Monday, 22 September
The Nationalist Government United Memorial Week service was changed to be held at 8.00 a.m. I went there with Qian Tai, and introduced him to Chen Lifu and others. Zhang Doufan (張道藩)[1] asked Wang Chonghui to invite me to concurrently take up the post of Departmental Head of the Department of Diplomacy in the Central Political School. I listed two reasons to decline:
1) I did not want others to suspect that I wanted to nurture my own power, and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I had to treat every person fairly. If a section of the staff were my students I would have to be in touch with them more frequently. Even though I was impartial, not everyone would think that. Also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be divided into many factions, which would be bad for me in private and official terms. Xu Mo, in his time, had been criticised and I did not want to follow his wrong path. Even for the school it was no good, as those in charge of the school should make students focus on their knowledge. If they had knowledge they did not have to worry about their jobs. When they were in school, they had relations with the administrative staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was no different to encouraging them to find shortcuts before finishing their studies. This would have a bad influence on the students’ psychology, which I thought was inappropriate.
2) I have no experience of teaching. I am different from Xu Mo. Now I am so busy I do not have time to prepare for classes. If I only took the post by name and did not do anything, I could never do so. This morning Zhang Duofan and Mr. Chen Guofu still wanted to convince me to take the job, but I have made up my mind so I declined.
In the afternoon, Minister Guo Taiji sent me the telegram which Ambassador Gu Weijun sent yesterday, reporting his meeting with the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden. The overall content was as follows:
1) The United States had told Britain that with regard to the negotiations between the United States and Japan over Pacific issues, it must seek agreement beforehand with China, and other related countries.
2) The United States claimed that it would not change the measures it imposed on Japan, and would be the same as British policy over Japan. It could also guarantee that it would not change its economic sanctions over Japan. Recently, a certain section of the British Empire wanted to sell a small amount of mine production to Japan, and Eden had stopped the transaction.
3) Eden also heard the United States suggested to Japan that it recognise Vietnam as a neutral zone and asked the Japanese army to withdraw from the zone. The United States had also urged Japan to withdraw from the Axis.
4) Eden heard that the economic sanctions had made Japan suffer inconvenience, pushing it to reflect whether it was advantageous or disadvantageous to work with the Axis, but he found that Japan was still not sufficiently aware and thought a change in its policy was necessary.
5) Eden got the news that Japan seemed not to be invading South China via Vietnam, but he agreed not to be relaxed.
6) Eden said that Soviet military power in the Far East was, as a matter of fact, not diminishing.
7) Only until recently had Britain’s military preparation become substantial with the potential to achieve something. However, as the Soviet Union was in urgent need, Britain had to transfer a portion of its planes and an enormous amount of ammunition ordered from the United States to aid the Soviet Union.
8) If Japan invaded the Chinese portion of the Yunnan-Burma Road and the British air force joined the resistance, it would lead to war against the Japanese, so it had to discuss in detail in the War Cabinet.
9) With regard to negotiation regarding the opening of the China-India air route and the extension of the route from Rangoon to Calcutta, Eden agreed to discuss this again with the Indian and Burmese departments, and he thought India’s opposition to taking passengers in planes was meaningless. Therefore, we could see that the British attitude was positive.
[1] Zhang Daofan (1897-1968) was a politician who had studied art in London.