Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, General; the United Nations, Volume I, Part 2

[Enclosure]

Memorandum Prepared in the Department of State

undated

Basic Factors in Soviet Far Eastern Policy

In the Far East and Southeast Asia, the USSR pictures itself as engaged in a struggle with the US, each country striving to extend its influence throughout the area and to restrict the advance of the other and in so doing to take advantage of the following basic factors:

(1) The defeat of Japan, which created a power vacuum in the Far East;

(2) The struggle between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists for control of China;

(3) The decline in the influence of the colonial powers in Southeast Asia and India.

From the Soviet viewpoint, factors favoring the US, which Soviet policy will endeavor to counteract or neutralize, are:

(1) American domination of Japan and South Korea;

(2) American economic strength which enables the US to aid Kuomintang China;

(3) The development by the US of strategic bases in the Far East.

Factors favoring the USSR, which Soviet policy will attempt to develop and exploit are:

(1) Soviet acquisition of the Kurile Islands and Southern Sakhalin and occupation of North Korea;

(2) Special privileges for the USSR in Manchuria growing out of the Yalta Agreement and given legal basis by the Sino-Soviet Treaty of August 1945;

(3) The strength of the Chinese Communist Party;

(4) The organized drive of colonial peoples for independence from political domination by the European metropolitan powers;

(5) Differences among FEC powers on policies to be pursued in Japan.

Japan

The defeat of Japan and the elimination of the threat of Japanese aggression from Northeast Asia together with the postwar territorial gains and special privileges secured by the USSR in this area would be considered by Moscow as at best a partial victory if Japan were to re-emerge as a strong power with or without the backing of any third power. To counteract this possibility the Soviet Union will continue its attempts not only to strengthen the Soviet Far East but to increase its influence and control in the adjacent areas of Manchuria and Korea as well as the penetration of Japan itself by means of the Communist Party. But so long as the US exercises control of Japan, the USSR is largely restricted to the employment of only such indirect measures as the encouragement of left-wing elements in Japan, the indoctrination of Soviet-held Japanese prisoners of war, the development of Soviet-Japanese cultural relations, and the limited restrictive powers available through Soviet participation in the Far Eastern Commission and the Allied Council. Soviet propaganda will continue its endeavors to exploit among other Asiatic nations fears of renewed Japanese aggression and economic competition in the hope thereby to enlist support for its attacks on American occupation policy.

The USSR would like to see the American-dominated occupation of Japan brought to an early conclusion but probably would not be party to any peace settlement which left the US in an overly advantageous position in Japan. Furthermore, the Soviets may find it to their advantage to remain outside any peace settlement for, by so doing, it could retain a belligerent status with Japan, postponing indefinitely the implementation of certain provisions of the Sino-Soviet treaty on Dairen, Port Arthur and the Chinese Changchun railway; exploit differences among the Allies on post-treaty control of Japan; and refuse to cooperate with any action taken by the future control authority over Japan.

The interest that the USSR has already evinced in trade with Japan assumes added importance from the fact that Manchuria, North China, and Korea, upon which Japan formerly depended for much of its trade, are likely to come under indirect Soviet control. This situation might enable the USSR to tie Japan economically to the Soviet Far East, a development that would have obvious political implications.

Korea

In view of Korea’s strategic value to the USSR, Moscow will be extremely reluctant to withdraw until satisfied that Korea will be united under a government with an attitude fundamentally friendly toward the Soviet Union. Hence, the USSR will continue to resist all efforts to unite Korea on any but a pro-Soviet basis and if necessary will not hesitate to recognize its North Korean puppet regime or to continue its occupation in some form or other in order to keep the northern zone within the Soviet sphere. The USSR may hope that in the event of American troop withdrawal from South Korea, the superior organization and military strength of the northern regime plus Communist domination of adjacent Manchuria and the proximity of the Soviet Union proper will eventually force South Korea, however reluctantly, into the Soviet orbit. For this reason, Moscow will continue to advocate an immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces.

