893.00/12–1948: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 19—8:33 a. m.]
2577. On morning December 17 I visited Sun Fo at his request. He was extremely harassed. He at once said he wanted my advice as an old friend of China, should they go on with war or sue for peace. I explained that I could not give such advice without implicitly representing my country and that my instructions on the matter were explicit. He then asked me to help him on personal grounds as far as I felt would be permissible. I described the American dilemma: We are opposed to spread of communism all over world and anxious to assist in preventing this in China, but, on other hand, we cannot do this through a Government that has lost the support of its own peoples; to do so would be contrary to those democratic principles, the violation of which is a principal reason for our objection to communism. In reply to further questions or comments, all of which revealed his genuine perplexity, I pointed out that the all but universal desire of the people was for peace, and that, although this could not be registered by any constitutional process, yet it was as evident to everyone as had been the popular will to resist and the consequent support of the Government during the Japanese wars; that President Chiang’s determination to resist to the end, then as now, was magnificent in its personal courage and patriotic purpose, but that his own problem as Premier would seem to lie in whether to support the President, in the face of contrary public opinion and the unfavorable military and fiscal trends, or to have the Cabinet discuss and decide the issue for presentation to the President; that, in other words, it might be helpful to the President if he were advised to relinquish his emergency powers and delegate more authority to the Executive Yuan, or if this were too cumbersome, to a small group who had his confidence and could in some real sense represent or at least interpret the people’s will; that this did not necessarily involve the President’s resignation, but it ought to mean that the delegation of authority was complete and real.
Dr. Sun asked if I had any special information as to results of Madame Chiang’s mission and present attitude of General Marshall. I replied that I knew of no changes in American policy resulting from her visit to Washington; that the Secretary of State was still deeply solicitous over Chinese affairs but that he was probably very much perplexed as to what America could do to help; that nothing more was possible until after Congress had assembled; and that I questioned wisdom of Chinese authorities allowing their decisions to be [Page 664] influenced by any expectation of American military aid under existing conditions.
He then put series of questions as to whether Communists wanted peace, or would abide by their promises, or would not continue to use their armies to overrun China since they had the power, et cetera. I replied that these were all pertinent, but that I had no answers that were more than guesses. He asked if I had any direct contact with the CP49 leaders and when I replied in the negative he remarked that part of the problem was how to reach them and ascertain their views. He wondered if they were in touch with Soviet Embassy and whether he might not undertake to mediate. When I rather discouraged this approach he expressed hope that US and USSR might jointly undertake this, to which I replied that such proposal would have to come from the two Chinese parties before it could even be considered seriously, but that I personally inclined to opinion that Chinese had better try to find their own solution despite all the quite obvious difficulties. He remarked that any decision for peace or war by Executive Yuan would be subject to review by Legislative Yuan which, while in a sense representative of people, had about one-third its membership under CC Clique control, and that it would also involve much argument and publicity.
I then tried to sum up my advice to effect that he and his colleagues would have to debate whether in view of all factors they could from now on fight communism more effectively by military or political methods, and that no outside elements could or should decide this for them nor influence their choice; that I was confident that a very large element of the politically conscious people of country were strongly against communism and its ruthless totalitarian policy; that they should think in terms of preserving individual liberties and national sovereignty as the fundamental issues rather than of the retention of the Kmt and its present leadership as against some other procedure; that I could assure them of continuing American sympathy and readiness to help in whatever ways seemed to be beneficial to the Chinese people and their national independence; and that I was personally much more sympathetic than my replies to his questions might seem to indicate.
- Communist Party.↩