Chiang Kai-Shek

by Emily Hahn

  The summer was not without some light in Chungking’s gloom. The Doolittle raid, though it ended short of its goal, had given Japan a lot to worry about. Now the autumn brought another high point on the Double Tenth, when America and Britain made a gesture that was, in Chiang’s estimation, long overdue. On that day they announced that they were giving up their right of special privilege in China. Extraterritoriality was dead, or would be as soon as the treaty was signed early in 1943. True, at the moment no Nationalist was in a position to reap the benefit of this decision. Extraterritorial rights had weighed on the Chinese conscience chiefly in the treaty ports, which were now all in the hands of the Japanese. It was merely an academic gain, one more sign of China’s new status among the powers. Chiang Kai-shek would have been better pleased with a larger share of the material that was being handed out to America’s European allies. None the less it was a pretty gesture, and Chungking welcomed it with appropriate phrases of appreciation. Significantly, Chiang’s message to Britain differed from the one he sent to America. To Washington he was merely conventional, but he congratulated the British, wryly, on “winning a moral victory over themselves.”

  Stilwell continued to tilt at the Chinese and British commanders, who remained obstinately unreformed, united only in a mystifying resistance to himself. Meanwhile the Reds of the Northwest were going about their business in a very different manner. Mao Tse-tung had decided that his people needed reorganizing, right down to the lowest echelons, and in to the deepest centers of human behavior. On February 1, 1942, he opened the movement that was to bring “brainwashing” into the scene—Cheng Feng, or “Ideological Remolding Movement.” In a long lecture he explained something of this new idea. He said he had detected unorthodox tendencies in the Party. “We shall call the incorrect spirit in learning subjectivism, the incorrect spirit in the party sectarianism, and the incorrect spirit in literature party formalism.…”

  During the year that followed thirty thousand leaders were trained to lead the reform, which was disseminated through the rank and file by means of cells, or study groups. The members of these groups analyzed their own sins and those of their companions, and testified to them in public confession. Unworthy leaders were thrown out without compunction. By the beginning of 1942 the effects of this program were showing in the rapidity with which the faith spread. It was not yet time for an open break with Chungking, but the implications were becoming clear. Little by little Stilwell was delicately introduced to the conception of a well-organized China in another place, whereas, it was impressed on him, the China he encountered in his official capacity floundered in a morass of outworn codes and corruption. The introduction was so deft that he hardly realized it had been accomplished for him. He thought he had known all along about the Communists, and that his good opinion of them grew up of itself.

  However, he could point with justifiable pride to the organization he was accomplishing on his own hook, against tremendous odds, at Ramgarh in India. The Chinese commanders learned, to their dismay, that the payment and feeding of the troops were not to go through their hands. The soldiers, on the other hand, were delighted. Gradually they were being welded into a genuine modern force that would soon be able to conduct offensive operations. Stilwell found himself an ally from an unexpected source—Madame Chiang, who dropped in at Ramgarh on her way back from a diplomatic visit to Sinkiang. She was enthusiastic about the project and promised to work on the Generalissimo in order to get more genuine co-operation from him. In November, however, Madame went out of the picture temporarily, embarking for America on a sort of good-will tour.

  Chiang’s general attitude toward the Burma project, though on details he wavered, remained fixed. He was willing to let it go forward in the spring of ’43 if the Americans and the British carried out their share of the bargain. His plan was to go on as before, sitting tight, waiting for the war material that had been promised, and keeping one eye on the Northwest. Every time Wavell hung back on the Burma question, Chiang too pulled in his horns. Stilwell flew back and forth between these two, urging, arguing, and trying to pick up the pieces whenever there was a row. The months wore on, and each seemed to carry with it some further postponement of the campaign: the British, preoccupied with crises on other fronts, began to think of it as a mere nuisance. Operations must start in March at the latest: the weather would render any later start completely disastrous. But March, it developed, was impossible. The whole thing was definitely called off for that spring. It would have to wait until autumn.

