A similar incident occurred at Chefoo, a port on the northern coast of the province of Shantung. The cruiser USS Louisville and several destroyers were about to steam off to land a detachment of American marines when Yenan got wind of their plan. General Chu announced that if American forces disembarked at Chefoo, the Communist Eighth Route Army would not understand, since there were no Japanese nearby and they were in control of the area. Such a move would lead the Communists to believe that the United States was interfering with internal Chinese matters. Three days later, General Chu sent word to U.S. military headquarters that if the landing took place without a previous agreement with the CCP and there was trouble, the responsibility would lie with the Americans. He also broadcast this message on the radio. Although the American ships were already in the harbor at Chefoo, their commanders recommended that the landing be aborted. Nevertheless, some of the U.S. ships remained in the area to see what was going on. According to them, there was a great deal of traffic between the Chinese Communists in Chefoo and the Russians in Dairen as well as between the members of the CCP in Chefoo and those in Hulutao and Yingkow.
Meanwhile, Chiang clung desperately to old self-defeating resentments, and his attempts to rehabilitate Manchuria, occupied by the Japanese during the war, exemplify his shortsightedness. There was what one author called “general agreement” among Manchurians that the Young Marshal was the only leader who could still generate sufficient support for the Nationalists in the area. But Chiang, still angry with Chang for the Sian Incident, refused even to discuss releasing him for duty. Instead he divided the three Manchurian provinces into nine separate areas and appointed nine nonentities— none of whom had ever been contaminated by associating with the Manchurian house of Chang—to govern them. He also named the former governor of the southern province of Kiangsi to head the Manchurian government and chose his son Chiang Ching-kuo as special commissioner for foreign affairs in charge of dealing with the Russians.
Chiang’s attitude toward the Young Marshal was typical of his animosity toward anyone who had worked for or been forced to work with the Japanese, even those innocents who had been left behind to survive under enemy occupation. The Chinese people, who thought that the end of the war signaled freedom, were sadly disillusioned by what one American called the “Chinese carpetbaggers” sent to take over by the Nationalist government. “Today there is no such thing as a modest percentage of squeeze,” observed one American; “… everyone is out to get just as much as he can.”
We’ve been expecting the central government,
We’ve been longing for the central government.
But once they come, they are worse than the plague.
ran a ditty that gained popularity among the Chinese people. And with good reason. Officials sent to the provinces from Chungking behaved, according to Crozier, like “locusts. Everything was for confiscation: gold, houses, cars, women. On their lips, the word ‘Chungking’ meant ‘Open, Sesame,’ giving them rights without limit. Collaborators were rounded up and thrown into gaol, but only after bribes in cash or kind had been extorted from them as a guarantee of freedom from arrest.”
IN SPITE OF his feelings toward T. V. Soong, Chiang, who always called on him when the government was in trouble, had done so again in 1944. Described by an Oxford professor of political science Sir Arthur Salter as “one of the most notable figures in both national and international politics,” T.V. was looked upon as an economist of celebrity status in the higher reaches of Washington but not so well regarded at home. According to Howard Boorman,* he was “often criticized in China because of family relationships. Although he often was on less-than-cordial terms with Chiang Kai-shek and H. H. Kung, he nevertheless was invariably associated with them as a target of public censure.” But even more important than questions of family probity were issues of incompetence, and it was T.V. who had to tackle the inflation his brother-in-law Kung had left behind when Chiang removed him as finance minister in 1944.
As the person primarily responsible for dealing with runaway prices, T.V. became more and more discouraged throughout the year following the declaration of peace. At the end of the war, China’s reserves in gold and dollars had stood at U.S. $900 million, but by December 1946, they had dropped to about half that amount. Interest on bank loans was running 15 to 28 percent a month. UNRRA had shipped most of $658 million worth of food, clothing, and capital equipment; the American Export-Import Bank had issued credits of nearly $83 million; and the Canadians had sent credits of another $60 million. But, as Crozier put it, “many of the supplies and much of the cash went into the private stores or bank accounts of Kuomintang officials or ministers.” According to Arthur Young, financial adviser to the Chinese government, the balance of trade for 1946 was “unfavourable,” with officially recorded imports amounting to $605 million while exports added up to only $161 million. “If the large unrecorded amount of illicit trade were added,” Young wrote, “the result would probably be even more unfavourable.”
James McHugh, Donald’s old friend who was head of Far East intelligence, tells a typical story about UNRRA, which tried to hire him. It seems that by the summer of 1946, only about 50,000 tons of supplies had been moved out of the Shanghai warehouses, which were stacked up with 250,000 tons of goodies provided by the United Nations. Someone made a deal with the U.S. Navy to move the cargo up the Yangtze and to other ports free of charge except for the fees to be paid to the pilots of the boats. The Chinese demurred, saying that they would lose face by allowing the U.S. Navy to move their supplies. The navy then sent them a bill for $250,000 instead of the original $15,000 it would have charged. Clearly, someone (or someones) pocketed the difference.
