893.00/3–2047: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 20—1:20 a.m.]
603. Following is China Press report of Democratic League press conference March 17 Shanghai on Soviet proposal at Moscow Conference concerning China:
“Joint mediation but not joint intervention in China’s affairs by the participants of the 1945 Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference was advocated by the Chinese Democratic League in a press conference yesterday afternoon.
“Such friendly mediation will not be opposed by the Chinese people because mediation in China’s civil strife and intervention in China’s domestic, affairs are ‘two different things’, the League claimed. It is an open secret that the civil war in China involves international complications; in addition, the appropriate settlement of the Chinese issue is a condition to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between the United States and Soviet Russia, the League members explained.
“‘We could not see the necessity’ for the Chinese Government to reject the review over the Chinese situation as proposed by Soviet Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov who finally decided to invite the Chinese representatives to participate in the discussion. This invitation, however, was mainly adapted to the demand raised by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Shih-chieh in a statement that the big powers could not discuss the Chinese issue without the presence of the Chinese representatives, the League members stated.
“At present, the Chinese people suffer tremendously from the merciless civil strife which might possibly affect stability and peace throughout the world. It is indeed not possible for the people to ‘bind their hands waiting for death’ without doing anything in struggling for the realization of peace and democracy in the country, they contended. Based upon that very demand of the people, the League would seek a new way for peace that would save the people from their hazardous situation, the sponsors of the meeting declared.
“Claiming that the League today ‘absolutely holds a peaceful, open and oppositional stand’ toward the present situation in China, the Leaguers emphasized that their party would ‘never participate in the government’ before the establishment of a ‘really democratic and united coalition government’.
“The League, they added, would firmly stick to the principle of not being involved in armed struggle despite the fact that it would definitely meet with difficulties and dangers along with its ‘unflinching struggle for democracy in China’.
“Touching on the wholesale arrest of persons in Peiping and Tsingtao and the frequent disappearance of citizens here during the past two weeks, the League members expressed great surprise over such [Page 620] ‘unlawful acts’. They remarked that these startling incidents were ‘unprecedented in the history of the Chinese Republic’.
“The League raised strong protest against the unlawful acts by saying that they ran exactly in contravention to constitutional practices as widely propagated by the Government during the past several months.
“If these acts were meant for the preparation of constitutionalism, the significance of that constitutionalism would be ‘unimaginable’, the Leaguers alleged.
“Concluding, the League stressed that ‘human rights that made laws’ and not the contrary. There might be no constitution in a country but the Government still has no right to destroy human rights, the party asserted.”