Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, The Far East: China, Volume VII

893.00/10–647

Memorandum of Conversation, by the First Secretary of Embassy in the United Kingdom (Drumright)⁹⁰

[London,] October 4, 1947.

1. In the course of a conversation last evening Dr. Chiang⁹¹ expressed some views on the Chinese situation which are perhaps worthy of record.

2. Dr. Chiang was pessimistic about the situation in China, though he appeared to feel that the National Government is in no danger of imminent collapse. He observed that financial and economic conditions are in a particularly critical state. Dr. Chiang appeared, however, to derive some satisfaction from the concept that China is better off economically in some respects than France or Italy. (Dr. Chiang has just reurned to England from a brief trip to France.)

3. Dr. Chiang was obviously concerned over what he regarded as a marked deterioration of Sino-American relations. He had regarded General Wedemeyer’s public statement⁹² as a broad hint that China would receive short shrift from the United States. He said the notion was now prevalent in China that the United States was preparing to abandon China and consolidate in Japan, the Liu Chiu Islands and the Philippines in furtherance of its struggle with the Soviets. All these phenomena disheartened National Government adherents and gave great comfort to the Communists and their followers. Moreover, Dr. Chiang added, it would be a grave mistake to conclude that stability could be achieved in East Asia in the absence of Chinese stability. Nor would American security be achieved by withdrawal to Japan and the Philippines.

4. Dr. Chiang said he thought that most American observers, including Wedemeyer, took a superficial and short-sighted view of the Chinese situation. Americans tended to measure China too much by their own standards. They underestimated China’s war-time sacrifices; they failed to understand that those sacrifices had largely brought China to her present deplorable state; they could not see that China needed outside assistance to eliminate the corruption and inefficiency of which the Americans were constantly complaining.

5. Dr. Chiang said that the Chinese people dislike the National Government because of its corruption and inefficiency, but that they prefer it nonetheless to the Chinese Communists who are commonly regarded by the Chinese people as the agents of Soviet Russia. In spite of this handicap, there was, of course, a possibility that the Communists might achieve their aim of dominating China, but he was convinced that the Chinese people were too individualistic to accept the Communist strait jacket and Marxian doctrine for any length of time. In this connection, Dr. Chiang observed that if the Communists got control of China they would ruthlessly wipe out all opposition; one of the first aims of the Communists would be the total elimination of American and British influence from China.

6. Dr. Chiang said that he deplored Sun Fo’s⁹³ recent statement in which he suggested that if China could not expect aid from the United States it would have to turn to the Soviet Union. Dr. Chiang explained that Sun Fo was impulsive by nature and probably had made the statement without regard to the consequences. Dr. Chiang considered that National Government leaders would do well to exercise patience and to refrain from giving offense to the United States at this juncture.

7. Dr. Chiang said that at the recent Institute of Pacific Relations conference (at which he headed the Chinese delegation) several of the American delegates (and notably Owen Lattimore⁹⁴) had urged a “hands off” attitude toward China. He, for his part, had drawn a parallel between the situation in Western Europe and in China and had advocated that aid be granted China much in the same way that aid is being considered for Western Europe.

Everett F. Drumright

90. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Chargé in the United Kingdom in his despatch No. 2235, October 6; received October 13.
91. Chiang Mon-lin, former Secretary General, Chinese Executive Yuan.
92. Statement of August 24, by Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, recently President Truman’s personal representative in China on a fact-finding mission; for text, see telegram No. 1789, August 24, from the Ambassador in China, p. 759.
93. President of the Chinese Legislative Yuan.
94. Johns Hopkins University faculty specialist on Far Eastern Affairs; American adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in 1941.