Tuesday, 20 June
Fine, sun, cooler
I studied Russian in the morning.
At 5.00 in the afternoon I went with Shaozhou to visit the Deputy Foreign Minister Lozovski. Initially I expressed a victory congratulation as the day after tomorrow will be the Red Army’s third anniversary of participation in the War of Resistance. He said this war will make the Soviet people remember Germany in one hundred years, and he believes that the victory will come soon. I asked him to relay my gratitude to the Uzbek and Sakha Republic authorities for their hospitality and reception. He said he would help. He asked me about Vice-President Wallace’s observations as he passed through Soviet territory. I replied as fast as I could tell he admired deeply the development of places around Siberia, and Wallace is the progressive element in the American Democrats, who is extremely sympathetic towards the Soviet Union and China. His visit to the Soviet Union and China this time will be beneficial for Allied cooperation. He also agreed with this. He then asked me about the War of Resistance in China. I said people outside might not really understand the difficulty of the war, the suffering and sacrifice of the Chinese. One can imagine how difficult it has been for us as the Japanese army increased its strength in order to defeat our army which is now exhausted. During the seven years of this War of Resistance, our industrial area has been occupied. The area we took as the resistance base was not an area the Government’s power reached. During these seven years, we have supplied this gigantic war with our limited resources, and supplied 5,000,000 troops to the Front line. With regard to so-called foreign assistance, this refers to the American side using their planes to send us materials. More than 50% went to the 14th Air Force, some to the 30% of the American troops trained by Stilwell, and the remaining 10% to the expedition army in Kunming. But for those troops that are fighting in the Yunnan-Burma border, and the approximately 5 million troops in all China to the East of Kunming, they got nothing. These more than 5 million troops have fought the War of Resistance for seven years supported merely by us receiving no assistance from the Allies. As a result the Japanese army increased its forces to attack us. One can imagine how hard it has been for us. I made these remarks not because I had any dissatisfaction with the Allies, as the American air force and the troops Stilwell trained were of help to us. I only wanted friends of the Allies to empathise with our hardship, but I had not expected we would receive so little assistance. (So he wrote down these few remarks.) In the future when the European war is over, the oriental war will take a turn for the better. I asked him if the Soviet side had received the proposal with regard to the world peace organisation and what they thought of it. He said until now the Soviet Government hasn’t received the proposal, so it is unable to provide any opinion. But (he knew that) American newspapers had had many discussions about it, but they were without much content. In the end I asked him to relay my greetings to Ambassador Panyushkin and then I left. Deputy Foreign Minister Lozovski doesn’t like extended discussion, but this afternoon he looked good and was laughing all the time.
The British broadcast said that according to reports from the American fleets, the whole Japanese navy has been mobilised. Between the Philippines and Saipan Island, the American fleet air force is bombarding the Japanese. As a result one aircraft carrier, two warships and three transport supply ships have been sunk. Ten more other ships slightly destroyed, and in total 15 affected. More than 600 Japanese planes were bombarded. The Japanese fleet barely escaped and although the fleet was not completely destroyed, it was badly affected.
The Soviet army has started an offensive from the centre. Victory has been quite speedy.
The British broadcast said that Wallace has arrived in Chongqing and spoken with both Chairman Chiang and Madame Chiang.