China: Negotiations with the Soviet Union

Editor’s Note.—The agreement signed by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill at Yalta on February 11, 1945, regarding entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan1 contained provisions relating to Outer Mongolia, Dairen, Port Arthur, the Chinese Eastern Railroad, and the South Manchurian Railroad. The agreement provided that these provisions would require the concurrence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and that President Roosevelt would take measures to obtain that concurrence. In the agreement the Soviet-Union expressed its readiness to conclude a pact of friendship and alliance with the National Government of the Republic of China. The Sino-Soviet negotiations leading to the conclusion of this “pact of friendship and alliance” were begun at Moscow on June 30, with Prime Minister T. V. Soong as the principal Chinese participant. They were interrupted by Stalin’s departure for the Berlin Conference, were then resumed following Stalin’s return to Moscow, and were concluded on August 14, 1945.2

The documentation on this subject printed in this compilation is limited to (a) papers describing the status of these Sino-Soviet negotiations immediately upon the eve of the Berlin Conference and (b) papers prepared specifically for the Berlin Conference or at the Conference itself, where the Moscow negotiations were discussed between the United States and Soviet Delegations. See volume II, pages 45–46, 476.3

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