893.00/4–1949: Airgram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 18—12:49 p. m.]
A–84. Beginning faintly in the New Year message of Chiang Kai-shek but becoming more positive and with an appealingly ironic note after Li Tsung-jen took over, the Government has done everything within reason to secure a negotiated peace. Li risked inner solidarity within the Kmt by accepting the extremely harsh Eight Points of Mao Tse-tung as a basis for discussion and sent a well-chosen delegation to the place designated by the CCP. Beginning April 1 these delegates held informal discussions with Mao and others, but the net result of the 2 weeks thus occupied was to soften a few phrases in a lengthy “Agreement” prepared in advance which the Government leaders were required to sign without further alteration. Meanwhile two specific demands were made for crossing the Yangtze at certain points and yielding other vital concessions before formal talks had even begun. These were contrary to the whole spirit of the mutually accepted terms for a conference. But on April 16 one of Li’s special representatives in Peiping flew back with the document which had been the sole basis for discussion on the part of the CCP. All the other procedure had therefore been irrelevant.
This document is valuable for a study of Communist theory and practice in general with special reference to that of the CCP. These latter were given every inducement to be reasonable by the tact, patience and humility with which Li approached them after the retirement of the Gimo and the withdrawal of the more timid or reactionary Kmt members to Canton, and even more by the longing of the Chinese people for peace. Allowance should be made for the deeply suspicious Communist attitude as well as for the quite natural intoxication of success. But this document represents careful premeditation among their most highly-trained and experienced makers of policy. It is therefore a revelation of their spirit and intentions. It forces all who have opposed or disagreed with them to make public confession of error and a cringing apology coupled with evidential deeds or to be denounced and treated as war criminals. In this and in all other ways it is implacable, uncompromising, relentless. This, together with their iron discipline and close-knit organization, is almost a new phenomenon in China. Before its onslaught almost all resistance will evaporate or be driven to peripheral regions where it can be systematically eradicated. Opportunists will join the movement. There will be every temptation to show an excess of zeal by intemperate [Page 253] or even sadistic acts. Cautiously, perhaps at first, cultural and religious activities will be controlled or rendered innocuous. This means that missionaries will be so hampered or harassed that they will by degrees abandon the futile struggle, with possible exceptions which will be fully advertised. The same will hold true of foreign commercial interests after those useful to the Communists will have been sufficiently exploited.
It may be safely assumed that having overrun China the CCP will engage in their usual subversive and quite possibly militant attacks against Hong Kong, Macao, Indo-China and other regions of Southeast Asia. It would be splendidly foresighted statesmanship for the Western powers to anticipate this by concerted and calmly calculated plans to end all colonial claims over these regions and to prepare their peoples for real independence.
This would be essential before any united policy by such nations as are now included in the North Atlantic Pact could be formulated for Eastern Asia. Japan and South Korea will before long feel the effects of a Communist-controlled China. A program led by the United States, daring in its self-abnegation and defiant in its reliance on ideological weapons, would be startling evidence of our spiritual emphasis as against military or material, and would probably prove very disconcerting to Communist strategists. The dominant note in our propaganda should be anti-aggression rather than freedom, democracy or even economic aid. The heart of the Soviet-led Communist Party issue would seem to be the “historical necessity” of conflict between the capitalist and “socialist” countries and the aggressive urge among all who hold this belief. By concentrating on this threat to world peace and to stability within each country we have a message dramatic and convincing, exposing those who join in this aggression or interference within each country as being the real imperialists.
This intolerance, this arrogant belief that they alone are right and the attempt to force confessions to this effect from others, will in the end be their undoing. It might have been hoped that with their Chinese heritage they would be less drastic. There might thus have been a blend of their reforming zeal with progressive elements in the Kmt and liberal non-partisan strains. But they have chosen to follow the orthodox pattern in step with their Soviet exemplar. This extremist bigotry and their genuine social idealism will continue to give them a dynamic energy, but—especially in a Chinese milieu—it will probably arouse a resentment which if stimulated by world opinion and other forms of assistance may restore China to a more normal political evolution.