Saturday, 23 September
Dull
In the afternoon, Vice-Foreign Minister Lozovski asked me to go to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to reply to me with regard to the proposed visit of Minister Song to the Soviet authority. He said he was instructed to reply, saying that the Soviet Government was now considering a date for Minister Song to visit Moscow. (He had prepared a piece of paper and read from it accordingly.) I asked him if the date was the only question. He said yes. I asked him to inform me immediately if the Soviet Government decided on the date. He answered “naturally”. I said in my personal opinion it would be better for the Soviet Government to decide upon this as early as possible so that he could come earlier. He said he would report to his Government. On returning back to the Embassy I reported to Minister Song via telegram. I then discussed this matter with Shaozhou and Jingchen. Probably for the Soviet side they had to consider its relationship with Japan and the international environment. Even though for China the Soviet Union had to contemplate for a while before inviting Minister Song. The Soviet reply was just as I expected.
Attaché Tang listened to the Central broadcast. The broadcast said, according to diplomatic news, that the Xinjiang Commissioner had been transferred back to the Foreign Ministry. The vacancy was to be taken over by Liu Zerong (劉澤榮)[1] When Shaozhou heard this he felt anxious. I also felt uneasy too. The Xinjiang negotiations are so difficult, and I had no way of finding anybody to replace him. Therefore I cabled Minister Song immediately asking him if it was the Central Government’s idea. If so, I begged him to find a way to cancel the appointment because Moscow is the hub of managing Sino-Soviet matters. I expected that there would be many pending issues here in the near future, and they would be much more important than local incidents in Xinjiang.
[1] Liu Shaozhou.