Chongqing, Wang’s residence

Saturday, 16 December 

Wang Chonghui received a cablegram from Kunming, saying Sun Fo would come here by the morning flight. After having lunch in the Daisanyuan restaurant, I, Xie Baochao, Chen Qingyun, Liu Weichi, Tianjuan and Wang Chonghui went to the airport to welcome him. It happened that Li Jishen, Chen Cheng and Jiang Guangnai (蔣光鼐)[1] took the Euro-Asia plane to Guangxi so we saw them off as well. We met Huang Qixiang(黃琪翔)[2] along the way. He said he would lead the Twelfth Group Army to the Fifth War Zone. At 1.00 p.m. Sun Fo arrived at the airport. Then we went to the Daisanyuan restaurant again with him. I, and Wang Chonghui only stayed for a while and left earlier to take a rest at home. Wang Chonghui discussed with me that we need not inform Sun Fo about General Chiang’s attitude regarding the Sino-Soviet Commercial Treaty as this would give Sun Fo a bad impression beforehand, and this in turn might pose unnecessary difficulty for the negotiations. I strongly agreed with him.

At 4.00 Sun Fo went to his new house in the Jialing New Estate but still it was not yet ready for habitation. So I gave my room to him and moved to the small room downstairs. Sun Fo reported the latest situation in Europe as well as the latest anecdotes as follows: 1) Britain. He had stayed in Britain for merely ten days and met all the important people. Apart from the Foreign Minister he had seen the two Deputy Ministers. At the beginning Guo Taiji (郭泰祺)[3] said that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Rab Butler was not that important. Later it was understood that the status of Butler was almost the same as the Foreign Minister. It was because the Foreign Minister, Lord Halifax, was in the Upper House. But as a matter of fact the House of Commons was the most important. Butler handled enquiries in the House of Commons swimmingly as he had substantial standing. When Sun Fo talked to Butler he found that his attitude towards China was quite good. Winston Churchill was on the rise in British politics because during the past five years he has been criticizing the British Government saying that it should not help Adolf Hitler and advocating coming to an understanding with Soviet Union, which proved to be the most sensible of policies. When Sun Fo talked to him, he still advocated understanding between Britain and the Soviet Union. He quite admired the resistance war of our country, saying that a Chinese victory had been decided. Churchill also said that the British prospect was harder than for China, because according to his observation, if Britain and France was only against Germany, by adopting the current blockade method, Germany would be unable to hold up after one and a half years. What he feared was that at that time when Germany could not hold on it would declare the adoption of Communism, (As a matter of fact the control policy of Germany was not so different from Communism. The only difference was that it still recognized “so-called” ownership. If this was relinquished then it would not be difficult to convert to Communism) which would be hard to handle. If the Soviet Union joined the German side, the blockade would be of no avail and the war might continue for ten or twenty years. As for whether Britain would sacrifice China in order to come into business with Japan, Churchill said Britain would absolutely not do it. He said “I’ll take care of China’s interests in the cabinet.” Lloyd George was already 77 years old but he still looked quite robust and healthy. He was quite good to China, saying even six Japans could not win China, which had proved its failure. Now China must score the victory. Churchill said Britain was facing many difficulties, and he was quite critical of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, saying he was absolutely incapable and was not qualified for the post. Churchill thought that Chamberlain was particularly wrong concerning the Soviet Union, of which the latter dispatched a fourth-class Secretary (Churchill referred to Shiang) to negotiate contractual matters with the Soviet Union. Churchill thought that it was particularly ridiculous. He was also highly critical of people in the French government. He said Clemenceau, Poincaré, Briand of France in the past were quite good, but now Daladier was absolutely incompetent. He said “What is Daladier? Some Frenchmen called him a bull but he is a bull with the horns of a snail.” 