  “Peanut says he won’t fight,” wrote Stilwell despairingly on January 8. “‘The Japs will fight desperately,’” he continued, quoting Chiang with all the savagery he could put into it. “‘They have had time to prepare. Our supply lines are not good. The British force is inadequate. We risk defeat. Failure in Burma would be disastrous. A combined land and seaborne operation is necessary. We can use the time by making an air offensive, for which I guarantee results out of all proportion to the force used,’ etc. etc.

  “Of course, next fall the Japs won’t fight; they will have had no more time to dig in; our supply lines will be perfected; the British force will be ‘adequate.’” Then, in a burst of spite, “… Chennault’s blatting has put him in a spot; he’s talked so much about what he can do that now they’re going to let him do it.”

  Chennault had indeed convinced the Chinese that the answer to all their troubles, while waiting for something to happen elsewhere, was a much stepped up supply line by air over the Hump—more planes, more gasoline, and above all weapons for the army at home. In his eagerness he made vast claims of what could be supplied. Chiang was more than ready to be convinced, for this picture of warmaking fitted in with his own concept of patient waiting and defense. Stilwell for his part was so eager to prove his theory that he played down all aspects of aid through air. The army-versus-air-force battle that has been raging in all the capitals of the Western world since the beginning of World War II was thus reflected in war-bound Chungking. It was a bitter contest.

  Frustrated, angry, hurt, and suspicious, Stilwell was all the more receptive to the constant suggestion that they ordered these things better in other lands; in Moscow, for instance, or Yenan. He wrote in his diary on January 19: “7:30 to Russian embassy for movies. Excellent. A Day of War … The Russians are O.K.… What a fight the Russians have made. The nation has obviously found itself. Twenty years of work and struggle. Results: tough physique; unity of purpose; pride in their accomplishments; determination to win.… Rugged young soldiers. Tough women. Every last man, woman, and child in the war effort.

  “Compare it with the Chinese cesspool. A gang of thugs with the one idea of perpetuating themselves and their machine. Money, influence, and position the only considerations of the leaders. Intrigue, double-crossing, lying reports. Hands out for anything they can get; their only idea to let someone else do the fighting; false propaganda on their ‘heroic struggle’; indifference of ‘leaders’ to their men. Cowardice rampant, squeeze paramount, smuggling above duty, colossal ignorance and stupidity of staff, total inability to control factions and cliques, continued oppression of masses. The only factor that saves them is the dumb compliance of [the common people].… And we are maneuvered into the position of having to support this rotten regime and glorify its figurehead, the all-wise great patriot and soldier—Peanut. My God.”

  Yet what he was comparing was not two realities, but one reality against a propaganda movie.

  11 CHINA OF THE BIG POWERS 1943

  In one thing alone, Chiang Kai-shek and Winston Churchill are alike. Both of them write in a manner that can stand a lot of pruning. Fortunately their literary efforts are subjected to the editing they need. Sir Winston’s secretaries read and cut down for him: Madame Chiang edits her husband. She has been heard to say exactly what Sir Winston’s secretaries say of him—that Chiang repeats every single thing twice if not oftener.

  The Generalissimo’s literary style isn’t often in a form
where the Western reader can judge for himself. He writes voluminously, but usually this output appears in the form of speeches, and in Chinese at that. On one occasion, however, he did publish a book of considerable size: it appeared in its original Chinese in 1943, and later was published in English under the title China’s Destiny. The left-wing press made much of their claim that Chiang’s strong anti-foreign statements in this book were played down in translation. Actually they were not so strong as all that. The book’s declarations of fondness for the Confucian ideal of government mildly startled people who were determined to consider Chiang an American gentleman with Western ideas of democracy. He did emphasize the value of the old ways; he did sound bossy. One realizes afresh, reading the book, how surprising it is that a man of his background should have brought himself to modernize Chinese schools as he did and further literacy for the masses. But he did not attempt to conceal his sentiments; he was not aware that he had anything to conceal. There is nothing sinister in China’s Destiny, but it must be admitted it is dull.

