Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, The Far East, China, Volume VII

893.00/2–1845: Telegram

The Ambassador in China (Hurley) to the Secretary of State ⁹⁴

Chungking, February 18, 1945—11 a.m.
[Received 4:55 p.m.]

242. Part 4. Following is a report on the negotiations currently taking place between the National Government of China and the Communist Party of China. Participating in these conferences are Dr. T. V. Soong, Acting President of Executive Yuan and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Wang Shih-chieh, Minister of Information, and General Chang Chih-chung, Director of Political Training of National Military Council, representing the National Government, General Chou En-lai, representing the Communist Party of China, and myself attending on invitation of both parties. At the close of our second meeting, on January 24, Dr. Wang Shih-chieh presented for consideration the following: (for text see Emstel 243, February 18, 11 a.m.⁹⁵).

(N. B. Of course, I had to state that I had no authority from my Government to agree that an American Army officer would participate as indicated in the plan.) But after this document had been fully digested by General Chou En-lai, he said to me that Dr. Wang Shih-chieh had either purposely evaded the issue in the document or he was not yet fully impressed by the chief objectives of the Communists. He said that notwithstanding the Generalissimo’s New Year’s speech,⁹⁶ in which he spoke of the necessity at an early date of adopting a constitution and returning the control of the Government to the people, the document presented by Dr. Wang Shih-chieh was wholly predicated on concessions to be made by the Kuomintang while the Kuomintang was still to remain in control of the Government. Chou En-lai repeated the definite position taken by Mao Tse-tung and himself when I was in conference with them at Yenan and which they attempted to state in the Communist five points, dated November 10, 1944, signed by Mao and submitted to the National Government, namely, that the Communist Party will not submit the command of its troops to the Kuomintang Party; and that it will submit command of its troops to the National Government and will join the National Government to unify China only when the one-party rule of the Kuomintang has been abolished and control of the Government turned over to a coalition administration composed of the representatives of political parties. Chou En-lai further stated at that time that he agreed that a military council or commission should be appointed for the reorganization and unification of the Chinese armed forces. He would not agree that such a commission would be permitted to reorganize Communist troops alone. He contended that the entire Chinese military establishment should be reorganized and he was favorable to an American serving on the commission which would provide a plan for and direct such reorganization.

This position was made known to the Generalissimo by me in a conference attended by the Generalissimo, Dr. T. V. Soong, Dr. Wang Shih-chieh and myself. The Generalissimo pointed out that he was calling a meeting for the 4th of May in keeping with the will of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and with Chiang’s New Year’s speech and the purpose of taking steps to draft a constitution, to pass the control of the National Government to the people and to abolish the one-party rule of the Kuomintang. At this point the Generalissimo made the definite statement that in his opinion all the political parties in China, including his own, constituted less than 2% of the Chinese people. He believes that it would not be for the best interest of China to turn the control of the Government over to any political group or to a coalition of political groups. He believes it to be his duty to have a democratic constitution for China adopted by a convention in which all the people of China, and not alone the organized political minorities, will participate. He expressed his belief that the Chinese Communist Party is not in fact a democratic party; that they profess to be democrats only for the purpose of trying to achieve control of the administration of the National Government. He stated very pointedly that the word “communism” does not mean “democracy”; that if the Communist Party was as democratic as they claim to be he doesn’t understand why they still call themselves Communists. I suggested to the Generalissimo that he was losing valuable time and again I said that he could afford to make political concessions and shorten the period of transitions in order to obtain control of the Communist forces. I stated that the Generalissimo’s most important objective at the moment is unification of the Communist military forces with those of the National Government. This would be the first step toward China’s major objectives, namely: (1) unification of all military forces to defeat Japan; (2) unification of China to prevent outside forces from keeping China divided against herself; (3) prevention of civil war in China and (4) a united, free, democratic China under a democratic constitution adopted by a convention of the Chinese people.

In the meantime Chou En-lai had devoted all of his time in the conferences toward advocating a friendly consultative meeting in Chungking of representatives of the Kuomintang, the Communist Party and other parties. He suggested also that some non-partisan persons be invited to attend this meeting. I had heretofore suggested that a bi-partisan group be set up which would devise the plans for unification, serve as a procedural steering committee and guide the conduct of all parties during the transitory period while the Government is emerging from a one-man, one-party government into what would, at least in theory, be a government of the people, by the people and for the people with a constitution and appropriate laws.

