501.BB/9–849
Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan)1
I refer to the memorandum of August 31 from Mr. Jessup entitled “Proposed UNGA Resolution on Chinese Situation”, and to the [Page 177] memorandum from Mr. Jessup to Mr. Rusk of September 7 entitled “Proposed Chinese Appeal to the General Assembly”.
In connection with these papers, I should like to make plain the view of the Policy Planning Staff on these two issues, involving our position at the coming session of the UN Assembly.
1. Proposed Chinese Appeal to the General Assembly.
It is the view of the Stuff that this Government should not in any way encourage the Chinese Government to appeal to the General Assembly the question of alleged Soviet violations of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945. The reasons are as follows:
- a.
- This Government is morally committed to the recognition of the predominant Soviet position in Manchuria. Our agreement to the restoration to the Soviet Union of the physical and legal advantages which the Czars’ governments enjoyed in Manchuria prior to the Russian-Japanese War could only have meant to the Russians that we approved, and were sanctioning, the restoration of the political position which the Czars’ governments enjoyed in Manchuria at that time. If we had any other thought in mind, it was certainly our duty to make this plain to the Russians at the time, since otherwise the natural assumption was the one indicated above. We have no particular reason, even in equity, to complain of Russian actions with respect to Manchuria since the treaty went into effect. What has occurred there is substantially what the Russians had a right to think that we expected to see occur. This is not a question of whether we have a debt of honor to the Soviet Government; it is rather a question of the seriousness and maturity of our own conduct in foreign affairs, and of whether we are prepared to take the consequences of our own political acts. If, as a result of our lack of perception, we find we have done something with which we are dissatisfied, it should not be our part today to try to remedy that oversight with ineffectual and fruitless expedients. Either the matter is important enough to engage our strength in a major way, or it should be allowed the healing grace of time and silence.
- b.
- Support of such an appeal to the United Nations can only appear to have one ultimate purpose: namely, the eventual restoration of a central Chinese government to a position of real control in Manchuria. This, however, is a purpose which is highly unlikely ever to be achieved within our time. No central Chinese government has had this position within the past half-century. To acquire it, far more would be necessary than a mere recognition of legal rights. There would be necessary the political and military conquest of a vast territory with a population of over 30 million people, lying within the immediate sphere of Soviet strategic interest. Even barring Soviet opposition, there is no evidence that any central Chinese regime will acquire the capability to do this within the near future. Against Russian opposition, it is practically unthinkable. In supporting, therefore, a Chinese appeal which addresses itself to the fiction of Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria we are supporting a cause which reality will not substantiate. At some stage, it must appear that this venture has failed; and this failure must appear to be our own and that of the UN.
- c.
- In reality, the end purpose of the Chinese effort to get us to support this deal is to involve us in an obligation of further support to the Chinese Government. In this case, the obligation would be anchored not only in positions which we ourselves had taken before the UN, but in some international action by the UN itself, and directed specifically against the Soviet Union. Should the Chinese succeed with this, our unavoidable political opposition to the Soviet Government would become fouled up with the question of our relationship with the Chinese national government. That is exactly what the Chinese want. From that time on, we could not back out of our support to them without appearing to yield a position to Russia in the cold war.
- d.
- The day will come, and possibly sooner than we think, when realism will call upon us not to oppose the re-entry of Japanese influence and activity into Korea and Manchuria.* This is, in fact, the only realistic prospect for countering and moderating Soviet influence in that area, as long as the basic political situation in the world remains substantially what it is at present. Emphasis by this Government on the theoretical rights of a Chinese central government in Manchuria today must almost inevitably prove an embarrassing obstacle, at some future date, to the restoration of the natural balance of power in that area. The concept of using such a balance of power is not a new one in U.S. foreign policy,† and the Staff considers that we cannot return too soon, in the face of the present international situation, to a recognition of its validity.
2. Reaffirmation of the Principles of the Washington Treaty.
It is possible that a reaffirmation by this Government of the principles enunciated in Article I of the Nine-Power Treaty might pass harmlessly into history in the manner of many other solemn pronouncements of states. At the moment, the Staff knows of no purposes, or likely purposes, of this Government which would conflict directly with these principles.
It nevertheless feels, on balance, that it would be preferable not to undertake such a reaffirmation. Its reasons are as follows:
- a.
- In principle, a government should be sparing with solemn commitments, even when there is no specific prospect of resultant embarrassment. It is impossible to tell what the future will bring; all the more so in the present period of uncertainty.
- b.
- While the Russians may, for procedural reasons, decline to join in such a reaffirmation, they would be in no wise embarrassed by its [Page 179] provisions. Their policy with respect to China is so rigged as to be able to clear without difficulty all these semantic barriers.
- c.
- Reaffirmation of the Washington Treaty formula would give an effective international guaranty to the “administrative integrity” of a communist China. Any foreign connection with an internal challenge to communist power would be outside the law, in the sense of this declaration.
- d.
- When we subscribed to this formula originally, the Japanese, whom the words were designed to restrain, did likewise. This did not prevent the Japanese invasion of China and the development of catastrophe in the Far East. What justifies us in the assumption that the words would be any more efficacious if signed today by the Russians? Is their word any more to be trusted? Or have we greater confidence in our own resolution to support by force, in good time, the observance of the spirit of the declaration? The answer to these questions is obviously negative. Yet it is precisely these questions which we may have to answer if we undertake this action.
- Addressed to the Ambassador at Large (Jessup) and to the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Rusk).↩
- In Tyler Dennett’s book, Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War, he résuméed as follows the position of the U.S. Government with respect to Korea at the time of the Portsmouth Treaty: “To Japanese ascendency in the peninsula the American Government had no objection. Japanese control was to be preferred to Korean misgovernment, Chinese interference, or Russian bureaucracy.” [Footnote in the source text.]↩
- Theodore Roosevelt warned, in a letter to Senator Lodge of June 16, 1905, against allowing either Russia or Japan to triumph in that area. “It is best,” he wrote, that Russia “should be left face to face with Japan so that each may have a moderative action on the other.” [Footnote in the source text.]↩