893.00/13315: Telegram
The Second Secretary of Embassy in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
Nanking, December 13,
1935—noon.
[Received 4:13 p.m.]
[Received 4:13 p.m.]
141. My 136, December 12, noon.
- 1.
- The changes in the “Cabinet” indicate a stoppage of Chiang Kai-shek’s control and a decline in the power of the Kuomintang, neither Wu Ting-chang nor Chang Kia-ngau being party men.
- 2.
- The political Vice Minister will probably not be appointed until next week. Oong Wen-hao (Weng Wen-hao) has been appointed Secretary General of the Executive Yuan; Huang Mo-sung, Chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission; J. Heng Liu, Director of the National Health Administration; Chen Shu-jen, Chairman of the Overseas Affairs Commission.
- 3.
- I am now reliably informed that decision has been made to name Chen Yi, now Chairman of Fukien, as Ambassador to Japan and that the Japanese have agreed to the appointment.
- 2. [4.]
- According to the informant quoted in my 140, December 13, 11 a.m., no action is being taken with respect to the refusal announced in the press of Hu Han-min and Wang Ching-wei to head respectively the standing committees of the Central Executive Committee and the Central Political Committee. Their absence from office makes Chiang Kai-shek Acting Chairman of both Committees and he is not expected to take early steps to alter that situation. (The Central Political Committee has been altered from the status of a Council and while it remains in practice the highest organ of the Government it is subordinate to the Central Executive Committee and functions as the organ through which that Committee makes known its wishes to the Government.)
Atcheson