During each debate, a great deal of which was academic, the position and objectives of the Kuomintang and the success of the Kuomintang in conducting the Government up to the present were ably described by Dr. T. V. Soong. The objectives of the Communist Party were presented by Chou En-lai. T. V. Soong took the position that the Kuomintang is the party of reformation in China; that it is the party of Sun Yat-sen; that it is the party of liberalism; that it is the party of a government by laws and not by men; that it has been steadfast in upholding its ideals through the revolution and during the war of resistance; that historically it is now responsible for the Government of China; that without the Kuomintang there would be chaos in China; and that since he had become Acting President of the Executive Yuan he felt keenly his responsibility for preventing the chaos which would result from a collapse of the Chinese National Government. Soong pressed his case vigorously and eloquently. Chou En-lai countered that he agreed to most of Dr. Soong’s arguments, but that now the time had come when, in accordance with the will of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the desires of the Chinese people, the Government should be turned back to the people. He insisted that the only way of conducting the Government in the interim was for the leaders of the great parties of China to trust each other and to form a coalition to sustain the Government through the transitory period. Soong replied that he was not in favor of surrendering authority in the midst of war which would constitute a weakness that might cause the collapse of the Government. Chou answered with assurances that, if the proper concessions were made, the Central Government would have the unlimited support of the Communist Party. He also stated that he felt that China must be united; that otherwise nations interested in China ecnomically would keep China divided against herself and would prevent her from developing economically and from taking her place among the nations of the world.

At this stage, Dr. Wang Shih-chieh told me that he felt that I favored the position now taken by Chou En-lai. I told him frankly that I was not in full agreement with the position taken by Chou but that we had debated the fundamental issues involved so long that everyone was merely repeating what had been said before. I pointed out to Dr. Wang that he and others had been negotiating with the Communists for over 5 years; that every one had made too many speeches; that there had been too much negotiation and no action.

Dr. Wang and General Chou were then appointed to form a committee to draw up an instrument which would make action possible. On February 3d Dr. Wang presented the following draft to me: (for text see Embstel 244, February 18, 1 p.m.⁹⁷).

That afternoon I saw Chou who informed me that he was sending the draft to Yenan. For the first time he felt that we were reaching a basis where we could all cooperate. The next day, with T. V. Soong, I discussed the matter with the Generalissimo. The Generalissimo said he had consented to the plan stated in the foregoing proposal but he felt that the Communists had obtained what they had been endeavoring to obtain all along. I told him very frankly that the only instrument heretofore with which he could have worked with the Communists was the 5-point agreement; that if he had revised that agreement at the time it was offered, the Communists, in my opinion, would have accepted reasonable revision; and that it is still the only document in which there is a signed agreement by the Communists to submit control of their armed forces to the National Government.

It is true that in the last proposal the Communists agree to a political program to be followed, but the unification of the armed forces is still predicated on political action to be taken by the Kuomintang in the future. Another factor is that the conclusions of the suggested political consultative committee must be unanimous before the National Government will be bound to act and this restriction would appear to narrow the chances for successful culmination.

This last document has been transmitted to Yenan. The Generalissimo has now said to me that if the Communists should accept the suggestions contained in the document, last above quoted, we [he?] would be willing to incorporate these suggestions in the 5-point document. All references to a coalition government would, however, have to be eliminated from the 5-point document while the provision for the submission of the Communist troops to the control of the National Government and all democratic proposals and objectives would be retained.

All the arguments and all the documents submitted should indicate to you that the Chinese Communist Party is not democratic; that its purpose is to destroy the control of the government by the Kuomintang before there has been an opportunity to adopt a constitution or to return the control of the Government to the people on a democratic basis. The Government representatives state that the real purpose of the Chinese Communist Party is not the abolition of the one-party rule by the Kuomintang but as indicated by all the maneuvers made by the Chinese Communists is to overthrow control by the Kuomintang Party and obtain a one-party rule of China by the Chinese Communist Party. The Government representatives, including the Generalissimo, claim that the Communist support of democratic principles is merely a camouflage which they are using in an attempt to gain control of the Government under the one-party rule of the Communists. The Government further contends that whether by accident or design the Kuomintang has had the responsibility of leading China during turbulent episodes over a long period. The Kuomintang’s purpose is to have a democratic constitution adopted and to return the Government to the people. It will not surrender its authority in these troublous times to a coterie of parties in a so-called coalition government. It will appoint a bi-partisan war cabinet with policy making powers but will retain control of the Government until control is returned to the people under a democratic constitution. They claim that surrendering the power of government to partisan organizations would not be returning the power to the people. The Generalissimo stated that he wanted the Communists to accept the latest offer of the Government which has been made in good faith and with every possible guarantee that their armed forces would not be destroyed or discriminated against. He called special attention to the desirability that all parties should avoid mutual recriminations of any kind while the parties are attempting to agree upon procedure for the conduct of all parties during the transitory period while the Government is passing from a one-party government to a People’s democratic constitutional government.