  At the time it first appeared, the West was reading a very different type of literature dealing with China. The American Far Eastern Survey in July 1943 brought out an article by one of the I.P.R. leading lights, T. A. Bisson, which asserted that two Chinas had “definitely emerged” from the ordeal of war, even before Pearl Harbor. “One is now generally called Kuomintang China, the other, democratic China.” Americans, reading this, began to wonder why, in that case, they should be backing the undemocratic horse, and the wonder grew. So did the bulk of pro-left literature. Chiang’s book came out in its English form in 1946 with a strange preface supplied by Philip Jaffe, editor of Amerasia. Here it is, said Mr. Jaffe. Here is the Nationalist creed in all its horror.

  “The comprador-landlord-merchant-userer class, which today holds political power in China, is naturally in favor of preserving the semicolonial, semifeudal land and tax system that is the basis of their wealth and power.” It was fashionable to talk like this in 1946. Whatever “semifeudal” might mean, nobody was going to question it or check up on the landlord system in China to discover that it was not at all, in fact, like the Russian landlord system whence the Jaffe argot came. Nobody even stopped to find out what that sinister word “comprador” meant. (A comprador is a merchant, a middleman for foreign import-export business houses in China.)

  Four days after Stilwell wrote so enthusiastically about the Russian film, his President met Churchill in Casablanca for a conference on world strategy. Stalin sent his regrets, pleading as excuse that he was busy with his end of the war, but it was not necessary for Chiang to send regrets, because he wasn’t asked. The U. S. State Department was uneasily aware that he resented this, but there it was: Churchill didn’t want him. China’s contribution to the war effort, said the Englishman, didn’t place China’s leader on that sort of footing: moreover, the Burma campaign and other questions bearing on China’s future were to be discussed and this would be easier if Chiang were not there.

  In the Generalissimo’s absence, then, Roosevelt did his best for China. Advised by Stilwell, he tried to convince Churchill of the necessity of the Burma campaign, with accompanying British support in the Bay of Bengal. But Churchill would not agree. Let it happen, if it must happen, he said, late in 1943, after the monsoon. Subject to certain other eventualities. Britain would then be ready to supply amphibious support in South Burma. This agreement was relayed to the Generalissimo: two American generals, with one British one, flew up to Chungking to talk it over with him in person.

  The Americans, at least, expected their news to render the Generalissimo happy and excited, but they were disappointed. Chiang received them in lukewarm fashion. The Burma campaign simply wasn’t close to his heart, as it was to Stilwell’s. All he really wanted was more supplies for the home front. He said he was willing to consider the Burma action, but other matters were more pressing. He wanted the American Air Force in China to be made independent under Chennault. This change had been requested by Chennault a year before and refused: now it was granted. Chiang also upped his earlier request to ten thousand tons of supplies flown in monthly over the Hump, and five hundred combat planes before November, which was the new provisional date for the push in Burma. The Western generals gave the Generalissimo a dissertation on shortages and the reasons for them. He must have heard it all before, and they noticed that he did not seem happy.

  Stilwell kept tabs on the stories going around Chungking about Madame Chiang in America. “January 9: Rumors that Madame’s mission, whatever it was, has failed. What the hell is up?… January 11: Madame has sent an S.O.S. to T.V. to come and help her. She has apparently bogged down. The rumor here is that she has ‘failed her mission,’ whatever it was.” To his wife he wrote, “Something has happened to May’s trip. She had apparently planned a Queen Marie tour of the States, turning on the charm all over the place, and keeping the suckers in line. Now she’s howling for help, so maybe the higher-ups are getting hep and are putting on the lid.”

