21

Saturday, 21 October

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Saturday, 21 October

Fine

 

At 11.30 a.m. I went to visit the Canadian Minister Wilgress and had a long talk. He told me as follows: 1) Besides discussing European military matters, Churchill and Eden’s visit to Moscow also touched on political issues which centred on the Polish Incident. Though Eden told him substantial progress has been made, he was still very pessimistic because the Soviet Union not only did not give way, it also tried to retract what it had promised earlier. For instance in the past the Soviet Union declared that they would adopt the Curzon Line as the basis of negotiation, for areas to the East of that line if the residents were in the majority Polish, then they could be given to Poland. But now the Soviet Union said it was not negotiable because now after the Red Army has occupied that area, the Soviet Union has nationalised all the big industries and adopted the collective system in the villages. If they were returned to Poland and returned back to the old system there would be bad effects. Therefore they could only completely use the Curzon Line for border negotiation. Also the Polish exile government still insisted the five political parties form the basis of a government. As for the Polish Committee of National Liberation, they insisted that the Polish Committee of National Liberation should be the core of the government. Prime Minister Mikolajczyk was still greatly suspicious towards the Polish Committee of National Liberation and the Soviet Union. Particularly his concern was that Vice- Chairman Witos of the Polish Committee of National Liberation has been forced to resign recently. Mikolajczyk was afraid that his small number of followers after separating with the comrades in the London exile government would have the same fate when they went to Lublin and would be teased by people. Minister Wilgress also said in the past the Soviet side declared that it had no territorial ambition towards Germany many times so all sides thought that East Prussia should be given to Poland to compensate its loss in the East. But this time the Soviet Union suggested areas around Konigsberg be given to the Soviet Union, and advocated to giving Pomerania of Germany Proper to Poland, which made him even more pessimistic, because for the opening of Poland, along the Vistula River, Danzig was a most important place. But Konigsberg was to the East of Danzig, it could not only control Danzig but also control all Poland. The second opening for Poland was to go alongside the Oder River to Stettin. But if Poland took the Pomeranian area from Germany Proper as compensation, Poland had to move more than 9 million German people, it would be problematic whether Poland would have the power to do so. After five years when people in the world forget the brutality of German aggression, they would certainly be sympathetic to Germany and Poland would find it even more difficult to cope with the situation. Therefore what the Polish Government demanded earlier was the industrial area around Upper Silesia, and a small part of the port to the West of Danzig because in those two places the German residents and Polish residents are half and half, there was no need to move many Germans and therefore would not be very difficult to handle. Also they were afraid they would plant vengeance with the German side which it would be unable to solve, and militarily speaking the Soviet Union imposed control, and in this sense they would become Soviet tools forever. All in all, Britain and the United States would absolutely disagree with giving the land to the East of the Oder River to Poland. 2) He thought that Churchill did not mention Far Eastern issues because the United States was at the core of the issues, therefore Churchill did not dare to discuss this with Stalin behind Roosevelt’s back. Though Stalin mentioned Japanese aggression in banquets several times, his aim was that he tried to prove the aggressors have made various preparations which the peace lovers are not aware of so the latter have been placed at a great disadvantage. What Stalin said seemed to be perfunctory to the United States and praised its achievements, but was not proving that the Soviet Union would join the war in the Far East. 3) He talked to Marshall Brooke and General Ismay about the military situation in Europe, they thought that the European war would not end until the early summer of next year because now the German army has retreated to the most advantageous defence lines because Aachen is mountainous and the German army could easily defend it while in the North there are many rivers and quagmires which are hard to invade. Also the Germans were hopeless and they would bravely defend their lands. 4) With regard to the German question, although Churchill and Eden talked to Stalin and Molotov many times, but neither side raised substantial plans. What the European Advisory Commission could reach consensus on was the terms of ending the war. Even military occupation hasd not yet made any progress, and industrial management is far from being conclusive. Therefore though both sides have talked about the issues, they have no final decisions yet as they thought that it was too early to do so. 5) I asked him what he thought about Walter Lippmann’s opinion that Britain and the United States shouldn’t interfere in the incidents in Eastern Europe. He said it was impossible, in particular the Polish Incident because recently regarding the Warsaw Incident people outside were even more sympathetic to Poland. 6) British and American reporters here have been very pessimistic about the visit of Churchill and Eden, some of them even referred to it as a “Second Munich”. This seems to be too much. Churchill told him that when the negotiation between him and Stalin could be made public completely in the future, the world would understand how rewarding this Moscow trip has been. I abstracted the conversation and reported to the Generalissimo, Minister Song, and Vice-President Kung.

 

Yesterday the Communist Monthly Bolshevik published an article which discussed the Chinese war. It commented that the Central Government was unable to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party which meant China could not use its full force to fight against Japan. It is a great pity. The wording seemed not to be too severe.

 

The British broadcast said the Generalissimo has cabled Roosevelt to congratulate him for the successful landing of the American army in the Philippine islands. Just as the Generalissimo said, this landing has made the people of our whole country very delighted.

 

I received a telegram from Bingkun on 10 October. He said he arrived at Duyun on 9 October. Only then did he learn that Jinpei and Qiongfang have automatically gone to Guiyang on 26 September. During this hard time they still cannot cooperate, I felt very sad about this. I immediately cabled Bingkun and asked the whereabouts of Jinpei, and I tried to relieve him.

 

With regard to the visit of Churchill and Eden, both the British and Soviet sides formally announced the results. We read through the lines that for the Balkans Britain and the Soviet Union both agreed on a dividing sphere of influence. But the Polish Incident hasn’t yet been solved.

 

In the evening the Egyptian Minister and his wife invited me for dinner at their hotel.  I was the guest of honour. Minister Wilgress and his wife, the New Zealand Minister Boswell, and the newly-dispatched First-Class Secretary Alexander and his wife sat at the same table. After dinner we had a chat. The New Zealand Minister Boswell strongly advocated that people in the Diplomatic Corps should make speeches in rotation. Minister Wilgress said that was not easy and I agreed. Secretary Alexander said after Xu Mo and others arrived in Australia, Australians completely changed their concept towards the Chinese because in the past Chinese staying in Australia were mainly Chinese workers, and Australians haven’t come into contact with knowledgeable Chinese.