He pointed also to the ridiculous charges that were made by the Chinese Communist Party that the Chinese National Government was negotiating an agreement or had made an agreement with Japan. He alleges that this falsehood was propagated by the Chinese Communist Party for the purpose of breaking the faith of the United States in the integrity of the Chinese National Government. He said that this falsehood has been accepted and reported as if it were true by misled but well meaning Americans. He stated that there had been a lot of false propaganda to the effect that the Chinese Communist Party is a democratic party. He believes that this statement is as false as the statement that the National Government is negotiating an agreement or has negotiated an agreement with Japan. He said if the Chinese Communist Party is really supporting the program for the unification of China on a democratic basis they should quit propagating falsehoods. The Generalissimo also stated that the claims of military strength made by the Chinese Communist Party are untrue and are made only for the purpose of trying to convince the world that China is seriously divided when in fact the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people are supporting the National Government, and the program for adopting a democratic constitution and returning the control of the Government to the people. He said the Chinese Communists, without changing their name or their principles, now say they are a leading democratic party in China. He said in all this their purpose is to effect a coup by which they would take control of the National Government and convert it into a one-party Communist government the same as Russia. He said that the Chinese Communist Party’s hopes for success are based on the fact that they believe that if Russia enters the war in Asia it will support the Chinese Communists against the National Government. Notwithstanding all this, the Government had decided to undertake this bold measure of returning the rule to the people in the midst of a war; that now the Government so invites the Communists and other party representatives, with complete freedom of travel, to meet on an equal status for the purpose of intensifying efforts against the enemy and strengthening national unity and to provide a program for completing the period of tutelage and establishing a democratic constitutional government. The Generalissimo said that if the Communists really want a democratic constitutional government this gives them ample opportunity to participate in inaugurating it. General Chou En-lai left for Yenan on February 16th. He believed that his party would agree to the political consultative meeting provided for in the document last above quoted. He was of the opinion, however, that the one-party rule should be immediately ended and that a coalition administration should be instituted to guide China in forming a democratic government based upon a democratic constitution adopted by a People’s convention.

I have pointed out that all this is very encouraging but it does not immediately accomplish the unification of the armed forces of China. I have said that I feel that China’s position in the forthcoming San Francisco Conference will suffer if she cannot show a greater degree of unification than that indicated.

I am convinced that our Government was right in its decision to support the National Government of China and the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. I have not agreed to any principle or supported any method that in my opinion would weaken the National Government or the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. I have, however, on many occasions advised the Generalissimo and Soong that China must furnish her own leadership, make her own decisions and be responsible for her own domestic and international policies.

General Wedemeyer has been kept fully informed of the progress of these negotiations and has read this report. He stated in his opinion it is an excellent and logical presentation of the facts.

End of part 4.

New subject: I had prepared a reply to your number 200 of February 16th [6]⁹⁸ which I did not send. In your message you appear to have reduced my role in these negotiations to the position of merely making a suggestion without implementing the suggestion. That is the method followed by Ambassador Gauss when he transmitted the President’s and the Secretary of State’s message on September 9th last.⁹⁹ That message, as you now know, obtained no results whatever because it lacked vigorous implementation. I decided, however, not to send the telegram as I hope to see you and discuss the situation more fully. It is my earnest desire to be amenable to every suggestion from State Department even when I believe our position is weakened and accomplishment postponed by lack of vigorous implementation of suggestions. Perhaps this respite in negotiations and my visit with the State Department will clarify my mind on the distance I will be able to go in promotion of the war effort by inducing or compelling the unification of Chinese armed forces and coordination of effort to assist us in the defeat of Japan.

Hurley

94. This telegram is part 4 of an extensive report; part 1 is telegram No. 141, January 31, 6 p.m., p. 192; part 2 is telegram No. 180, February 7, 8 a.m., p. 205; part 3 is telegram No. 238, February 17, 7 p.m., supra.
95. Infra.
96. See memorandum of January 2, by the Chief of the Division of Chinese Affairs, p. 153.
97. Post, p. 230. See also telegram No. 243, February 18, 11 a.m., from the Ambassador in China, infra.
98. Post, p. 852.
99. See telegram No. 1196, September 9, 1944, 4 p.m., to the Ambassador in China, Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. vi, p. 567.