Nanking Embassy Files, Lot F–73: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Hurley) to the Secretary of State.69
In the June 7 issue of the (Communist) Hsin Hua Jih Pao, the editor, after quoting General Chen Cheng’s statement on use of American lend-lease equipment (Embassy’s 945, June 770), appended a note reading as follows:
“According to the information of the 18th Group Army Headquarters at Yenan, the Kuomintang armies that are being employed at present for the sole purpose of blockading the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia border region and for attacking our various liberated areas, have a total of 797,000 troops. In recent months, the civilians and soldiers in these areas have had to bear the brunt of the frequent attacks of the Kuomintang forces which have been increasing in intensity. Numerous major and minor armed conflicts between their forces and ours have occurred in Chekiang, Anhwei, Hunan, Kwangtung, Fukien, and at Tahungshan in Hupeh. The most serious case is the recent attack launched by Gen. Hsieh Yueh, Commander of the Ninth War Zone, with a concentrated strength of six divisions, against the units of Wang Chun on the Hunan-Kiangsi border. We are decidedly against civil war, and above all, decidedly against the use of the American Lend-Lease weapons to fight a civil war. Therefore, it does not seem to be very convincing for General Chen Cheng to depreciate the serious phenomenon by saying that the Central Government troops have to defend themselves with whatever weapons they may have.”
Because of this article, the public sale and distribution of the above issue of the Hsin Hua Jih Pao was forbidden.