761.93/7–247
Memorandum of Conversation, by the First Secretary of Embassy in China (Ludden)80
| Participants: | Mr. Chang Chien-fei, Commissioner for Foreign Affairs for the Northeast, and |
| Raymond P. Ludden, First Secretary of Embassy |
I called on Mr. Chang Chien-fei this afternoon at the Overseas Chinese Hostel. Mr. Chang is the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs for the Northeast and was the Foreign Office representative on the investigatory commission which returned recently from Dairen. I expressed [Page 530] to Mr. Chang the Embassy’s thanks for his having delivered to Benninghoff the money which he needed so badly and Mr. Chang apologized for not having delivered to Benninghoff the mail pouches which were carried on the Chinese gunboat. He said, however, that they were rather bulky to carry overland from Port Arthur to Dairen by car and the gunboat Ch’ang Chih which carried the commission to Port Arthur did not proceed to Dairen.
Mr. Chang delivered the money personally to Benninghoff and talked with him for about twenty minutes. He said that Benninghoff appeared to be in good health as did Mrs. Benninghoff. Benninghoff was very glad to see Mr. Chang and expressed hope for the success of this mission, but Mr. Chang had to tell him that there seemed to be very little hope of their succeeding judging from his experience up to that time at Port Arthur. Benninghoff was concerned about the fact that he had not received any courier mail since March 5th.
Mr. Chang confirmed what we have previously heard about the mission to Dairen—that it was completely unsuccessful. He said that upon arrival in Port Arthur they had considerable initial difficulty in meeting the Soviet Commander and when they finally succeeded in meeting him he adopted the attitude that they must first call upon the Kwantung Administration which was the highest civil authority in the area, that Soviet Commander was merely the commander of a local military force and was not competent to carry on negotiations with officials of the Chinese Government; these negotiations would have to be carried on with the local civil authorities. Mr. Chang said that General Tung Yen-ping, the head of the Chinese mission, pointed out that he had been instructed by his Government to proceed to Dairen to negotiate with Soviet authorities in connection with questions relating to the Sino-Soviet Treaty including the status of Port Arthur and the railroad and the Port of Dairen, and that he could not negotiate these matters with a purely local administration. The Soviets continued adamant in their position throughout the stay of the Chinese, insisting that the Kwantung Administration had been established by and represented the spontaneous will of the people of the area; that it was a Chinese administration and that, therefore, the Chinese representatives should deal with it. A representative of General Tung and Mr. Chang eventually called upon the Chairman of the Kwantung Administration, a local merchant, but he insisted that the head of the Mission should call upon him. This General Tung refused to do. The Chinese then requested that the Soviet Military Commander inform the Kwantung Administration that negotiations with the Chinese delegation should be opened. To this the Soviet Commander replied that, inasmuch as the Kwantung Administration was the [Page 531] highest civil authority and represented the will of the people, he as a Soviet commander could not order it to do anything. Thus the matter rested. The Chinese party went overland by motor car to Dairen and by train to Chinhsien and then by train back to Port Arthur.
Mr. Chang expressed himself as holding out little if any hope for any subsequent negotiations with the Russians vis-à-vis Dairen. Mr. Chang maintains that it appears to be the Russian intent to make the whole peninsular area south of Shih-ho a military base. This of course would include the city of Darien. They stayed for but one day in Dairen and were not allowed to investigate any of the key areas of the city but the Chinese gathered the impression that all utilities, docks, warehouses and industries are rapidly coming under the management of Russians.
During the entire time of their stay each member of the Chinese mission was accompanied by a Russian liaison officer. All of the Russian officers were at least of field rank and had a knowledge of Chinese. In addition to being accompanied by a liaison officer, when they moved outside of any place where they were staying, they were also followed by armed Russian guards for purposes of “protection”. At no time were the Chinese allowed to move about freely or to talk with anyone unaccompanied by their respective liaison officers. Mr. Chang expressed it as his opinion that there are probably two Russian divisions in the area. He states that extending south from Shih-ho, on the northern boundary of the naval base area, there is a belt approximately twelve kilometers wide into which no one is allowed without Russian permission. Mr. Chang states that passengers on trains for Pulantien, when crossing the area, are required to draw all curtains in the cars. Mr. Chang said that on the journey between Port Arthur and Dairen they passed one airfield upon which there were approximately one hundred aircraft, both fighters and bombers but predominantly the former.
Mr. Chang and the other members of the Chinese mission are convinced that the Kwantung Administration is a puppet of the Soviet military command, nominally headed by local merchants or politicians, but in fact controlled by Chinese Communists from Yenan. The technique is, according to Mr. Chang, to have a local Chinese as head of any given administrative organ, but surrounded by deputies, secretaries or advisors who actually operate the administration—these latter people, few in number, are the Chinese Communists from Yenan. This technique is reminiscent of the Japanese method of operation in the days of “Manchukuo”.
At my request, Mr. Chang agreed to set down the names of the various officials of the organization under the Kwantung Administration [Page 532] with notations as to which were those especially imported from Yenan. He will send this list to Mr. P’u Tao-ming of the West Asiatic Department of the Foreign Office for transmission to the Embassy.
Mr. Chang is leaving for Shanghai tonight to return to his post at Mukden.
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in China in his despatch No. 848, July 2; received July 11.↩