893.00/8–2449
The Consul at Taipei (Edgar) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 3.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that during the absence of Consul General Macdonald in Canton on consultation, Hsia Tao-sheng called at this office stating that he is a member of the Standing Committee of the Young China Party and concurrently Minister of Organization of the Party, which currently has a membership of 300,000 in China, mostly in the West and requesting opportunity of discussing the White Paper4 which he had read in USIS5 summary form. His interpreter was a Mr. Emile Hsia.
[Page 504]Hsia started the discussion with a statement of his satisfaction with the White Paper conclusion that the Chinese Communists were in fact Communists and not agrarian reformers and that the current troubles in China were more than a local civil war. He said that this was a great step forward for the State Department and was encouraging to all factions in free China. He then followed with the opinion that all that was said about graft, corruption, and inefficiency in the Kmt6 was correct and could be expanded.
These things he said led Chinese to the hope that the United States would announce a new China policy, but the White Paper had failed to give clear indication of the probable direction. He was interested in knowing what direction Washington current thinking was taking subsequent to the publication of the White Paper. Since the rapid growth of the Chinese Communist Party after the war gave conclusive proof of foreign support, he believed that any opposing democratic force would need comparable foreign support. In his opinion China could still be saved and it would be disastrous if American aid were withheld until after the entire mainland was lost. Recovery would be harder than retention. But, he emphasized, the time is very late and prompt steps must be taken.
He then came to the main point of his visit and asked if the United States had already selected the democratic force that it was willing to support in substitution for the Gimo and the Kmt. His party, he claimed, had had no defections to the Communists, was well organized, represented the most liberal elements and stood for the most democratic principles. But, unlike the situation in the United States and the European countries, no democratic force can have any effect on the Chinese national picture while it is out of power. Only when in power can any party be effectual in any degree. He hoped that America would give consideration to the possibilities of his party. It was already larger than the Communist Party had been after the war.
In reply to these statements and questions I replied that in my opinion there was no great change of view regarding the CCP and the civil war. Undue publicity given certain individuals’ statements had confused many regarding the official American attitude toward the problem. The White Paper attempted to clarify this, not make public new and radical evaluations. As regards the morality of the Kmt, I expressed the personal opinion that graft, corruption, and poor government had all become characteristics of China long before the creation of the Kmt, but that as the Kmt had become more firmly entrenched these had only become more open and prevalent and that consideration for the welfare of the people had given way to prime consideration for the Kmt party. But I had no personal illusions that any new party which might come to power would be naturally free [Page 505] of the tendency. So long as government failed to pay adequate compensation to government employees, including the military, the employees had necessarily to augment their incomes in some way. I said that any correction of this greatest curse would result only from a concerted campaign to correct both the psychological and economic causes. So long as the people of the country countenanced graft and corruption in government it would continue. The problem was one of education of the masses since the evil now went clown to the smallest of hsien officials and was generally accepted. It was only more evident at the national level.
As comment on his claim that the CCP had succeeded only because it had received outside support, I pointed out that the CCP had probably not received a fraction of the support the United States had poured out to the Kmt. The difference in the outcome was the fact that the Kmt had lost the leadership of the people and no longer fired their imagination nor offered salvation from their troubles. Disregarding the reaction of the people who found themselves far behind Communist lines where true Communist practices and policies began to be understood and disliked, the people of China in general who found themselves in a position to choose between the CCP and the Kmt chose the former. I cited the many merchants in Shanghai who had said nothing could be worse than the Kmt. This, not outside support, was causing the defection of villages, towns, provinces, and armies. I said that any new group that wanted to lead the nation to the democratic way of life could not hope for success solely on the basis of outside support. It must rekindle the flame among the people and build up support from the bottom, not from the top among a handful of men educated abroad and resident in the cities with little or no contact with the people who can aid or sabotage a military operation with or without arms.
Hsia Tao-sheng then asked if the American Government had written China off in its consideration of world policy.
I replied that such was not my understanding, that the White Paper was a factual summary of past developments, that new policy was under consideration, and that the White Paper itself stated that the administration was constantly prepared to support any democratic elements which could and would work for a free, united, strong and democratic China and would resist the extension of Communism, or combat it from within the Communist areas.
