893.00/14126
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 15.]
Sir: Telegram 188, May 3, 2 p.m.96 reported that General Chiang Kai-shek had not recovered from injuries received at Sian in December 1936; on the contrary his injuries are far more serious than was at first generally known; there are alarming reports as to his present condition which add to the disquiet already felt at his continuing absence from regular duty. The seriousness of his condition raises the question as to possible consequences in China and the Far East if, as there seems some reason to fear, he should be permanently incapacitated.
1. [Here follows report regarding Chiang’s injuries.]
2. For the past several years there has been growing among Chinese, irrespective of their political and personal inclinations, a feeling that the continuance of Chiang Kai-shek in power is essential to the salvation of the Chinese nation. This feeling has been intensified and its growth promoted by aggressive Japanese activities in and with reference to China, particularly the Japanese military démarche in North China which began in May 1935 and subsequent developments.
The Japanese genius for making enemies has had an ironic turn here. Japanese pressure exerted to partition China by alienating five northern provinces has done more than anything else to create in the Chinese people a desire for national unity; under continuing Japanese pressure this desire has grown so strong that it is rapidly becoming a part of the Chinese racial consciousness. By seeking to take advantage of the individualism of the Chinese, which has been a great obstacle to Chinese national unity, Japanese methods have turned that individualism to something like its opposite. The Japanese have made the Chinese ashamed of disunity. The Japanese definition of China as not a nation but merely a geographical area has humiliated the Chinese. It has created an ideal of unity in the Chinese mind against which no Chinese leader can now dare to be frankly false.
Because of his personal military and political power and his statesmanlike adaptability to changing times, the execution of measures to make China a unified nation has devolved upon Chiang Kai-shek. The direction of the national destiny in China’s emergence from the vestiges of the feudal period, so called, has been his. Opportunist or statesman, he has continued to rise on the spirit of nationalism [Page 88] which is bringing the country into a solid front against the Japanese enemy. He is the only figure in Chinese political life who thus far has commanded sufficient power to push the work of unification and he has become psychologically necessary to the nation both in the minds of his adherents and in the minds of many of his personal enemies. Because of the peculiar place he has assumed in the nation’s life, his elimination by any circumstances other than the rise of a figure strong enough to usurp this place—and there appears to be no such figure today—could conceivably have one of two seemingly possible results: (1) the complicated structure he has set up to maintain himself in power and extend his own and the Government’s authority would fall apart when his hands cease to hold it together, or (2) it would continue of itself to stand after a fashion, (a) possibly through inertia and dependence of one part upon the other, (b) possibly because the ideal of unity of which Chiang has become the symbol would continue to live in memory of him with sufficient vigor to make it impossible for any other leader to tear down the structure by actions which would be considered traitorous to this ideal and therefore traitorous to the Chinese nation.
3. It is easy to conceive of the structure falling apart. While Chiang Kai-shek has enjoyed success in nominally unifying China and in bringing diverging powerful sectional and national leaders into collaboration with and lip-service to the Government, the transitional period from so called feudalism and individualism has not completely passed. Hu Han-min, who led the southwestern faction in continuing opposition to Chiang Kai-shek, died in 1936; Chen Chi-tang was eliminated in the liquidation of the Southwestern rebellion of June 1936. But Yu Han-mou, who was Chen’s righthand man and who went over to the Government, remains the commander of Kwangtung’s troops and while Li Tsung-jen and Pai Chung-hsi are rendering lip-service to the Government, their control of Kwangsi remains little impaired and Kwangsi is virtually an autonomous province. Yen Hsi-shan and Feng Yu-hsiang have accepted office in the Government but their past relationships have not been, probably can not be during their lifetime, completely obliterated; and their henchman Han Fu-chu, whose province of Shantung is in a key position between the area of the capital and North China, sometimes assumes an ambiguous character. Ho Chien of Hunan whose provincial borders are not far from the capital is untrustworthy. Disaffection in Szechwan continues. The Northwestern (Sian) revolt of December 1936 has been liquidated except for the Communists and the disposition of Chang Hsueh-liang. But, while Chang’s reputation has so fallen as a result of his seizure of the Generalissimo at Sian that at the moment he does not seem a figure of importance, his troops have been moved into Honan and into Anhwei, a province which borders that of the capital, [Page 89] and could conceivably become a troublesome factor if Chiang Kai-shek should die and Chang resume command of them. With a leaderless Government the Communist problem might easily cause a schism that would tear the country apart. For the chief obstacle in the way of effecting a satisfactory reconciliation between the Communists and the Government (or the Party) appears presently to lie, although this seems an incongruous statement because the Party controls and directs the Government, in differences of opinion between the Government (as personally represented by Chiang Kai-shek and his followers) and the Party (as represented by Kuomintang die-hards and such Party leaders as Wang Ching-wei who at present holds no Government post). In addition, there are various factions within the Party and Government who would attempt to assume control and would meet with obstinate resistance from opposing factions; two examples may be cited here. For one, the opinion has been advanced that the “Blue Shirts” might attempt such a coup.* For another, the so-called Soong dynasty (Madame Chiang Kai-shek, her sister’s husband H. H. Kung, her brother T. V. Soong) would undoubtedly wish to perpetuate itself and undoubtedly its elimination would be strenuously sought by numerous opponents. That the Japanese military would quickly complete the alienation of north China if Chiang Kai-shek were eliminated is a logical expectation; freed from danger of a united Chinese front, the way for war with Soviet Russia would be greatly cleared.
