Saturday, 23 January

Eighteenth day of the twelth lunar month

At 10.00 I went to Taoyuan to visit President Yu Youren (于右任)[1] to bid farewell. He ha long advocated a pro-Soviet view, and gave me much advice. He urged me to change to a car after arriving at Anxi by plane so I would have a much clearer idea of the highways there. He also told me that I should not have high hopes, but not to be disappointed. These remarks reflected his deep understanding of the Soviet Union.

At 4.00 in the afternoon, Minister Song held a tea party to celebrate the signing of the two new Sino-British and Sino-American treaties in the Hall of the Military Committee. I told him that I wouldn’t be able to leave by the end of this month. He also said that the Generalissimo preferred me to defer my departure day until 6 February. Then I would have more time to study policies towards the Soviet Union. So I decided to leave Chongqing on 6 February. I then asked Departmental Chief Li Weiguo (李惟果) to inform Chief Command Mao Bangchu to prepare on my behalf. We watched drama after some refreshment. It was “Guchenghui”, which was performed by the Propaganda Department’s drama study class. The performance was quite good.

At 7.00, Director Jiang Tingfu (蔣廷黻)[2] invited me to the Executive Yuan, 他和Soviet Ambassador Alexander Panyushkin was also there. I left earlier and went to Wu Tiechen’s place as natives of Guangdong had invited me to a farewell dinner. There were several tens of people. During the dinner Wu Tiecheng hailed Wu Shangying as “Teren Wu”. He also said that there were two cliques in the Legislative Yuan. One was headed by Liang Hancao (梁寒操)[3], the other was the English bloc, with me as the leader. After my departure, Wu Shangying should replace me. It seemed these words were targeted at Wu Shangying. Afterwards Xie Baoqiao told me that two weeks earlier at Sun Fo’s, it was rumoured that Wu Tiecheng also wanted to be Ambassador. Wu Shangying said Wu Tiecheng was never to be a specially appointed official, and he expected Wu Tiecheng would accept. These words were passed to Wu Tiecheng, and this was the reason for the revenge tonight. Wu Shangying was careless with his words and should take it as a lesson. We should also take heed the mistake of a friend to warn ourselves, and be watchful with words.

[1] Yu Youren (1879-1964) was a politician and a famous calligrapher.

[2] Jiang Tingfu (1895-1965) had studied at Oberlin College and Columbia University. He was a historian and diplomat.

[3] Liang Hancao (1899-1975) was a Cantonese literati and an official of the Nationalist Government.