Tuesday, 18 March

Twenty-first day of the second lunar month

The Hong Kong papers played me a mischievous trick on my immediate appointment as the first Consul-General in Hong Kong. Letters of congratulation and requests for assistance poured in continually the whole of last week. I explained to my friends there that the post has become so important, in view of its geographical position nowadays, no one but someone very intimate with the Generalissimo can hold it. I will not be asked and I will not be foolish enough to agree to undertake such work which I am sure I cannot perform to the satisfaction of my own conscience. In fact, what is a Consul-General to me, when I refused ten years ago a minister-ship from C.T. Wang (王正廷), later even an ambassadorship from Wang Chonghui? I do not say I am hypocritical enough to pose as if I enjoy the inconvenience of life but certainly I have never feared poverty in my life. I feel quite happy here in this remote corner of the world, when my honest conviction tells me it is my duty to do so rather than to ship to Hong Kong where I can be with my own people and enjoy myself. In fact, when I was there in 1939, I had the constant feeling that I was doing wrong to stay away from a Party and government which I have been attached to for the whole of my life. So I returned to Chungking though I had a very good excuse to remain there following my appointment as [Chair of] Acting Committee of the General Branch of Hong Kong and Macao.