Tuesday, 5 October
In the morning, the British Naval Attaché Admiral Fisher visited me and he said the Allies might not land in the Balkans.
Military Attaché Guo went to see the Free French representative, Garreau. Garreau said as follows.1) The training of the American army was inadequate. If it were not for the British 8th Army and the French Army rescuing them in the North Africa war, they would have been defeated by the German army. Apart from the 8th Army, the British armies had no fighting experience. Therefore they have sent a number of 8th army officers back to Britain to serve in the other armies. All in all, the fighting capabilities of British and American armies are not really strong. If they fight with the German army which has much more experience of war, they will be at a disadvantage. 2) Now the weather in the English Channel is bad, so they have to land in France. But it is not easy. 3) Britain and the United States have already concentrated their armies in the south-east of the Mediterranean Sea. It wouldn’t be a big thing if they advanced into the Balkans. But they have procrastinated and Garreau is afraid that they had political considerations. Perhaps because the Soviet army advanced too fast, and before the British and American armies could move into the Balkans, the Red Army had already arrived. Furthermore, it was against the Soviet wish that the British and American armies attacked from there. 4) The organisation of the Free France Committee was first advocated by Britain and the United States. When they asked the Soviet Government about this, Vyshinski replied that the Soviet Government agreed, and would recognise it. After the establishment of the Free French, Britain and the United States attached many harsh terms for its recognistion. The Soviet Union showed its discontent with regard to this thing for no reason. The important people of Britain and the United States whom he had met in North Africa all asked him if the Soviet army didn’t want to attack the German army on the North side (not advancing to Berlin) and to advance from the Balkans instead. From this one can see that Britain and the United States are very suspicious towards the Soviet Union. From the standpoint of Free France, it is the same as China. They really hope that Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union can cooperate sincerely. But what he saw and heard made him worry.
At 3.30 in the afternoon, I went with Counsellor Liu Shaozhou, and Specialist Wu Shijie to the Foreign Trade Department to see Minister Mikoyan to talk about the transportation matter. I began by mentioning the whole thing and the problems that were negotiated between Committee Member Hu and the Director of the Foreign Trade department. I also asked which side should shoulder responsibility for the delay, and if this issue is settled then transportation can be started or not. He said that although the responsibility was not all on the Chinese side, the Chinese side should shoulder part of it. And now we should not really concern ourselves with this and since we haven’t reached an understanding, then the trucks can not be accepted and the recent circumstances do not allow transportation to start. On the actual problem, he wouldn’t be able to give a concrete reply today. Furthermore, even after all these problems have been resolved it will still take time to make preparations. I told him that we were now discussing the actual problems. After we reach agreement, we still will need time to prepare. It would take too long. I asked him to order the people in charge to start immediately, and we should confirm the time schedule. He said he didn’t dare decide how long the preparation would take. I said our side has long prepared everything and is quite eager to know how long the preparation will take. If this will take another year, our side will have great difficulty. He said he could not answer the preparation time as it needed to be decided by specialists. Based on all of these, I thought my earlier observation was correct. The Soviet Union has absolutely no intention of opening the roads, and is only using technical problems as an excuse to procrastinate. I then reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Minister Song.
In the evening I invited Ambassador Kerr, Baron Darflus, Minister Assarson, Hamilton, Balfour, and General Steffen. We had a Chinese dinner. They were all very satisfied. Also I told Ambassador Kerr about my talk with Mikoyan.