701.6193/12–1448: Airgram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 3, 1949—3:57 p. m.]
A–304. Re Department’s A–234, November 19, 1948. No particular additional information has come to the attention of the Embassy concerning recent activities of Soviet Ambassador Roschin.
Although Roschin has been seeing a good deal of the Foreign Office officials in recent months, there is no indication that he has discussed anything in particular. Those who see him profess to considerable boredom and annoyance with the endless repetition in which he indulges over Sino-Soviet relations. The burden of his argument appears to be that China and USSR should cooperate more fully; that it is only the Chinese attitude which is blocking this cooperation; that the Soviet Union feels itself bound by the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945 and therefore has not extended any assistance to the Chinese Communists; that charges of such assistance are pure American fabrication and that the Soviets desire only the welfare and happiness of the Chinese people within legal and constitutional methods. Roschin apparently delivers himself of these happy thoughts with wide-eyed wonder that anyone could possibly question the authenticity of Soviet good intentions. No small part of the Foreign Office annoyance arises from the familiarity of this line with which it became all too well acquainted at the hands of Japan. What bothers the Foreign Office is that this argument simply through repetition will persuade influential persons in the Government who are not well acquainted with foreign affairs. If Roschin has discussed any specific proposal such as coalition government and Soviet mediation, the Foreign Office is not admitting it.
Should further information develop it will be promptly reported.