#5-602
Editorial Summary of Meetings with Yu Ta-wei, John Leighton Stuart,
and C. P. Lee
December 4–5, 1946 Nanking, China
Yu Ta-wei, December 4, 11:00 A.M.
Marshall said he was still awaiting a formal reply from Yenan to his November 29 request for a statement on whether the Communist party wished mediation to continue. They then discussed the leak to the local press of the minutes Marshall had given General Yu of his November 16 meeting with Chou En-lai.
Yu discussed events at the National Assembly meeting, particularly with regard to the draft constitution. The government should adopt the P.C.C. draft “without disrupting it by amendments and tricky phrases,” Marshall thought. If subsequently the State Council were reorganized and reorganization of the Executive Yuan begun, and if vacant seats were left on those bodies for the Communists and the Democratic League, this would place the Communists “in a rather difficult position” vis-à-vis public opinion. While this was being done, Marshall suggested, the Generalissimo should send a representative privately to Yenan to discuss ways the Communist party might come into the National Assembly. Marshall hoped the Generalissimo would avoid making a public statement about this, because “that would invite the usual Communist reaction of distrust and suspicion.” Meanwhile, the government should cease aggressive actions and not “resort to much abused ‘self-defensive’ measures” against Communists. He was encouraged by an apparent relaxation of government pressure on the independent press.
He “disagreed entirely,” Marshall told Yu, with Chiang Kai-shek’s belief that: (1) now that the government had better roads and communications, it could defeat the Communists in eight to ten months; (2) the agrarian population backed the government and could continue to save China from economic collapse. Recently, he noted, for the first time the Export-Import Bank had rejected loans for two projects he had supported, because there was “not sufficient prospect of amortization.” The problem, Marshall thought, resulted from the character of the Nationalist government, the open corruption in it, and its militaristic policy. (Foreign Relations, 1946, 10: 584–88.)
John Leighton Stuart, December 5, 10:00 A.M.
Marshall told the ambassador that he had just received a letter from Chou En-lai saying that the Communists would resume negotiations only if the National Assembly was dissolved and government troops returned to their positions as of the January 13 cease-fire order. (See ibid., pp. 590–91.) Dr. Stuart recommended that the United States support the National Government, provided it ceased hostilities, reformed the Kuomintang, and reorganized. Since the government always claimed to be fighting in self-defense, Marshall responded, he doubted that the government could stop hostilities unilaterally. He also doubted that the army could be much reduced, given the problem of guarding long communications lines against an enemy the Generalissimo had vowed to destroy.
Marshall recounted his various efforts to break the power of the reactionaries in the National Government; he, unlike Stuart, thought it unlikely that Chiang Kai-shek would break with the group. The previous evening, Marshall recalled, he and his wife had dined with the Soviet ambassador, who demonstrated considerable curiosity concerning Marshall’s assessment of the current situation in China. Marshall was critical of Kuomintang reactionary elements and how the Communists had played into their hands through their suspicions and refusal to negotiate. Marshall expected the ambassador to report the conversation to the Chinese Communists.
Chou En-lai’s letter, in Marshall’s view, “was tantamount to Communist acceptance of the Generalissimo’s challenge to settle the issue by force.” Dr. Stuart believed that the United States should continue its present policy toward China in the hope that the government would be reformed. Stuart also thought that such strengthening of the National Government would surprise and give pause to the Communists. Marshall thought there were practical and political difficulties to announcing a new U.S. government policy and getting the public to accept it. (Ibid., pp. 591–94.)
C. P. Lee, December 5, 11:00 A.M.
General Lee told Marshall that the U.S. government’s (i.e., Marshall’s) policy of not rendering financial assistance to a China engaged in civil war would have a beneficial effect on the situation. “General Marshall retorted that he could not see what was good about it, since actually the Chinese people would suffer from it instead of the rival political parties.” Lee was reluctant to give up hope for continued negotiations even after Marshall outlined Chou En-lai’s response to the November 29 request. The Communist party had done practically what the CC clique and the militarists in the Kuomintang had wanted them to do since April, Marshall concluded; consequently, it “had practically defeated” his mission. (Ibid., pp. 594–95.)
Recommended Citation: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed. Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981– ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 5, “The Finest Soldier,” January 1, 1945–January 7, 1947 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 752–753.