761.93/7–2049: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 20—10:44 a. m.]
1556. Assumed Department has seen summary of Chou En-lai’s speech before meeting of sponsors of Sino-Soviet Friendship Association as broadcast by Peiping radio July 19. It contains several important revelations.
It is first speech of Chou which Communist propaganda organs have carried in many months. It may be tailored to bring Chou back into good graces of party leadership.
It goes far in closing reported gap between political thinking of Chou and that of Liu Shao-chi. Indeed speech is partly paraphrase of latter’s famed article on “Nationalism and Internationalism” which appeared last November.32 Speech appears to align Chou closer to pro-Soviet clique of CCP.
It endorses Sino-Soviet treaty of August 14, 1945,33 by pointing out that treaty “wholly accorded with overall revolutionary interests of Chinese people”.
It reveals that top CCP leadership expects that “US imperialism and Kmt reactionaries are scheming to blockade China economically” and that therefore “Chinese people must be fully prepared against a blockade of 8 to 10 years and must stand this new test”.
Sent Department; repeated Shanghai 874, Moscow 49.
Department pass to Peiping 284.
- See telegram No. 2273, November 21, 1948, 2 p. m., from the Ambassador in China, Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. vii, p. 593.↩
- Signed at Moscow with the National Government of China; United Nations Treaty Series, vol. x, p. 300.↩