1. Anthony Eden: In the spring, a group of young Conservatives wanted to support him to be in power, so at the time he was quite popular. Nevertheless he was actually a timid person who did not dare oppose the Conservatives’ leaders. So various sides were extremely disappointed with him. Now he was downgraded to be a second-class figure. The Labour and Liberal leaders were both good to China. They absolutely did not agree to cooperate with the Conservatives as they were dissatisfied with the big three, Chamberlain, Sir John Simon, and Sir Samuel Hoare, who were in power. 2. The Soviet Union: The reason why Britain, France and the Soviet Union could not communicate was completely the fault of the British. Sending Shiang was already a mistake. From the military aspect, the Soviet Union originally asked Britain to dispatch a chief-of-staff and France a General Commander, but it turned out that Britain and France could not do so accordingly. Instead they only sent out second-class personnel. The Soviet Union negotiated with them reluctantly. After two weeks the Soviet Union asked them to show their plenipotentiary documents, nevertheless they could not. After one week cablegrams arrived, saying they were formerly sent to the Soviet Union but still they did not have plenipotentiary documents. The Soviet Union was quite unhappy about it, and thought Britain and France insincere in negotiation. Therefore, it made up its mind to come to an agreement with Germany. Otherwise the alliance among Britain, France and the Soviet Union would have long been established, and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact would be absolutely unsuccessful, and the European situation would not be like that. Yang Jie has done many absurd things in the Soviet Union recently. When Sun Fo arrived at the Soviet Union, he discussed with Yang Jie borrowing money from the Soviet Union. Yang Jie said it must be hopeless and was not good to raise the issue. But when Sun Fo negotiated the issue with the Soviet authority, it was immediately agreed. There was no difficulty at all. This was enough to prove Yang Jie was not familiar with the situation in the Soviet Union. As for the sexual scandal of Yang Jie in Paris, it happened that Wang Zheng and Zhang Kan (張侃) printed an advertisement for a female clerk in newspapers on behalf of Yang Jie. Zhang Kan selected several young and pretty ones. They did not have any formal duties. Yang Jie asked them to dance with him for entertainment and even asked them to sleep with him. They were extremely unhappy, saying that they came here for normal jobs but not to be whores. They then reported to the police. The police sent its staff to our embassy to investigate the case. Ambassador Gu Weijun replied to confirm that it was our governmental organ, but what it did he absolutely did not know. When the police realized that was a diplomatic structure it was therefore inappropriate to investigate the case deeply. Also, Yang Jie gave some money to the unhappy women so the case was barely settled. Furthermore, in issuing passports to Jews to travel to Shanghai, Huang Zhen received 1,500 French francs in return. As he had issued several ten thousand in total, the money he made was considerable. According to the French government’s investigation this was also related to Yang Jie. Sun Fo said recently that Huang Zhen spent money very lavishly. Besides having a new car, he also had a villa in Versailles, he could not do so if he was not involved in embezzlement. As for Italy its construction was recently quite good. Count Ciano was not beneficial for China. There was gossip about the dissolute behaviour of him and his wife. He certainly had many mistresses. He did it openly and did not care about the words of other people. His wife also had many gigolos too. It was rumoured that she happened to see a certain young man who was quite handsome and she liked him. She asked his followers and knew that he was a junior office worker in the navy. She immediately asked someone to introduce her. Only several days later the said young man joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a quite senior office worker and accompanied her everywhere day and night.

Wu Tiecheng invited us to have dinner at Guotai restaurant. Sun Fo was the principal guest and there were many Cantonese natives there. On returning home I talked with Sun Fo for a long time and told him the latest situation between the KMT and the CCP. I also told him a little about matters in Guangxi. Until 10.00 when President H.H. Kung came to visit Sun Fo, I left his room and went to bed early.

[1] Jiang Guangnai(1888-1967) was a militarist from Dongguan, Guangdong.

[2] Huang Qixiang(1898-1970) was a Cantonese(Hakka) military leader. He was against Chiang Kai-shek on many occasions, such as his participation in the Fujian People’s Government.

[3] Guo Taiqi (1889-1952) was a famous Chinese diplomat in the Nationalist era. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.