China

Soviet policy in China is directed against the emergence of a strong, unified China—particularly if such a China were not Communist-dominated—and toward the establishment of Soviet hegemony in Manchuria and Sinkiang, and possibly Inner Mongolia and the extension of Soviet influence throughout China through the medium of the Chinese Communist Party. So long as the present civil war continues and the Chinese National Government has little prospect of victory, the USSR can afford to continue its policy of “non-intervention” in Chinese affairs. Should the present balance of forces in China swing in favor of the National Government, the USSR would probably attempt to furnish sufficient support to the Chinese Communists to redress that balance. Should the Chinese Communist forces assume a decisive ascendancy in the civil war and move through their own efforts toward the control of all China, the minimum general aims of the USSR vis-à-vis China would seem to be fulfilled in as much as the Chinese Communists would be expected to take no action or adopt no policy in the international field which would be contrary to Soviet interests. The USSR may be expected to continue its efforts towards encouragement of movements directed toward the separation from Chinese control of peripheral areas, such as Sinkiang and Inner Mongolia. Failure of the Chinese Communists to oppose or at least take a stand against such Soviet encroachments would be harmful to the Chinese Communist movement in China in view of the strength of the forces of nationalism in China and this circumstance might serve to slacken the pace of Soviet efforts to detach peripheral areas from a Communist-dominated China. Although the Soviet position in Manchuria is legally assured through the provisions of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of August 1945, which give to the USSR the use of Port Arthur as a naval base, special rights in Dairen and joint administration with China of the main trunk railway lines, ultimate Soviet objectives in Manchuria probably look toward the establishment of a Communist regime which will be, in fact, answerable to Moscow and not to a national government of China, even though it is Communist-dominated. However the Chinese Communists may regard the Soviet legal position in Manchuria, they may be expected to accept it and justify it by pointing to the Yalta Agreement and the Sino-Soviet Treaty, in neither of which they participated. Recent Soviet interest in mediation of the civil war in China probably arises from a belief that such mediation constitutes, under present conditions, the most effective means for advancing the cause of the Chinese Communist Party and at the same time embarrassing the United States. Probably the USSR and the CCP reason that, in view of the greatly weakened bargaining position of the present National Government, mediation by the USSR would secure to the Chinese Communists a dominant position which could later be exploited by proven Communist methods to eliminate opposition: It is possible, however, that Soviet overtures with respect to mediation arise from a desire to preserve some kind of balance in China and thus prevent the emergence of a unified nation. In this the Soviets may be governed by a fear of increasing National Government strength resulting from the U.S. aid program or, conversely, by apprehension that the Chinese Communists might become sufficiently strong to emulate Tito in defying Moscow’s authority.

Southeast Asia

Soviet policy in the various countries of Southeast Asia has but a single goal, to substitute the influence of the USSR for that of the western powers in such manner and degree as to ensure Soviet control being as surely installed and predominate as in the satellite countries behind the Iron Curtain. That policy is manifested in both covert and overt activity and its implementation is along definite lines: (1) weakening of the ties between areas which now are or recently were colonies and their metropolitan powers through the encouragement of nationalism and by capitalizing on the discontent caused by long periods of “colonial oppression,” and (2) disrupting the economy of the areas still under colonial control by armed action or by labor disorders so that the metropolitan powers will be deprived of revenue and resources and the USSR will be able to fish profitably in the troubled waters of economic chaos.

In logical sequence the Soviet policy is formulated to encourage nationalist aspirations by overlooking no opportunity to denounce the western powers as exploiters of native peoples, to lessen the ability of the western powers to resist realization of those aspirations by making the cost in Southeast Asia and at home too great a price, and to seize control of the nationalist movements by organized militant methods which include eventual elimination of truly nationalist leaders. In all this, up to the final denouement, Moscow will move with circumspection in order to prevent any awakening of latent suspicions as to its motives.

Hitherto, implementation has been chiefly by indirection and Moscow appears to have relied almost exclusively upon Chinese Communist guidance of Southeast Asian Communist movements. In this Moscow was assisted by the fact that large Chinese communities exist in every country of Southeast Asia and that a substantial number of these Chinese are Communists and, more fortuitously for Moscow, in control of influential labor unions. The nationalist movement in Indochina is led by Communists who appear to be steadily consolidating their control due to the French failure to satisfy the basic demands of the Vietnamese people. The military power of the elements resisting the French has steadily improved over the past three years. In Indonesia, a Communist offensive has recently been launched. Strengthened by amalgamation with other left-wing parties, the Communists under Muso (an Indonesian recently returned from Moscow) have seized control of the city of Madiun, in central Java, and declared the formation of a Soviet Government. Communist-inspired outbreaks have also taken place in Surakarta, also in central Java, and reportedly in some areas of Sumatra. The Republican Government has announced that it will take all steps to restore its authority.

But Moscow could not permit direction by indirection to continue indefinitely and the recently established Soviet Legation in Bangkok, with numerous Russian personnel, is undoubtedly taking an increasingly greater part of the direction of Soviet policy implementation into its own capable hands. Through direct contact Moscow probably hopes to bring about greater control of the Communist elements in the countries of Southeast Asia and to create new diplomatic and trade relations, all of which will provide channels of typical Communist infiltration.