893.00B/7–2848
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Department of State
[Received August 23.]
Subject: Organization of the North China Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.
The Ambassador has the honor to enclose for the information of the Department the text of an editorial19 published in the broadcasts of June 20 and 21 of the North Shensi Radio. This text is the editorial which appeared in the first issue dated June 15, 1948 of the People’s Daily an organ of the North China Bureau of the Central Committee, Chinese Communist Party, and is entitled, “Present Tasks of the North China Liberated Areas.” The editorial is of interest because it announces the consolidation of the two former liberated border areas into what is now called the North China Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. These two border areas are the Shansi, Hopeh, Shantung, Honan and the Shansi, Chahar, Hopeh border areas, which were two of the principal Communist political divisions during the war against Japan. At the same time the two military areas concerned have been merged to form the North China Military Area of the People’s Liberation Army. This new administrative and political area, as far as can be determined, includes all North China over which the Chinese Communists exercise fairly cohesive and well established authority. It is an area in which the National Government exercises authority only in a few scattered and isolated urban centers.
Although in the past there has of course been a certain amount of direction and guidance from ranking Chinese Communist leaders, many of the sections of this area, for operational purposes at least, have operated in a largely autonomous fashion. This new development would therefore suggest an attempt to consolidate the entire region into one functioning area. Announcement of the new administration has been followed by an intensification of military activities wherever there has been opposition with the consequent narrowing of areas under National Government control. It seems not unreasonable to assume that one of the primary objectives will be the elimination of Nationalist control from the entire area.
Organization of the Bureau inevitably raises the question as to its relationship to Manchuria. There is increasing evidence that the North China Communists exercise little if any control over Manchuria. This can be partly attributed to the difficulties of communication but [Page 384] it also seems not unlikely that between the two groups there may exist serious differences over strategy as well as interpretation of ideology. Necessarily Manchuria has more direct ties with the Soviet Union, is of more immediate interest and is more directly governed by Kremlin stooges. In distinction North China is more remote, is of relatively less interest and is under the control and direction of individuals whose background, training and inclinations make them tend more in the direction of Chinese traditional nationalism than is true of the Manchurian Communists. It may of course well be that in the organization of these two large administrative areas the Soviets are following a pattern of political control which was used by the Japanese during their occupation. Two reasons for this suggest themselves: the first reason is the demands of an immediate strategic and tactical situation whereby control develops in stages. The second reason may be a long range Soviet fear of an inherent Chinese nationalism which, once the country has been united, might very well indeed be in a position to eject a barbarian invader. The neutralizer to this danger would be the division of China into regional areas and the fostering of regional antipathies and rivalries to keep China as a whole weak, which would greatly facilitate the problems of Soviet control. The other possibility is that North China Communists are consolidating their position to resist the encroachments of the Russian dominated Manchurian influence. If the North China Communists fear this influence it is a factor which we should be able to exploit to our own advantage.
- Not printed.↩