Sino-Soviet cooperation was involved, he would resign because the negotiations conducted by him seemed to be a complete failure.
General Marshall concluded the meeting by arranging to have his airplane stand by for General Chou’s trip to Yenan and a tentative take-off of 9 o’clock was set.