Monday, 28 February

Fine, sun

The Generalissimo has not yet sent the Red Army Festival congratulatory telegram.  For the last few days I have been deeply worried about it. Normally I shouldn’t ask but eventually I found it too important. I am here and I need to know what my status is and then I can handle matters. So I cabled Deputy Minister Wu to ask, on the pretext that I was afraid that it was delayed by the telegraph company and I asked him to investigate and check.

Military Attaché Guo sent me the Military Ministry instruction telegram. 1) Tōjō is concurrently the army Chief of General Staff, and Gong Shun is the Deputy, Shimada Shigetarō (嶋田繁太郎)[1] is concurrently the Minister of Military Commander of the Japanese navy. The instruction is to make the army commanded in a better way and to work in harmony with the military administration, so as to strengthen the fighting organisation. 2) According to the captive testimony, (a) the enemy army wants to gradually reduce fighting from now on and wants to have a decisive battle with the Allied navy in good time. (b) The Japanese have developed fighting direction in the Pacific. The tactic is to use one plane to attack one Allied warship. (c) The enemy will transfer many troops stationed in China to Japan Proper and Nanyang. (d) There are no battleships in the Japanese sea or the China Sea.

The British Foreign Minister Eden reported to Parliament, saying “the British Government has neither agreed nor been asked to agree to a sphere of influence concept of the recognition of Europe.” He also said that the future is filled with difficulty, and diplomatic difficulty is, in particular, the most difficult to deal with. This is a most difficult time in British history, and all the most trying issues need a deep mutual understanding of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. Probably after Churchill’s speech the British and Americans thought Britain gave too many concessions to the Soviet Union, and are suspicious towards Britain and the Soviet Union, so Eden had no such explanation. As a matter of fact British diplomacy is in great difficulty, and the British should know that things have changed and they need to change their attitude accordingly.

600 Soviet planes bombarded the Finnish capital yesterday. With such a small city like this experiencing such large-scale explosions its people must have had much suffering. Small states that want to take advantage of the danger of large states should be doomed to have such a result. I supposed Finland should surrender soon, as at the moment there is no hope of success, it is better to surrender earlier.

At 6.00 p.m., the body of Mrs Ivan was moved from the Embassy to the church. We are preparing for the funeral tomorrow. I have asked Steward Li to attend to it.

[1]Shimada Shigetarō (1883-1976) was an Admiral in the Japanese navy.