711.93/9–3047
Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State80
Memorandum for the President
Subject: Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs
Dr. Wang was educated in England and France, is an authority on comparative law and has been active in academic circles in China, both as university professor and president and as Minister of Education. Pro-western in his outlook, he represents the best type of modern progressive Chinese in the Government and, on some occasions, he has been able to influence the Generalissimo.
If Dr. Wang does not confine his visit to a call of courtesy, he is likely to touch on the subject presently of most concern to the Chinese Government, which is described in the following paragraph.
The Chinese fear that United States preoccupation with western Europe is resulting in neglect of China’s urgent need for American aid and they are seriously concerned lest the United States not extend to them substantial financial, economic and military assistance. They feel that the U. S. has a moral obligation to assist them: partly because of the American role at Yalta, which led to the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945 granting certain rights in Manchuria to the USSR, and partly because they regard their situation as similar to that of Greece and Turkey.81 They, of course, minimize their own inability to take sufficiently effective steps to carry out urgently required political, economic and military reforms which would strengthen their hand against the Communists and which are ultimately essential to the continued existence of their Government.
If Dr. Wang should introduce the foregoing subject, it is suggested that he be informed that the United States does have a definite traditional interest in China and that China is not being overlooked by the United States in its consideration of the problems of economic recovery and rehabilitation throughout the world.
- Drafted on September 30 by Philip D. Sprouse, of the Division of Chinese Affairs, and handed by the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth) to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett) for President Truman.↩
- See Department of State Bulletin, Supplement, Aid to Greece and Turkey, May 4, 1947, p. 827.↩