893.00/3–1549: Telegram

The Consul General at Peiping (Clubb) to the Secretary of State

[To Nanking:] Re Embtel 74, March 3.7 Embassy will appreciate from recent Peiping telegrams that it is believed here coalition government [Page 181] envisaged by Communists is one from which Nanking elements would be largely if not quite excluded and that present probabilities are Communists plan such government be established Peiping with actual authority over North China and Manchuria only but pretensions to authority for all China, that such organ would be set up after (1) announced breakdown peace negotiations and (2) holding peace conference Peiping in which Li Chi-shen8 group participated. Li et al. would presumably be given government post, nominal authority as “liberal” front.

Above reasoning based on deductions both Communist propaganda and published statements both Li Chi-shen group and Peiping press. Likewise in line such Soviet thinking on subject as has been noted which seems to envisage political agreement of sorts on coalition basis but which presumably does not follow 1927 Borodin9 thought groove which led Stalin10 to defeat in China.

Manchuria because of presumed Soviet political advance that area constitutes uncertain factor and I feel that there is even possibility set up CCP11 over-all organ may be delayed, leaving present “North China People’s Govt” to carry on until further southward advance makes feasible establishment government for China proper. This would leave Manchuria in different status perhaps with interim geographical changes due to setting up “Inner Mongolian People’s Republic” or adherence Chinese outer province to north or east. This paragraph highly speculative.

Sent Nanking 258, repeated Department, Shanghai, Embassy Canton unnumbered.

[
Clubb
]
  1. Not found in Department of State files.
  2. Leader of Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee (KmtRC).
  3. Soviet Communist adviser to the Hankow government, 1926–27; known as Michael (Mikhail Markovich) Borodin.
  4. Josif Vissarionovich Stalin, in 1927 Secretary-General of the Soviet Communist Party; since 1946 Soviet Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.
  5. Chinese Communist Party.