893.00/5–549: Telegram
The Minister-Counselor of Embassy in China (Clark) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 5—4:30 p. m.]
Cantel 320. As indicative of complete bankruptcy of leadership anti-Communist China at moment is fact that Legislative Yuan is reconvening May 6 without its president85 who has fled Hong Kong with family in realization hopelessness situation. Li Tsung-jen sits in Kweilin successfully discouraging visits from such as Ho Ying-chin and Wu Tieh-cheng on basis he can be influenced by deeds not words, yet finally acquiescing in visit mission headed by Yen Hsi-shan whom C–C clique is seeking to use as window dressing and telling all and sundry without qualification that he has learned his lesson and refuses again to accept responsibility without full authority. He is reported to have put it baldly to Yen that he would not be “puppet” of Generalissimo.
Generalissimo hovers in background somewhere between Fenghua and Amoy (reports have him in Taiwan) presenting real and insurmountable obstacle to rallying of forces of resistance behind Li Tsung-jen. He has accumulated his treasure and his armed forces on Taiwan and is determined to conserve those for last-ditch stand on Foochow-Amoy-Taiwan triangle in hope he can survive until what he conceives to be the inevitable war between USSR and US out of which in some way he will re-emerge as ruler of all China, He seems oblivious to fundamental fact that after defeat international Communism directed from Moscow, US would have no interest in reestablishing his authority China.
In between these extremes, C–C clique and Canton generals seeking desperately find some means overcoming what is in effect an insurmountable obstacle of complete collaboration between Generalissimo and Li Tsung-jen in their present moods. Canton generals are in quandary. They have no resources protect themselves and Li promises protection only if they will produce Taiwan resources accumulated by Generalissimo which they cannot do and Generalissimo is not [Page 294] interested in defending Kwangtung. As a result, they are wringing their hands and at loss to know what to do.
Result is that Nationalist Government, in its death throes, is without leadership. Principal Government leaders are attending conferences all day long fruitlessly seeking the impossible, while their subordinates sit with their feet on desks reading newspapers and wondering how life will be under Communists or on Taiwan. It seems to me that what little possibility may have existed that anti-Communist forces could be unified and rallied to effective resistance to Communism is fast disappearing if it has not already done so. Communists are grimly setting about their tasks of occupying rest of China while anti-Communist leaders, incapable of viewing problem from other than basis their selfish personal interests, are going around in circles accomplishing nothing. Suspicion is so deep-seated and differences between Li Tsung-jen and Generalissimo so absolutely irreconcilable that, barring miracle, we may see early disappearance any Nationalist Government worthy of the name.
Sent Department Cantel 320; repeated Nanking 248; Shanghai 202.
- Tung Kwan-hsien.↩