711.93/8–2847
The Consul General at Changchun (Clubb) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 15.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Peiping Consulate’s despatch No. 28 of August 4, 194753 forwarding copies of certain memoranda regarding the political situation in China as submitted to General Wedemeyer in connection with the briefing of his mission at Peiping on August 3, and in continuation of the surveys given in those memoranda to offer below an analysis of certain factors which appear to bear significance in respect to the matter of the formulation of current American policy in Eastern Asia. The matter in point is of course in many respects controversial as well as complicated, and this analysis pretends to be neither exhaustive nor definitive, but with those qualifications it is offered for what it is worth as representing one point of view.
Summary: The premises of the analysis are that war between the United States and the Soviet Union is a political possibility for which the United States must prepare; that one potential war front is in the Far East; that American preparations should be such as would serve the end in view; and that American actions should also if feasible serve as well traditional American policy, the principles of the Atlantic Charter54 and of the United Nations, and the welfare of other peoples concerned. The proposition commonly mooted that a large measure of support should be given to the Chinese National Government to enable the latter to overcome the Chinese Communists, and the counter-proposition that China should be permitted to “stew in its own juice”, are to be judged in the light of the peculiar facts of China. American actions in China have been guided by a general policy evolved in good part in the periods of stress of 1858–60, 1896–98 and 1900–01, with particular formulations of especial importance occurring in the form of Secretary Hay’s Open Door Policy55 and [Page 264] the Washington Conference agreements.56 That policy has brought to the United States good relations and a growing trade in China and outstanding political prestige in Asia. The Soviet Union, on its side, is now patently antipathetic to the National Government and sympathetic to the cause of revolution in China, but it remains uncertain whether the Moscow leaders consider that the Chinese Communists now have the power to set up a regime which would represent any considerable advance along the road toward something approximating the Russian type of Communism. As for the National Government, it and the Chinese Communists have fought each other on all fronts since the 1927 split between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, except for the uneasy truce of the Sino-Japanese war years, and it is logically to be expected that the contest will continue without either’s being prepared to lay down its arms. The corruption and inefficiency of the Nationalist Government have apparently increased, instead of declining, since V–J Day, the while the nation’s economic and social debilities have grown. Fundamental political and economic reforms, by the record, are hardly to be expected out of Nanking—even though it is generally recognized that only the institution of such basic reforms would give a chance of stemming the rising tide of revolution. The Nanking leaders still profess publicly and privately to believe that the only remedy for the revolution which confronts them is extirpation by the sword. In respect to international affairs Nanking’s policy, by many indications, is based upon the expectation (in which there seems to be even a large element of hope) that war between the United States and the USSR will occur in time to save the situation, by hypothesis, for the National Government. In that war, experience has taught, there would probably be little fighting done by the Nationalist armies against the Soviets. Even if there were the will—which is open to doubt—the Nationalists are far from commanding a united nation. Should there be American military assistance to the National Government, the indications are that American objectives of containing Communism and building up a bulwark against the Soviet Union would not be served; and that, contrariwise, the rendering of such assistance would be attended by various undesirable political results.
There remains to be considered the question of the probable consequences of standing aside while the Communists and National Government fight it out. The problem of interest in the first instance to the United States is whether Chinese Communism, if wholly or partially victorious in China, with or without outside aid, would offer an important threat to the United States whether directly in Asia or [Page 265] indirectly by assistance rendered to the Soviet Union. The Chinese Communists are as pure Communists as any. The field of action, China, nevertheless requires adjustment of the ever-flexible Communist tactics to the problems at hand. The experience of the Chinese Communists heretofore has been limited primarily to the agricultural countryside, and they are now found without adequate training to deal with problems of urban administration, industrial management and engineering techniques. The Soviet Union, even if in an unusually generous mood, could hardly be expected to contribute to China material and technical resources which would make a substantial difference over so long a period as a generation. The Soviet effort would probably be concentrated in Manchuria, where the possible results of any investments of materials and technical skills can be gauged on the basis of historical precedents. That there might be Soviet advance in some sectors is not to be denied, but that advance would hardly affect the issue of a war between the United States and the USSR in this generation. Soviet interference or participation in Chinese affairs, however, would probably call forth even stronger antipathies from the Chinese side than has happened before in cases of “foreign interference”, and the Soviets would stand fair to suffer a net loss from any adventure in China after the 1924–27 pattern. In the light of China’s political and economic deficiencies, the logical conclusion must be that the Soviet Union, no more than the United States, would receive a commensurate military benefit from investment of national wealth in China with the aim of thus obtaining major assistance in the international arena.
Certain predictions can be made as to the probable course of events should China be left to its own devices. Barring strong Nationalist reinforcement, the Communists would probably soon win the struggle in Manchuria, whereupon the Nationalist position in North China would shortly afterwards come under threat. This would very possibly lead to changes in the Government at Nanking, for certain Kuomintang militarists reputedly already stand ready to desert the Generalissimo when the hour strikes. If a possible successor to the Generalissimo cannot now be designated any more than in any other dictatorship, one thing is certain, and that is that candidates for the leadership will not be found lacking. At best, some sort of a coalition might be formed at Nanking which could hold non-Communist China together and perhaps, with a reform program and some outside help, make faster progress along economic and political lines than the hypothetical Communist-controlled regime to the North. At worst, with failure to form a democratic coalition, the non-Communist part of the country would probably split up into different areas under the [Page 266] rule of semi-independent warlords, with Nanking left to wither on the vine in its tangle of international obligations and domestic finances, and the Communist part of China would thus be found occupying the dominant position in the country. They would then be able eventually to occupy all of China, but it would seem inevitable that the farther they progressed the greater would be their difficulties and the more compromises they would have to make with the Chinese people as a whole on points of doctrine; in any event, long before China had been unified and become strong the present issues which dominate relations between the United States and the Soviet Union would in all probability already have been resolved. End of Summary.
. . . . . . .
… It is the critical nature of the times that makes that attempt to foresee imperative. In general, the basic demands of the present times in respect to the subject under discussion would appear to make it of first importance that 1) American financial, material, political and military resources be accurately assessed; 2) there be a close and continuing study of the probable course of Soviet policy in the Far East, where the Soviet Union is weak; and 3) those American resources which may become available for use in Asia to counteract Soviet influence be disposed against those Soviet points, and used in those non-Soviet places, where they would most likely prove most effective. It is respectfully submitted that, in view of the circumstance that air and naval strength would probably play a dominant role in this military theatre, development of the American position in those Pacific Ocean areas in which the United States possesses an important measure of political authority would appear to offer the promise of more substantial returns than if an important amount of the available American resources were diverted to give support to one part of that house divided against itself—China. China at this time has none of the marks of a good political investment.
Respectfully yours,
- Post, p. 697.↩
- Joint declaration by President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill on August 14, 1941, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 367.↩
- For Secretary of State John Hay’s Open-Door notes of 1899, see ibid., 1899, pp. 128–143.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, pp. 1 ff.↩