Hsia said that his party was very disappointed that a statement of new United States policy was so slow in coming. He hoped that when it was developed consideration would be given to the fact that just as our 1918 isolationism in the West had lost us the advantages of the [Page 506] Wilson 14 points,7 so desertion of China now would lose us the advantages of the Four Freedoms.8 To him it appeared that our withdrawal from the China scene was a desertion of the Open Door Policy and that whereas we had in the 19th century paid more attention to China and less to Europe, we were in the 20th century reversing this at a time when China most needed help. Did we feel that we had reaped the full advantages of the Open Door Policy and were therefore discarding it?
I pointed out that when the West first came into contact with China across the Pacific it was a weak and crumbling empire, a ready prey for the imperialistic designs of more powerful states. The purpose of the Open Door Policy was and continued to be to give China time to restore itself to its former power and prestige so that it could defend itself against any and all comers. With great persistence we had continued on that path over the years. We had checked Russian inroads, Japanese inroads, as well as British, French, and German. By investment in China and her cities, we and the other powers had subsidized China for the last hundred years and more, putting more in than we had taken out. President Roosevelt alone and against strong opposition had given China the status of one of the Big Five powers of the world.
Despite these continuing efforts to help China find and establish her place in the world, the people of China and its politicians and warlords continued to play at their medieval games and lead their medieval life. In my opinion, China had deserted the United States rather than that the United States had deserted China. China had turned her back on the proffered helping hand. Any future move would be better and more convincing coming from China. The question was “What is China’s policy?” not “What is America’s policy?”
I said that it was my belief that the American Government had no intention of laying itself open to the charge of intervention by fostering a revolutionary movement against the Gimo and his Kmt followers, that it was not selecting any one so-called democratic group to support in this way. But that it still looked hopefully for some signs of a real and potent democratic movement which could and would resist Communism and that once in power the leaders of such a movement, if national in scope, could count on the continued interest and support of the United States.
Hsia Tao-sheng closed the conversation, which lasted two and one-half hours, with the statement that he was relieved to learn that it was my understanding that no particular group had yet been selected for American support. At the same time he emphasized that time was [Page 507] running short and if anything was to be saved, prompt action must be taken. There was no time to “wait and see” nor to “let the dust settle.” He asked me to remind my Government that the transition of France from the Bourbons to republicanism had required eighty years with many intermediate ups and downs, and that China was now less than forty years along this path.
Coming so shortly after the visit reported in our telegram of August 17, 5:00 p. m. (No. 393) it would appear that more than one political group is hopefully awaiting some move from the United States which it can interpret to its own benefit. I believe that it should be made clear to them why in our opinion the Kmt ultimately failed after so brilliant a start. They should also, I believe, be made to understand that our criticism of the Kmt is not superficial and political but that we believe after bitter experience that it lost its base support and that any other political group without a solid foundation holds no real attraction for us.
One thing that I told Hsia which I find I have failed to include in the above account is that I suspect that the Chinese people as a result of years of military and economic attrition are spiritually, and morally, as well as economically bankrupt, and that before whatever indications of effort to throw off the Communist yoke as may appear can be galvanized into a national movement which will lead them to that national unity and strength, which is their due, there must be formulated a new Chinese philosophy incorporating all the good of the past from the time of Confucius and including much of the principles of Sun Yat-sen but adapted so as to solve the problems of contact and cooperation with the democratic western world. Without some such catalyst, attempts to overthrow Communist domination will be sporadic and futile, and even though superficially successful will be but temporary in nature.
Hsia Tao-sheng is also a member of the Legislative Yuan from Anhwei Province.
Respectfully yours,
- Department of State. United States Relations With China (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949).↩
- United States Information Service.↩
- Kuomintang (Nationalist Party).↩
- See address by President Wilson to the joint session of Congress, January 8, 1918, Foreign Relations, 1918, Supplement I, vol. i, p. 12.↩
- See address by President Roosevelt to Congress, January 6, 1941, Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1943), p. 608.↩