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

893.00/6–2845

Memorandum by Mr. Everett F. Drumright of the Division of Chinese Affairs

[Washington,] June 28, 1945.

Subject: Comment in Chinese Communist Emancipation Daily on American Policy Toward China.

Reference is made to the attached F[ederal] C[ommunications] C[ommission] bulletin⁸² on the above-cited subject.

Utilizing the arrest of “Six Americans, sympathizing with Chinese armed resistance and democracy” as a “peg”, the Yenan Emancipation Daily discusses the subject of American policy toward China at some length.

[Here follows a summary of the FCC bulletin.]

Comment:

It will be apparent from a reading of the article that it constitutes a Chinese Communist attack on the American policy of granting assistance to the Chinese Government. An attempt is made to show that American policy toward China originates among “reactionary forces in America” and that it is not representative of the wishes of the “broad masses of the American people”. As regards China, the article is based on the assumption that the Chinese Communists represent the people of China, their aspirations and hopes, and the ideals of democracy and all that is good in China, while the Kuomintang represents all that is evil in China.

It appears that the foregoing assumptions, with respect both to formulation of American policy toward China and to the relationship of the Chinese people to the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the characteristics of the two factions, are open to serious question, if not utterly unfounded.

While the warnings voiced in the concluding paragraphs of the article perhaps do not merit formal recognition on our part, they do appear to indicate that the Chinese Communist attitude toward the United States is becoming more and more unfriendly, if not belligerent, in tone and may, unless United States policy is changed to meet Communist desires, erupt in violent opposition to the United States.

If, as now seems indicated, the Chinese Communists move formally to set up a separate state in Communist-occupied areas of China and if the United States pursues a policy of spurning the Communist state, the tendency of the Communists to view the United States in an unfriendly light is likely to become pronounced. It is questionable, however, whether the Communists would be able in such a contingency to sway public opinion in areas under their control in any marked degree to a state of enmity toward the United States.

82. Supra.