Thursday, l8 May

Dry, sun

In the past few days the weather here has changed from bitter cold to hot summer. One perspires and needs to drink water outside. The weather here is extreme, and it is just like the people here. Probably the character of the people is connected to the weather.

I received a telegram from Minister Song, saying that the Military Committee has printed a leaflet called Neizheng wenti shiyi tiyao, which responds to the Chinese Communist Party’s renegade propaganda, and rectifies foreigners’ misunderstandings about China. The main points are as follows: 1) the Chinese Communist Party advocates new democracy, an anti-Japanese National United Front, the democratic political polity at the rear of the enemy, as well as the new social democratic system. These all cover its atrocities and scheming. 2) The Central Government has decided to convene the National Assembly one year following the end of the War of Resistance. 3) The Chinese Communist Party was formed by the instigation of the Comintern representative Grigori Voitinsky in 1921, the party roughly had 20,000 people. The cadres in the upper and middle levels were intellectuals. But the lowest were mainly ruffians with workers being no more than 6%. The said party declared that it was the result of the Chinese workers’ movements. This is completely opposite to the truth. 4) The Chinese Communist Party set up its government without permission, and owned a private army. With regard to tax, stamp and currency the Chinese Communist Party controls those on their own, and grows tobacco for smuggling, and so on. These are completely different from Communist parties in other countries which work within the limit of the law and try to gain support through doctrine. Their so-called land policy is to confiscate lands by force, but they will not relocate the lands to farmers. 5) The Chinese Communist Party declared it would relinquish the policy of turning others into Communists, the Red Army, and would obey the Three Principles of the People as well as the Central Government. But as a matter of fact they manipulated these to absorb local bandits, to expand their power, and adopted the tactic that when enemies came they would retreat. Recently the main troops which had 90,000 people returning to Shanbei, the vestiges of the New 4th Army which the Central Government has ordered to disband were still rampaging to the North of Suzhou. 6) The Central Government did station a large army in the Northwest for the War of Resistance but this was absolutely not for fighting the Chinese Communist Party. They thought of free action, so requested the abolition of the so-called blockade lines. The enemy had strong power to the rear of the battlefield. But the Chinese Communist Party only had no more than 40,000 people. The guerrillas were always on the move but not active in fighting. 7) In the 17th Army there were 100,000 people who had guns, but their combative strength was quite inferior. In the formative stage of the War of Resistance, the Central Government also paid them. Until the winter of 1940, it thought that they were disobedient and committed too many crimes, so the payment was halted. If the army is willing to turn around, the payment can be resumed. 8) The Chinese Communist Party made the rumour themselves, hurt the feelings of the Allies and broke China’s unity. These were consistent with the Chinese Communist Party. Central Government wanted to be generous and hoped to solve the problem by political means, and hoped the Chinese Communist Party could honour their promise of obeying the Government and jointly resising the enemy. When we talk to foreigners about the Chinese Communist Party we can use the eight points above as explanation. From these one can deduce that the Chinese Communist Party issue seems to be very serious. This is really the misfortune of our country. For those people who are patriotic people they will feel sad about it.

In the afternoon, the French representative Garreau visited me. He first asked me about the War of Resistance in China and the Chinese Communist Party. I told him about them briefly. He told me that after Smuts and Halifax and others had delivered speeches, though the British Government denied that it as its proposed policy, as a matter of fact, Churchill completely agreed with this. Therefore when Churchill returned from his recuperation in North Africa, on his way to Britain he made an appointment to see De Gaulle. He told De Gaulle face to face that originally Britain and France were old allies. When France collapsed, Britain had proposed the merging of Britain and France. Though this was unsuccessful due to various circumstances, Britain still endorsed this idea. So he proposed Britain and France should have economic cooperation first, and then they could enter into political cooperation. Charles de Gaulle had no choice but to agree because the liberation of France depensed solely upon Britain and the United States. When the Soviet Union learnt about this, it was very unhappy about it. It immediately convened a Central Executive Committee political meeting to discuss this for a long time. Some thought that geographically speaking France had no choice but should stay close to Britain. Also people around De Gaulle are on the whole conservatives. So in the future even if France is completely liberated, in the parliament the Democrats would still have a majority, therefore the Soviet Union should give up helping France. Some said that although the people around De Gaulle are mainly Rightists, but after this war, the French personnel in the occupied areas could turn to be Leftists. Therefore if the Soviet Union can use its full force to help De Gaulle, and to increase the strength of the Leftists around him, in the future if France Is liberated the power of its Leftists will be strengthened. If this is the case the power of the Soviet Union and Communism can hope to develop further. The matter has been debated for a long time but no decision made. So within the period of time the Soviet Union has not made any decisions towards the demands by the French side. For example some French in the Alsace-Lorraine were conscripted by Germany for the Front to fight. After they arrived at the Front lines, more than 2,000 people escaped to join the Soviet army. The French side asked the Soviet Union to allow them to set up an independent fighting group and to cooperate with the Red Army in fighting, or send them to North Africa. The Soviet side did not answer for a long time, but recently the proposal to continue to support De Gaulle has won, so the Soviet side is very accommodative to various requests from France. All in all, among Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union suspicion is still strong and they are guarding against each other. The future of world peace is very gloomy, and at the moment it also affects the Soviet Union’s towards Japan and China. It is very unfortunate.