Thursday, 31 August

Fine, quite warm

At 11.00 a.m. Harriman visited me with Nelson and Hurley. We talked for two hours. Nelson said that this trip to China had two aims. 1) The Generalissimo cabled President Roosevelt, saying that China needed daily necessities urgently, therefore he requested him to come to China to negotiate sending off thousands of tons of daily necessities to China first. 2) With regard to post-war economic reconstruction, he has already talked with Mr. Kung in the United States several times, and now it has come to the decisive stage. Therefore he should have concrete negotiations with Chairman Chiang. But on the Chinese side it should not expect too much from the United States, because it is a private capitalist country. No matter how enthusiastic Roosevelt and the other authorities of the United States are, it is absolutely impossible for the American Government to lend a lot of money to China, and allow the Chinese Government to distribute it freely. What the American Government could do was to try its best to encourage private investment, and to guarantee. Therefore what the American Government was most concerned about was firstly, whether China would have a civil war after winning the war against Japan, and secondly whether China and the Soviet Union could cooperate and if there was a danger of conflict. Therefore on their way to China they went to Moscow to speculate on the actual situation regarding Sino-Soviet relations. They asked me to tell them the facts. I told them that the Sino-Soviet relationship was not as bad as people outside rumoured. On the side of Chairman Chiang, he worked with Britain, and the United States to maintain world peace, and he was friendly towards the Soviet Union. These have been our policies since the onset of the War of Resistance. On the side of the Soviet Union, from the direct or indirect contacts with its authorities and from all the intelligence I got from other channels, I could say the Soviet Union was very willing to be on friendly terms with our country, and it hoped that China would become a great country. But of course, relations between two countries were sometimes good, sometimes bad, and some of the negotiations have not been up to what people have expected. These things would also happen between the United States and the Soviet Union. What we hope is that such unpleasant cases will not affect basic policy. Ambassador Harriman said when one negotiated with another country, small things would not affect the general principles, but with the Soviet Union this is not the case. Therefore in dealing with the Soviet Union the United States always accommodated to it and he hoped that China could do the same. They also asked questions about Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party and also transportation via the Soviet Union, exchange of material, the price of merchandise and so on, and I told them about these things briefly. Hurley said his duty towards China this time was to talk with Chairman Chiang about military cooperation. The policy was the same for Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek, but many of the medium-low level personnel on both sides could not work together very smoothly. So he represented Roosevelt to go to China and try his best to make things work better. However, on military, politics and economic issues China itself had to strive. Nelson also said China should work harder on its own. Though American policy was to defeat Japan, and help the rejuvenation of China and make the relocation of East Asia’s industrial centre China whether these could be accomplished depended solely on China’s efforts. What the United States could do was provide assistance. Both Nelson and Hurley asked me what they could do to promote friendship between China and the Soviet Union. I told them that when they got a chance to talk to the Soviet authorities and they could tell them the actual situation in China in a friendly manner. Ambassador Harriman also told Hurley and Nelson that when they arrived in Chongqing they should tell the Chinese authorities straightforwardly what American policy was because the United States had aroused misunderstanding over the Polish Incident. It was no good if such a thing happened again in China. If China has conflict with the Soviet Union, the United States will have no power to help China and also they will be willing to help. Based upon the conversation today, both Nelson and Hurley want to help China. They seemed sincere and straightforward. Ambassador Harriman was especially eager to help. I hope deeply that our authority will cooperate with them. Otherwise, the future of our country and our people will be very difficult to imagine.

In the evening, Military Attaché Guo Dequan invited Military Attaché Zhu to watch the opera Eugene Onegin in the Grand Theatre. I repeatedly asked Military Attaché Zhu to report to the Generalissimo about the situation here in detail. Recently Military Attaché Zhu seems to be more understanding and know deeply what our country needs. During the interval, I met the former Soviet Ambassador to Britain, Mayskiy, and his wife. I talked to them for a while and he did not dare talk about politics.