893.00/9087
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 13.]
Sir: Adverting to the Department’s instruction No. 78 of October 9th, 1925,15 I have the honor to present herewith a summary of conditions in China during the months of March and April, by exception consolidated into one report, to permit of a more general survey of closely linked events.
The situation in the Yangtze Valley and the possible seizure of Shanghai by the Nationalists were the subjects which furnished the most speculation and discussion during the month of February. In March these two topics not only remained in the foreground but interest in them was raised to a very much higher pitch of intensity, since that month witnessed not only the entry of the Nationalists into Shanghai but a situation in the Yangtze region, of which the most serious aspect, the Nanking incident of March 24th,16 stands out as probably the most disquieting single occurrence in the history of China’s foreign relations since the Boxer uprising of 1900. As the month drew to a close tension and uncertainty increased to such a point as to cause foreigners resident in China to feel that they were faced with an extremely grave situation in which immediate, decisive and comprehensive action would apparently be necessary to prevent an appalling disaster.
The month of April, on the other hand, by reason of occurrences subsequently touched on in this report, witnessed a gradual recession from the high point of uneasiness reached in March until at the end of the period covered by this report the grave crisis had passed and there appeared to be a reasonable probability that a stalemate had come about the duration of which could not be foretold.
To revert to the beginning of the period under review, by the 10th of March anti-foreign demonstrations had become a matter of daily [Page 8] occurrence along the Yangtze River. While especial bitterness was shown against the British, a boycott was instituted not only against British business ashore and their merchant vessels but against American business interests as well, which made it seem to the nationals of both countries as if the days of all foreigners along the Yangtze were numbered. …
On the 21st of March Nationalist forces entered the native section of Shanghai without encountering very active opposition on the part of Northern troops. Agitators called a general strike resulting in the stoppage of tramways and bus lines and the closing down of the Post Office, of large stores, cotton mills and a large number of other industrial establishments. Prior to the arrival of the Southern forces, gunmen had appeared in various parts of the city and indiscriminate sporadic firing and looting went on for several days. In the International Settlement, however, the Municipal Council had issued a proclamation warning against disturbances and the presence of large foreign forces, principally British, in all parts of the Settlement maintained relative quiet there. It was reported by the American naval authorities that no Americans were injured in the taking of the city.
As the month wore on, the already meager degree of personal safety possessed by foreigners within the areas under Nationalist control was gradually being undermined while observers in Peking were by no means confident that this condition would not spread into the North. It was realized that politico-military developments of the preceding weeks had resulted in the virtual elimination of Sun Chuan-fang and Wu Pei-fu, as well as in the lessened prestige of Chang Tsung-chang consequent upon his enforced retreat from the Shanghai and Nanking areas. This situation brought into relief Chang Tso-lin and Chiang Kai-shek as the two dominant military figures in China, which would presumably be divided between them, for internal purposes, with the Yangtze as the boundary. Should these two leaders have effected an understanding, it was questionable how long Chang Tso-lin would be willing to withstand the current of Nationalist feeling flowing through the country and continue to afford the same degree of protection to foreigners which he was giving in the North for the Kuomintang was unquestionably well organized in all important northern centers, and its principles had to a certain extent permeated the northern troops. A further phase of the situation was the possibility that Marshal Chang might retreat to Manchuria, abandoning North China to the Kuomintang and Kuominchun, and from the chaotic conditions incident to such a retreat there would result a state of great potential danger to foreigners.
[Page 9]These preoccupations, however, were given point by the events of the 24th of March at Nanking, when the Southern forces took possession of the city. The morning of that day ushered in a veritable reign of terror for all foreigners who had remained there. …
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At the end of March, in ever widening circles around the storm centered at Nanking, a consciousness of uncertainty, based in part on the delay of the five Powers in taking action against the Southern leaders, had spread over the entire country. Finally, however, on the, 6th of April, an event occurred which, while it may not mark a turning point in the history of China’s foreign relations, at least did much to bring about an abatement of the strained uneasiness so familiar at this time to persons involved in Chinese affairs. On that date, after competent Chinese authorities in Peking had previously obtained the permission of the Senior Minister to make a search of certain properties adjacent to the Soviet Embassy within the Legation Quarter, a raid was made on these premises by members of the Metropolitan Police force supported by gendarmerie. During the course of it four Russians barricaded themselves in the Military Attaché’s house with a view to defending themselves with a machine gun and revolvers and setting fire to various incriminating papers and to the house itself, but they were eventually overpowered without having used their weapons. Otherwise there was no firing whatever, and no serious injury was sustained on either side. The Senior Minister reported that the search had revealed that a great many Chinese conspirators were living on the premises. There were taken into custody forty odd Chinese, including domestics, together with some twenty Russians, about thirty rifles, a machine gun, a great number of flags and banners to be used in revolutionary processions or belonging to anti-British, anti-French and anti-Japanese societies, a register containing some four thousand names of persons in Peking belonging to the conspiracy and an enormous mass of documents containing important evidence of Soviet activity and particularly of organized anti-foreign agitation in China.
