798.94/12039
The President of the Chinese Executive Yuan (Chiang Kai-shek) to President Roosevelt50
Never in her long history has China been confronted with such a grave crisis as she is going through today and never has peace of the Far East been so disastrously disturbed as it is today. In the last five months, China has engaged in a life and death struggle against Japan. Armed with the ultra-modern implements of war and displaying a cruelty characteristic of mediaeval barbarism, the Japanese land, naval and air forces have seized city after city, massacred numberless non-combatants including not a few foreign nationals, and destroyed immense amount of property not even sparing cultural, religious and charitable institutions. In the relentless prosecution of their aggressive campaign, they have disregarded, and even deliberately violated, the rights of third countries with the evident intention of realizing Japan’s long cherished ambition to dominate the whole Pacific region. They are now in unlawful occupation of large parts of North China as well as important cities and towns along the Nanking–Shanghai Railway including the Capital of the Republic. A puppet regime purporting to be “The Provisional Government of the Republic of China” has been set up by the Japanese militarists in Peiping. They are yet further extending their invasion in different directions. According to the present indications, attempts are being made to penetrate Northern Kiangsu, Shantung, The Yangtze Valley and South China.
Marshalling all our available forces, we have combatted the Japanese onslaught to the best of our ability. With the firm determination to preserve our national existence we have made supreme sacrifice—sacrifice in man-power, in resources, in commerce and industry. We are shedding blood in the hope that the nation may live in peace and with honor. We are not fighting a war in the ordinary sense of the word. But we are resisting the wanton aggression and repelling the [Page 833] fierce attacks on our own territory. We are fighting for the liberty of the Chinese nation and against the common menace to the mankind. We are not only defending ourselves, but also the principle of the sanctity of treaties especially the Nine Power Treaty, under which the sovereignty, independence and the territorial and administrative integrity of China should be respected by Japan and other signatory Powers. We will not surrender to Japan’s brutal force, but will continue our resistance until the Japanese Government abandons its aggressive policy, until our national administrations are restored to us and until the principle of inviolability of the international covenants is vindicated.
Throughout the conflict, the Chinese people have been conscious of, and felt grateful for, moral support we have received from the United States. We know that under Your Excellency’s able leadership, the American Government with its proverbial sense of justice and always guided by its traditional policy in the Far East will do its best to uphold all legal and treaty rights and maintain law and order so necessary for the peaceful conduct of international relations. On behalf of the Chinese people, I therefore take liberty at this critical moment of urgently appealing to Your Excellency and, through you, the American people to render such effective assistance to China as will enable the struggle for the cause of world peace and solidarity to be carried on to a successful conclusion at an early date. I am sure that the Chinese people will be forever grateful to Your Excellency for all your efforts towards that end.
- Handed to President Roosevelt on December 31 by the Chinese Ambassador.↩