793.00/4–1951: Telegram
The Chargé in the Republic of China (Rankin) to the Secretary of State
1455. Depcirtel 627, Apr 13.1 Persons coming out of Commie Chi as well as Chi Nat officials agree that popular dissatisfaction with [Page 1638] policies and actions of Mao regime has grown in recent months and that principal factors in this discontent have been heavy casualties in Korea, atrocities of current mass purge, govt police-state oppression and terror, excessive taxation and business stagnation. Farmers, businessmen and professional people seem most disillusioned, while students, teachers, govt workers and Commie party members appear relatively sanguine.
Despite credible accts of divergent views within Commie hierarchy on such questions as degree of coop with USSR and intervention in Korea, and of feelings of insecurity and futility among democ personages and other collaborators, no present or imminent split in Peiping regime is indicated, nor has there arisen any active resistance to it by the Chi masses. While food problem continues, prices of necessities have been comparatively stable and shortages of industrial materials, petrol products, western medicines and similar items have little affected the average Chi. Increasingly stringent control by a centralized govt, whose members reportedly are in gen honest disciplined and hard working, remembrance of difficult conditions under previous rulers and evident ruthlessness of present regime toward any opposition, effectively dampen any incipient insurrectionary spirit among the populace. Guerrilla activities, altho decidedly troublesome to Commies, are reported so little coordinated and so lacking in unifying leadership or polit program as not to constitute any apparently serious threat to the disciplined mil power and mass org techniques of Communism.
Bitter official anti Amer campaign of Commies during past months reputedly ineffective among gen population of mainland. Charges that US responsible for denying Formosa UN seat to “China” and that Amer is plotting with Chi Nats to invade and bomb mainland have been stressed. Commie propaganda also tends to dismiss Nats as Amer-manipulated and exploited puppets. Brit participation in UN opns in Korea, her anti-Commie warfare in Malaya and her somewhat contradictory FE policy have heightened Commie hostility towards UK. Although there seems little friendly assoc between Chi Commies and their Russian advisers and technicians, and although presence of considerable numbers of latter are in Chi arouses some popular resentment, official friendship and coop with USSR are necessarily maintained view Chi Commie leaning-to-one-side policy and gen bad relations with nearly all other nations. Scattered reports avail do not reveal any significant potential disaffection among troops and officers of the Commie armed forces. Observers frequently state that soldiers [Page 1639] are relatively well fed and clothed, thoroughly indoctrinated and under strict discipline. It is said, however, that recently morale of Chinese troops in Korea has declined as their matériel deficiencies vis-à-vis UNO forces became more impressive, UNO airpower and field tactics became better adapted to Korean fighting conditions and Chi casualties overtaxed medical facilities.
Comment: Because of lack of direct info and fragmentary unevaluated nature of data avail in Formosa, Emb can only make speculative generalizations. It appears, however, that rising disgust of Chi people at brutalities and incapacities of their present rulers will not in near future provoke any popular uprising capable of overthrowing Mao regime, nor that internecine disputes will soon destroy Commie rule. Long inured to suffering, Chi people shld not be expected to do other than submit to present tyranny as have all other peoples once they came under heel of a Red Army. Not until alternative presents itself with sufficient outside backing to give reasonable promise of success can active support of Chi people against Commies be looked for. A Chi Tito is not impossible but likelihood of one materializing without substantial outside support is too remote to provide basis for US policy.
- Circular telegram 627, April 13, 1951, not printed, was sent to Taipei, Manila, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Singapore; it requested information concerning the attitudes of principal groups in China toward the Communist regime, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Nationalists. Information and comments were particularly requested from Hong Kong and Taipei (793.00/4–1351). A similar telegram was sent to Pusan; see telegram 887 from Pusan, April 21, p. 374.↩