In the summer of 1946, Ching-ling issued a statement protesting the presence of American soldiers in China as a detriment to peace, asked the American people to review their policy of loans given only to Chiang, and called for a coalition government. In an article entitled “Madame Sun— China’s ‘Conscience,’ ” published in The New York Times Magazine, reporter Henry R. Lieberman explained that Ching-ling was not herself a Communist*—“a left-wing Democrat yes, but not a Communist… she believes that sweeping land reforms and a coalition Government with Communists and other parties participating are the answers to China’s present ills.” At the same time as the article about Ching-ling appeared in the Times, an assessment of the current American attitude toward China arrived for May-ling from Emma. “I have heard various tried and trusted friends of China of late express considerable pessimism,” she wrote. “The feeling is that if the present government would institute some real measure of reform, the ground would pretty much be cut from under the feet of the opposing side. They suggest that new blood is needed among the leaders. Also, they feel no confidence whatever in the outcome of large scale fighting.… I pass this on for what it is worth, but I think it is a fair boiling down of a fairly widespread point of view, from people who have long terms of service in the country, some of whom are very recently returned. Some Chinese even share it.”*
From Washington, Wedemeyer sent his friend T.V. a letter along the same lines, recommending that the Chinese government concentrate its effort and resources south of the Great Wall. Learning from the Communist example, Wedemeyer stressed the point that
we should concentrate on one area where we should build roads, railroads, improve internal waterways, create airlines, inaugurate social and tax reforms, minimize corruption in government, facilitate existing and create new industries. Nothing, T.V., that we might do would be more effective against the spread of communism… than the successful execution of the above program. I am certain that the vast majority of the Chinese people do not accept communistic ideologies. However, at the present time it is difficult for them to choose because they experience terrible living conditions, corruption in government and continued chaos.
Wedemeyer also suggested that rich Chinese follow the example of many American families [who had] amassed great fortunes… that wo
uld have jeopardized the economic stability of this country, had… [they]… not expended large sums on public institutions such as hospitals, libraries, schools, educational foundations, scientific research, public recreational facilities, all of which contributed to the well-being and contentment of large masses of people in the country.… My suggestion… is that you organize such philanthropies among the wealthiest families of China.” Wedemeyer, who said he had “investigated holdings and deposits here” (i.e., in the United States), offered to share “information that would indicate most of the Chinese families who have amassed great fortunes and who would be in a position to cooperate.”
But at the end of December of 1946, T.V. told Chiang’s PR man, John Beal:
I would to God that Chang Chun [head of the Political Science Clique of the Nationalist Army] could become Prime Minister. I have done it for two years and it has worn me out.… There is no one who wants my job now. There is no one who is willing to do the things that are necessary, because they are unpopular. And if China collapses, it will be my responsibility.… I’m almost afraid to talk to Marshall any more because he will think I want to borrow money. I don’t want to borrow money. This isn’t like America, where you can say, “All right, let the Republicans run the country for a while.” The alternative here is Communism. If China collapses, the Communists will take over.
PART SEVEN
1945–1949
46
He [Marshall] never says die and maybe he will wear the Chinese down instead of their doing him in.
—KATHERINE (MRS. GEORGE C.) MARSHALL, 1946
IN LATE December 1945, George Marshall arrived in China as President Truman’s personal representative. His instructions were to help create a unified China that could resist Stalin’s attempt to take over Manchuria by offering enough weapons to persuade the KMT and the CCP to unite to resist the Russians. The U.S. government had clearly failed to take into account the realities of the situation, as witness a memo issued in November 1945 in which Truman affirmed America’s “continued support of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Central Government of China,” while warning that “Americans must not participate in clashes between Chinese Forces” and “Americans must not be employed to facilitate Central Government operations against dissident groups within China [i.e., Communists].” Somehow, in some way, Marshall was supposed to help Chiang resist the CCP, reestablish America’s credentials as an impartial mediator between what White and Jacoby called “a vigorous, dynamic, cocksure Communist Party and a decadent, unprincipled, corrupt governing party,” and “persuade the two to discuss once more a subject they had been discussing for eight years without the slightest approach to solution.” It was a thoroughly unrealistic approach to what we today would call nation building, and diplomatic historian Herbert Feis explained it this way: “We had realized that it was essential to create a powerful military force to win the war. But we had not learned that it was no less essential to maintain an adequate military force in order to secure a satisfactory peace.… Blithely we thought that the world—even the Communist part of it—would be responsive to our pleas and our dollars.”
Marshall had not seen either Chiang or May-ling since Cairo, and his relationship with the former was improved by his “renewed encounter” with the latter. As one of his biographers put it, “To everyone else she was a high-powered female of fearsome personality, compared by some Americans to the Dragon Lady in ‘Terry and the Pirates,’* but in Marshall’s presence she seemed to melt into an adoring deb… she went out of her way to make him feel welcome, sending him gifts of candy, urging him to go out and ‘get some color in your cheeks.’ ” May-ling also lavished gifts and affection on Marshall’s wife, Katherine, to whom, she said, she could talk in the same way she spoke to her own sisters.
