Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The Far East: China, Volume IX

893.00/6–2646

General Marshall to President Truman⁸⁶

[Nanking,] June 26, 1946.

[995.] Dear Mr. President: The negotiations have reached a point where the detailed instructions to govern a cessation of hostilities have been agreed to, also, the instructions for the reopening of communications. Further, an important agreement has been completed granting certain authorities to the American officer on teams and at Executive Headquarters which should greatly facilitate the control of situations by Executive Headquarters in the future. We are now engaged in the far more difficult matter of the redisposition and reduction of troops in Manchuria and North and Central China. The Manchurian phase seems to be the least difficult of the three to compose. The Communists submitted their detailed proposals⁸⁷ this morning and I am at this moment engaged with General Chou in a discussion⁸⁸ of the proposals. I write while he is making his statements in Chinese or listening to the translation of mine.

The Communist proposals are far apart from the government demands and there remain but a few days in which to achieve a compromise solution. The situation is further complicated by the freely expressed desire of some to settle the issue by force, by mass meetings in Shanghai carefully organized to stir up anti-American feeling related to current Congressional consideration of Lend-Lease matters in particular.

I realize the circumstances which have caused the initiation of new measures in Congress for aid to China at this time, but these moves, coming at the most critical stage of my negotiations, are causing difficulty and embarrassment. The Communists profess to regard recent measures and official statements in Washington as proving their contention that American economic and military support to the Kuomintang Government will continue to be given irrespective of whether the government offers the Communists a fair and reasonable basis for settlement of military and political differences. The Communists maintain new legislation intended to aid China is reinforcing the government’s tendency to deal with the Communists by force and thus is contributing to all out civil war. They relate the proposed Congressional action to active support of the government military power in the immediate future and not many months hence as would be the case.

I think it is a fact that some die-hard Kuomintang elements in other government councils are utilizing recent American measures as a basis for pressing the Generalissimo to push forward with a campaign of determination against the Communists. At the same time, these and other Kuomintang extremists appear to be joining in anti-American agitation on the grounds that American economic pressure is causing American imports to displace Chinese products, bankrupt Chinese industrialists and prevent Chinese recovery. These Kuomintang groups also are antagonistic to the restraint exercised by myself and other Americans on the government with regard to an anti-Communist military campaign, and are even using the Communist line against American intervention in pursuance of their aim to free the government from any American impediment to drastic anti-Communist, action.

The agitation and propaganda resulting from the activity of the different factions is being manifested in mass demonstrations, press campaigns and mob actions, such as, the incident at the Nanking Railway Station on the night of June 24 [23]. It would be helpful if government spokesmen in Washington seized favourable occasion to explain the aims and development American measures for aid to China.⁸⁹ The recent moves are but steps in the complete implementation of a long agreed program for helping the Chinese nation as a whole to rid itself of the Japanese. These moves include steps to implement the agreement reached in Chungking, February 25 last, for reorganization and unification of the armed forces of China. They are intended to cement rather than destroy unity, and were planned for a single National Army made up of both Communist and Central Government troops. All of the steps concerned involve a lengthy procedure of negotiation, agreements, legislative action and, lastly, decisions by yourself in accordance with the existing situation; these steps consume many months, more than a year in this case, and if interrupted could not be quickly, if ever, resumed.

It could be pointed out that measures to provide economic aid to China in the form of supplies and credits are an impartial American effort to contribute to a solution of the acute economic crisis in the country and prevent a complete economic breakdown. It could be stressed that it is the American hope that economic assistance be carried out in China through the medium of a government of all factions, including the Communists, and that the American Government feels that a few measures of economic assistance could not be held in abeyance despite the failure, so far, of Chinese groups to come together in a unified government, without danger of an economic collapse which would spell a great tragedy for the common people of China.

G. C. Marshall

86. Copy transmitted by the War Department to the Department of State on June 26.
87. See supra.
88. See infra.
89. With the approval of President Truman, Acting Secretary of State Acheson on June 28 issued a statement to the press along lines suggested by General Marshall; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, July 7, 1946, p. 34.