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47.05.08CX(610w)
MEETING WITH THE CHINESE AMBASSADOR
May 8, 1947 Washington, DC
DR. Wellington Koo called at 11:30 a.m. to discuss possible US economic aid for his country; the meeting lasted seventy minutes. He began by praising Marshall's work at the Moscow Foreign Ministers Conference and asking the secretary for his impression of Soviet objectives. (Memorandum of Conversation, May 8, 1947, NA/RG 59 [Central Decimal File, 893.51/5-847]. This document was written by John Carter Vincent.)
"There is some lack of clarity both with regard to what Russia wants and with regard to methods employed," Marshall observed. "There can be little doubt that Russia desires to have a predominant influence in those countries on her borders both in Europe and the Far East. The techniques used to achieve this end, although they assume an ideological form, are not employed necessarily for the purpose of spreading an ideology. They are in fact techniques which might be employed by another ideology or -ism. I went on to explain how these techniques were applied in Austria, for instance; how they might be applied in Manchuria; and how they might be applied by an imperialistic Russia as well as by a socialist Russia, the objective being, and quite a normal one, of extending national power. I pointed out that it was not my intention to minimize the threat of communism as an ideology but simply to show how it served as a potent technique to achieve non-ideological ends."
Regarding China, Marshall said that he considered the Nationalist government's regulations regarding press censorship "unwise." Dr. Koo mentioned reparations the Chinese expected to receive from Japan. Marshall told him how uneconomic the Russians had found it to remove whole plants from eastern Germany, and that the Chinese government keep this in mind in its approach to reparations from Japan. He was "earnestly" and "personally interested in affording assistance to China," Marshall noted, and he "had been anxiously awaiting the time when it would be practicable to give aid. I welcomed the recent evidence of progress in the governmental changes in China but at the same time I noted that a Kuomintang political council had been established with Ch'en Li-fu as its Secretary-General. I had not had an opportunity to give a thorough study to this matter, and I did not want to pre-judge the new development, but I did feel that the establishment of this council under Ch'en Li-fu's direction was discouraging. It seemed to me to be an approach to the problem which in many respects resembled the attitude which I met while I was in China and which had so effectively frustrated my own efforts. I felt that no good could come from a Kuomintang political council as now constituted."
"I spoke of my deep discouragement over the course of military events in China and of myvery serious concern in this respect. I told Ambassador Koo, as I had told the Generalissimo, that he was the worst advised military commander in history and that I found no satisfaction in the current unhappy developments which proved that advice I had given the Generalissimo was correct and that which his military commanders had given him was not correct. The National armies were overextended and were expending their military strength. All the Communist armies had to do was go where the National armies weren't--and there was plenty of space for this type of movement."
Marshall asked the ambassador to prepare an informal memorandum setting forth China's financial assistance ideas rather than preparing a formal note to the US government. Marshall said he would study the matter and talk to Koo "on an informal and exploratory basis." *