893.00/5–747: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 7—3:40 a.m.]
983. Li Huang, who had been nominated by the Young China Party for the position of Minister of Economic Affairs in the coalition government, has now publicly and formally announced his refusal to accept the position. In sympathy with him, his colleague, Tso Shun-sheng, has likewise declined the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Li’s decision is attributable to his recognition that the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the most heterogeneous of all Ministries, is now without decisive power which is vested in the National Economic Council and yet is in a position to be made the recipient of criticism for continuing economic deterioration. There is also the important factor that no agreement has been reached, or is as yet foreseeable, on the demand of the Youth Party for large, even disproportionate representation in local governments.
To this situation must be added the apparent serious split in the Social Democratic Party following Carson Chang’s decision that members of the Party, though not himself, would participate in the reorganized interim government. At the same time a series of attacks are being made by high Kuomintang leaders against the Democratic League as being merely the tail of the Communist kite to which Lo Lung-chi, secretary general of the League, has publicly rejoined that he regards these as a prelude to drastically repressive measures.