Executive Secretariat Files
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Webb) to the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council (Souers)
Subject: Implementation of NSC 34/21
Pursuant to NSC Action No. 123, October 6, 1948, as amended, the following progress report on the implementation of NSC 34/2, [Page 534] “United States Policy with Respect to China” is submitted for the information of the Council:
Paragraph 12. No non-Communist regime or regimes fulfilling the conditions established in paragraph 12 have emerged in China. Consequently, no new programs of military or political support have been formulated. Economic and military assistance to the Chinese Government authorized by Congressional action under the China Aid Act of 1948 and the April 14 [19], 1949 amendment2 thereto is continuing.
Paragraph 13. In so far as feasible, active official contact is being maintained with all elements in China. Contact with the Chinese Government is maintained through regular diplomatic and consular channels. Contact with private Chinese leaders in Chinese Government controlled areas and, in so far as feasible, in Chinese Communist controlled areas, is maintained by American consular and diplomatic establishments in China. Contact with Chinese Communist officials has been restricted and rendered difficult by the Chinese Communist attitude that American consular and diplomatic officials have no official standing. This attitude has in practice rendered higher Communist officials inaccessible. Owing to intolerable restrictions placed by the Chinese Communists upon our Consulate General at Mukden, that office has been closed and the American staff is being withdrawn.3
Paragraph 14. The United States Government continues to recognize the National Government in China.
Paragraph 15. The Department’s White Paper on China4 constitutes a public reaffirmation of the basic principles governing our relations with China.
Paragraph 16. Every effort is being made to maintain our cultural and informational program, both official and private, at the most active feasible level. Within areas of China under control of the National Government the USIS and related programs are being carried actively forward. Within areas controlled by the Chinese Communists these programs are being carried forward within the limits imposed by those authorities. The Chinese Communists have recently ordered terminated USIS activities in Shanghai, Hankow, Nanking, Peiping and Tientsin. Restrictions by the Chinese Communists and uncertainty regarding their attitude have caused private American groups engaged in cultural and informational activities within areas controlled by the Communists to be extremely circumspect in their activities. As other [Page 535] informational and cultural channels become progressively restricted, the importance of the Voice of America program increases. Recently the Voice of America program in Mandarin has been doubled and new programs in English and Cantonese have been established. Every effort is being made to increase the effectiveness of the programs in China.
Paragraph 17. One of the objectives of the Voice of America and other informational programs within China is to foster possible rifts between Chinese Communists and the USSR by emphasizing the imperialistic aims of the USSR in China as evidenced in Manchuria, Sinkiang, and Mongolia and by destroying the fiction that the USSR is the champion and protector of nationalism. Means are being sought, as for example in NSC 41,5 regarding trade policy with China, for exploiting possible rifts between Chinese Communists and the USSR. As the Communist organizational structure in China emerges more clearly, opportunities will be sought to create and exploit any rifts between the Stalinists and other elements in China.
- February 28, p. 491.↩
- 63 Stat. 50, 55.↩
- For correspondence regarding the Consulate General at Mukden, see vol. viii, “Problems of United States Consulates in areas occupied by the Chinese Communists”, chapter I.↩
- United States Relations With China (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1949); for correspondence on this subject, see pp. 1365 ff.↩
- February 28, p. 826.↩