Saturday, 7 August

At 11.00 a.m. we had a memorial service for Chairman Lin in the Embassy. The ceremony was according to the telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was simple and solemn. All the Embassy personnel and their families came to take part. We stood in silence, bowed and then dedicated flowers. Counsellor Chen Jingchen prepared the obituary and this was read by Secretary Gou. It only took about 20 minutes.

The Swedish Minister came and saw Military Attaché Guo. He said he was ill so he was unable to come on the afternoon of 4 August to pay condolences. He sent a representative to send a card, so he felt rather embarrassed. Feeling much better now, he came to explain. I was very gratified about that, and he is very good to China. We always asked him to find out things for us, and he always tried his best to fill in the details. He said yesterday he went to see Satō because of his illness. Satō said as follows. 1) Satō said the Soviet army was so strong. He kept reporting this to his government. But this time the Red Army performed better than he expected. The German army was still powerful, but Satō personally felt that it would be better for them if they retreated to places around the Dnieper River, and then retreated those German armies from Finland, in this way the German army might be able to guard their positions.  2) The Soviet army victory this time was due to their good military and political organisation. Satō also said that Japanese political and military organisation were poor, therefore he was deeply worried there might be trouble inside Japan itself. He also said that he was over 60 now and there was not a lot of time left in his life, he was only worried for his children and descendents. Probably Satō himself didn’t really agree with the Japanese warlords. 3) And he originally reckoned (probably most Japanese thought so) that the Americans had got used to good lives and that after two years of war, they would hate it and then the Japanese could talk to the Americans and try to divide the privileges in the Far East. But now, it seemed that they couldn’t forget the Pearl Harbor incident, therefore there was no hope of this. 4) Italy is hopeless now. Their defeat is only a matter of time. 5) China luckily has a good leader. (This is what Satō said, and the Swedish minister was rather surprised.) 6) It is very difficult to negotiate with the Soviet Union because they have no sentiment so only talk about the present advantages and disadvantages. If there is no advantage in exchange for them they won’t do anything. Satō talked with Lozovsky about all sorts of things here, but Lozovsky is not powerful enough to make decisions and he is prejudiced against the Japanese, and this made things even more difficult. Luckily he still has some economic activities (probably rubber in Nanyang, tin, and so on) and the fishing business to bargain with the Soviet Union. Also, the Sakhalin Islands could be used in negotiations.