While it will take months to translate and study the great number of papers taken in the raid, enough evidence has already been revealed to establish that the Soviet Government had consistently been inciting the Kuomintang to anti-foreign violence in Nationalist territory as well as in North China. …
No papers emanating from the American Legation or bearing directly on its activities have as yet been found, the documents thus far discovered dealing mainly with the work of the Japanese, British and Italian Legations. Chang Tso-lin, in an interview granted me in the latter part of April, during which we spoke of the raid, stated [Page 10] that he was engaged in a fight against Bolshevism in China which he intended to pursue to the bitter end, adding that he would protect foreigners and foreign property within the territory under his control, and that he would use all his resources to bring his present campaigns to a successful conclusion. The Chinese Communist leader Li Ta-chao and twenty-three of his followers, who had been captured in the raid, were executed on April 25th and the trial of Madam Borodin and other Russians who were taken prisoner on the Pamiat Lenina at Nanking is scheduled to take place in May.17
Coinciding with these disclosures in North China of the machinations of Soviet agents was a growing apprehension among the Nationalists in the South of the purposes and the prospects of communism with the resultant beginnings of a split between a tenaciously radical faction at Hankow and a more moderate element at Nanking. In regard to the Nanking incident, a new factor had thus emerged by the middle of April to befog the issue and to complicate the situation by causing an apparent division of responsibility for the outrages of March 24th. …
On April 15th a move against the communists occurred at Canton which Mr. Jenkins reported to be the most encouraging development of its sort during the past two years. Although definite figures were not available it was conservatively estimated that more than two thousand communists were arrested that day in Canton by soldiers and police acting under instructions from Chiang Kai-shek and Li Chi-ch’en. The number of casualties incident to the action was not given out but it was thought that between fifty and one hundred people were killed, most of them being members of the railway unions who resisted arrest. Mr. Jenkins reported that the Government’s forces acted with energy and skill, the entire movement against the communists having been evidently planned in advance and carried out with remarkable success thus forestalling an allegedly well established plan, on the part of the radicals, not only to attack the Government but to move against Shameen and other foreign settlements with a view to bringing about serious complications between the Powers and the present moderate administration in Canton.
Commenting on the situation at Foochow Mr. Price informed me early in April of a change that had taken place in the provincial administrative personnel there, said to have occurred directly under the orders of Chiang Kai-shek, that amounted virtually to an anticommunist coup d’etat. Presumably in coordination with this activity at Foochow drastic action was also instituted at that time at Amoy against the radical section of the Kuomintang there. A student parade was held on the 11th of April, in favor of Chiang [Page 11] Kai-shek with banners calling for the protection of foreigners and it was reported that six radical leaders were arrested, three being later released and the others held for trial. From Swatow Mr. Chamberlain reported on the 26th that the situation was orderly and that attempts made to suppress radicals were apparently meeting with success.
On the 25th of April, Mr. Lockhart reported a noticeable improvement in the situation at Hankow, the leaders apparently being driven to the adoption of remedial measures to avoid risk of complete collapse. Posters had been widely distributed directing that foreigners not be interfered with and demonstrations of anti-foreignism and parades of radicals had practically ceased. The change of feeling was no doubt to be attributed to a substantial increase in the naval forces at Hankow, a more chastened attitude on the part of the Government, the steady growth of unemployment and the almost complete paralysis of local business by reason of a stringent silver embargo.
Accordingly as the month drew to a close it seemed apparent that, for the moment at least, the crisis of subversive and destructive Soviet activity in China had been passed and that the withdrawal of their Embassy from Peking, which took place on April 17th, was not an empty gesture but an acknowledgment of defeat. Furthermore it appeared to be reasonably certain that there existed a fundamental breach between the right and left wings of the Kuomintang on account of the anti-communist stand taken by Chiang Kai-shek, and of the apparently successful attempt of moderate groups at such places as Shanghai, Amoy, Swatow and Canton to assert themselves against the Russianized extremists.
I have [etc.]