  There was nothing so definite as a mission about Madame’s trip, and so no definite disappointment, either, but there is no doubt that she expected to pin down the State Department to promise more than they did. Even her old friend Donald could not have asked more for her, however, than she got in the way of favorable publicity. At first nothing was too good for the Americans to say about her. Toward the end of her visit, however, she felt ill with the urticaria which had long been making her life miserable at intervals and was laid up in hospital. Moreover, her nephew, who was acting as her secretary, failed (to put it mildly) to make friends and influence people. The Red propaganda machine, going into action on all cylinders, managed to make of Madame’s visit, and especially this hospital stay, a sinister affair. She used her own sheets, people whispered, silk ones. Such swank! She had at least fifty pairs of shoes and six priceless fur coats. Such extravagance in a country of poor coolies! Within a few weeks people who had never been nearer to China than Buffalo were talking knowledgeably of the Soong Dynasty and the corruption of Chungking. Washington may have ignored this talk, though it seems as if not everybody in the State Department did: Mayling herself was in no position to ignore it. Her propaganda was being countered by a bigger, more vicious sort. It is small wonder that she was, as Harry Hopkins noted, “tired and depressed.”

  “Date with G-mo at 5.00,” wrote Stilwell immediately after the Casablanca conference. “He was sour as a pickle. Never one word of gratitude to the U.S. Just what he can get out of us.”

  It was a trying summer for Roosevelt, and for his State Department as well. More and more, the President took matters into his own hands, often making arrangements that the State Department knew nothing about. The China theater was only a small part of his problems. Stalin was clamoring to open a second front in Europe, and complaining bitterly about what he considered discrepancies in the U.N. war effort in Tunis. He refused even to discuss the Far East. As he grew more exigent, anxious advisers in Washington began to wonder if he might not back out altogether. Against this major threat similar hints from China fell on indifferent ears. There were disagreements from Britain, too, about allocation of war material; Britain was interested in the Far East, but British ideas of how to cope were often at odds with American. A new Burma Road was now in train, being built from Ledo in Assam, and the British were anxious that it should be completed.

  Besides, when it came down to cases in China, there were many different opinions as to where help was needed first. Stilwell, as always, clung like a limpet to his plans for the Burma push. (Roosevelt was not at all satisfied with Stilwell’s attitude toward Chiang. Even Marshall, who championed Stilwell, admitted that his protégé behaved in a strained, unpleasant way during his visit in the spring of ’43 to Washington. Nevertheless, he argued, Stilwell knew the ground better than anyone else, and so had better stay on the job.) Marshall and Stilwell were against concentrating on building up China’s air defense. If Chinese-based planes should strafe the
Japanese to an annoying degree, they said, the Japanese were bound to advance on the airfields. You needed a good ground army to hold out against them, and China didn’t have it. Her best troops weren’t on guard where they ought to be, complained Stilwell. The Peanut was keeping them in the Northwest for his own purposes, boxing in the Reds. He was absorbed in a totally unnecessary civil war. Stilwell declared, as he had often done before, what was wrong with China’s Army. Corrupt, underpaid, underfed, badly led. It would be better not to stir up the Japanese to attack on the ground.

  But Chennault, who was also in on the conference, thought otherwise. He was sure that with a really good China-based air force the Japanese would never be able to come close enough to take over. The planes could hold them off.

  Roosevelt gave in to everybody, but in varying degrees. He sent word to the Generalissimo urging him to consider the completion of the new land route in Burma as one of their most pressing tasks. He promised, himself, to send ten thousand troops and twenty-five thousand tons of equipment to India for the Ledo Road. He told Marshall that he thought they were neglecting the possibilities of damaging Japan with an increased air force in China. Chennault could go ahead with his program; of the stepped up tonnage that was to be carried over the Hump, he would get the first 4,750 tons of space and Stilwell the next 2,250, for equipping ground forces, and so on. But the Generalissimo was still suspicious of the future, still disinclined to commit himself to support of Stilwell’s plan. What help, he asked, had been absolutely promised for the Burma campaign? Unless the British contributed that amphibious attack in the South, the whole affair was sure to fail.