893.00/1–948: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 9—10:12 a. m.]
59. It will be recalled (mytel 2436, December 22, noon37) that General Chang Chih-chung38 had tried to see what he could do toward obtaining Soviet assistance in stopping civil strife China. On January 8 General Chang reported to me conversation held day previous with Major General N. V. Roschin, Soviet Military Attaché, who left this morning for Moscow in response to sudden summons. He had asserted to Roschin that China could never be brought to the point of supporting Soviet Union against the United States, nor would it ever assist US against USSR. It could, however, he had insisted, help toward better understanding between the two, at least in the Pacific area. General Roschin had assured him, he said, that his Government desired the present civil war to end and peace to be restored under Generalissimo whom they recognized as the only leader capable of accomplishing this. But when he charged us with wanting war to continue in order to get more complete control in China, General Chang said he protested that he knew this was untrue as the interests of the US, primarily a commercial and industrial country, lay in peace in China as elsewhere. Accordingly, he had urged General Roschin to carry the substance of the conversation home with him as the official Chinese attitude in the hopes that the USSR would actively cooperate.
General Chang and his associates have been speculating as to the reasons for the sudden recall of General Roschin. From a Chinese standpoint they think it may be ominous of a more positive policy instead of the somewhat passive or hesitant one thus far followed.
See Deptel 2, January 8, 8 p. m.39 and pass Moscow.
- Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. vii, p. 412.↩
- Director of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Northwest Headquarters.↩
- Reference telegram apparently garbled.↩