4. Against these possibilities, which appear almost overwhelming, there is the measure of unification which Chiang Kai-shek has already achieved, widespread realization that unity is essential for the survival of China as a nation, the emergence of Chiang out of a chaotic scramble for power to become the living symbol of Chinese unity. If the destiny of a nation depends chiefly upon its spirit, the establishment of this ideal, which can be translated into a determination on the part of the heterogeneous people of China that they shall survive collectively, will have far reaching effects not only in the country itself but in the Far East generally, because it is one mark of the change from defeatism to a will to win through which the Chinese are now progressing. Although it is not analogous to the Chinese desire for unity, there comes to mind the example of the British Crown as the symbol of the unity of the British Empire which loyal Britishers revere more than the substance. More analogous to Chiang’s relationship to the Chinese ideal is the example of Sun Yat-sen whose virtual deification has been elsewhere discussed;† from assuming a Washingtonian place [Page 90] in the Chinese mind as father of the revolution Sun has become a spiritual symbol of the aims of the revolution; his San Min Chu I97 has acquired some of the character of a Bible and now as long as 12 years after his death, the Government is proceeding to bring into being his precepts in regard to economic and industrial development; national unity was, of course, one of the aims of the Revolution; Japanese aggression has made it of paramount importance at the present time; its immediate, effective and living symbol is Chiang Kai-shek.
It would be interesting to trace the growth of Chiang’s appeal to republican China as the personification of leadership, to speculate upon the part played by Madame Chiang in the identification of her husband with China’s destiny and his enshrinement as China’s indispensable leader toward unified nationhood and national salvation. Conceivably Mr. W. H. Donald, her adviser and Chiang’s adviser, has assisted. That she has this feeling toward him, or purports to have it, and seeks to imbue others with it, was apparent in the Generalissimo’s Good Friday message to a Methodist conference at Nanking which was presumably written by her. Recounting his experiences in Sian, Chiang described his detention as 40 days and nights in the wilderness; the demands of the rebels were the temptations of the devil; faced with the threat and possibility of being executed he compared himself in so many words to Christ at Gethsemane. Perhaps it is natural for a man in whose actions lie something of the fate of a people to fall into a religious attitude of mind concerning what he conceives his mission; it is inevitable that those who follow him will come to believe in part at least as he does. Chiang has not yet assumed the heroic place with the god-like which Madame Chiang would have for him; but he has become in Chinese minds something of a man of destiny; his place here is comparable to that of Hitler and Mussolini in their countries. And however the idea has been fostered that Chiang’s leadership is necessary to the nation’s survival, his identification with that idea has been achieved concretely by action.
This is particularly true of recent events. In 1936 he was confronted with two serious rebellions—the Southwestern revolt of June and the Sian revolt of December. Both were cloaked with an anti-Japanese character and excused themselves on the ground that the Government had failed the country in failing to give armed resistance to Japanese aggression. But the anti-Japanese character of both, while utilized for purposes of rebellion were also sincere. Chiang possessed the military power to crush the Southwestern revolt; according to observers, the Government’s air force could have without difficulty destroyed the Kwangsi “anti-Japanese northern expedition”. [Page 91] Nevertheless he accepted the sincerity of the rebels’ sentiments against Japan; the revolt was liquidated without bloodshed and while the Kwangsi leaders won practically all their demands of the Government, they are now nominally serving the Government and in time will doubtless come under greater Government control as other powerful sectional leaders have in the past. Certainly one of the chief reasons why it was possible to settle the Southwestern revolt peacefully was that the rebels, in spite of their avowedly anti-Japanese purpose, did not obtain the support against the Government from other dissatisfied leaders which they expected. Similarly the Sian revolt collapsed because expected support in other parts of China was lacking. The country was horrified; denunciation of the rebels was practically universal. Even the Communists, who should be counted Chiang Kai-shek’s bitterest enemies, did not rally to the side of Yang Hu-cheng and Chang Hsueh-liang when the person of the Generalissimo was seized. To the contrary Chou En-lai, Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party and Vice Commander of the Chinese Soviet Military Council, insisted upon Chiang’s liberation “because he was necessary to the nation”.
By this example alone, we are impelled to the belief that Chiang’s elimination through illness or death would not necessarily cause a disintegration of the National Government and its authority in China. The majority of Chinese leaders have come to realize that China must become unified and show a united front against the common enemy. Chiang Kai-shek has demonstrated the possibility of unification despite old hatreds and old feuds. He has become the symbol of this ideal of unity whose accomplishment is necessary if Japan is to be held off. We are of the opinion that, living or dead, he will for a long time continue to be so.
Respectfully yours,