793.00/11–1551
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Regional Planning Adviser, Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs (Emmerson)1
Subject: Communication from Canadian Consul General in Shanghai.
| Participants: | Mr. Peter Campbell, Second Secretary, Canadian Embassy, and |
| Mr. John K. Emmerson, FE |
Mr. Campbell permitted me to read a letter which had been received from Mr. George Patterson, Canadian Consul General in Shanghai. He said he was not authorized to leave the letter with me or permit me to take notes on it. However, since it had been brought out of China by “safe hand”, namely, the Indian Ambassador, Mr. Panikkar, Mr. Patterson had discussed the situation a little more frankly than he was able to do in other communications and consequently the Embassy thought it might be of interest to us.
Mr. Patterson pointed out the difficulty of his communications facilities, stating that his only method of transmitting coded messages [Page 1850] was through the British. This involved five days transit time to Peiping and the necessity for the message being read and encoded by his British colleagues. Consequently his communications with Ottawa had been restricted largely to selected press clippings.
The following are the highlights of Mr. Patterson’s comments on the situation in China:
Few people outside of China appreciate the “sweep of the revolution” and the fact that it has penetrated every phase of the lives of the Chinese. The bureacracy has been built up to the extent that it touches the daily activities of practically every Chinese individual who is thus constantly aware of what the government is doing and what he is expected to do. It is a delusion to think that there is any substantial resistance to the present regime. The Communist Government has brought efficiency, has removed to a large extent the corruption which existed under the KMT regime, and has succeeded in spurring the Chinese to a high degree of activity. The Chinese are working hard in every field and making great economic progress.
The peasants are in general behind the regime. They believe that Mao has built his strength largely on the peasantry and that their welfare is being enhanced by the policies of the Communist Government. This estimate is contradictory to one made by Dean Trivett, Canadian Dean of the Cathedral in Shanghai, who recently visited Washington. Dean Trivett stated that the peasants were turning against the regime due to their disillusionment with its fulfillment of promises made to them. In view of the restricted opportunities for observation and gathering information available to either Mr. Patterson or Dean Trivett, it appears to me that the validity of their generalizations regarding “the attitude of Chinese peasants” is open to considerable doubt, to say the least.
The police controls are, of course, onerous and the Chinese chafe under them. There has been a great deal of ostentation with regard to the arrest and execution of large number of Chinese citizens. However, according to Mr. Patterson, the average Chinese who sees these so-called “criminals” being driven through the streets, believes them guilty of crimes and deserving of punishment. Most Chinese do not, therefore, resent these arrests and do not believe that people are being executed just because of previous membership in the KMT. This statement differs from the impression gleaned from a conversation with Dean Trivett who thought a prevalent attitude was revealed by one of his Chinese friends who placed his arms in the position of being handcuffed and remarked, “Soon, we shall all be like this!”
The Canadian Consul General discussed the situation of the remaining foreigners in Shanghai as being one of continual nervousness and anxiety. A number, of course, have been arrested. The others [Page 1851] are subjected to endless regulations and red tape. However, Mr. Patterson believed that most of these regulations could be explained on a logical basis and, except for the one which prohibited any departing foreigner from taking more than 20 ounces of silver out of the country, did not regard them as particularly unfair.
Mr. Patterson concluded with a description of the oppressive and ominous atmosphere which he admitted affected the attitude of foreigners living in Shanghai. He said that no doubt psychologists could easily explain it. He said that although one could walk freely in the streets, travel beyond Shanghai was restricted and one had constantly the feeling of being under surveillance and being subject to arrest or some other dire calamity at any time.
- The source text was seen by John M. Allison, who was, in Rusk’s absence, the unofficial Acting Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs, and by U. Alexis Johnson, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs. Allison officially became Acting Assistant Secretary upon Rusk’s resignation on December 9.↩