While Marshall was settling in to his new assignment, Chiang’s son Ching-kuo made a secret trip to Moscow to confer with Stalin about whether the Russians would allow the KMT to take over their holdings as they moved out of Manchuria. He met twice with the Russian leader and was briefed by Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s famous commissar of foreign affairs, who dubbed him a “very mediocre” young man. Stalin complained to Ching-kuo about the presence of U.S. troops in China. If the United States withdrew its soldiers, he said, he would help China build up heavy industry in Manchuria* and tell the CCP that it must support the Kuomintang. Molotov thought that by sending his son, Chiang was really trying to arrange a visit for himself, and Stalin suggested that the G-mo meet him in Moscow or somewhere on the border between their two countries. But Molotov was wrong in both his estimate of Ching-kuo and the reason for his visit. Chiang was worried about being put into a position where he would be pushed into agreeing to the coalition government that both the United States and the Soviets seemed to be trying to force on him, and he was afraid that if he refused, he might drive an angry Stalin into stronger support of the CCP. He ignored Marshall’s advice to meet with Stalin and declined the invitation.
The major stumbling block on the road to securing an accord between the Kuomintang and the Communists was the latter’s insistence that any settlement must be preceded by an agreement that did away with the one-party dictatorship of the KMT and gave the CCP power commensurate with the fact that it now dominated nearly a third of the country. But Chiang continued to demand obedience from the Communists—in both the military and administrative spheres—before he would even discuss political questions. In spite of this, on January 10, 1946, Marshall actually succeeded in getting two agreements between the KMT and the CCP—one political and one military. Having managed to bring the KMT, the Communists, the Democratic League, and several minor parties together, he convinced them to agree to a program whereby the dictatorship of the KMT would be abolished and an interim government composed of all parties would be put in its place. Plans were even discussed for a National Assembly to meet for the purpose of writing a new constitution. On the military side, the KMT and CCP agreed to a cease-fire on January 13 and the incorporation of Communist units into a new national army. Everyone from Wedemeyer—he had incurred Marshall’s wrath by telling him that there was not “the remotest chance” that he could make peace between the KMT and the CCP—to the U.S. State Department was amazed at Marshall’s success. His press attaché explained how the American general had dealt with the ever-stubborn generalissimo: “Inasmuch as you can not hope to obtain military victory over your opponents without massive American aid—which is ‘utterly out of the question’; and since, on the other hand, your opponents, the Communists, ARE in a position to obtain covert Soviet aid sufficient to overthrow you by force of arms, it follows that ‘the only hope of maintaining a sovereign China’ lies in a political settlement.… You must accordingly make the concessions necessary to achieve such a political settlement.”
After the agreements were made, Marshall left for the United States and Chiang sent May-ling on a brief visit to Manchuria to deliver a “special message of friendship” to the Russians. Pointing out that there were no two nations in the world with a longer common boundary than China and Russia, Madame Chiang told the guests at a celebratory banquet, “It is therefore my conviction that the future must hold for China and Soviet Russia common aspirations of live and let live, a policy which will benefit not only our two peoples but also those in every other part of the world.”
But three days after Marshall’s triumphant departure from China, when KMT officials, armed with gold pens and decorated scrolls, gathered to sign the agreements, Chou En-lai arrived with bad news. He was sorry to report that his instructions had changed and he could not sign for the CCP. Moreover, even while the peace talks were in progress, the Chinese Communists had continued to dispatch troops to widen the areas under their control. Taking advantage of the cease-fire, they had built up their strength in Manchuria, sending more than 130,000 soldiers into the area, all of whom disembarked at Soviet-controlled ports. They also continued their propaganda war, issuing regular news dispatches
from their headquarters. Since theirs was the only source of news—the talks were supposed to be secret and Nationalist journalists were afraid to incur Chiang’s wrath—they won plenty of hearts and minds to their cause. In addition, the Communists apparently had a spy system that was “just about a hundred per cent perfect.”
The Kuomintang did not behave much better than the Communists. The CC Clique encouraged anti-Communist demonstrations in order to sabotage the peace negotiations and tried to break up communications between Chou En-lai, head of the Communist delegation, and the other leaders of the CCP in Yenan. (Marshall was so disgusted that he gave Chou a radio to use for communicating with his home base and sent his own plane to take Chou from Chungking to Nanking.) The reactionaries “ran a steam-roller” over those who wished to abide by the agreements with the Communist Party, insisting that Chiang be given dictatorial powers and cutting CCP and other party participation to minor representation in any new government. In response, the Communists attacked the Manchurian railways and seized the Manchurian capital of Changchun.
The Last Empress Page 70
