Wednesday, 25 October

Rain

Zhou Shangyou (鄒尚友) cabled me, saying that the Turkish-Soviet relationships have been bad. After military triumph, the Soviet Union has been increasingly bad towards Turkey. The newly-appointed Turkish Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Selim Sarper, is well-known for his capability and his practicality, and well trusted by the Turkish President. His appointment by the Turkish Government to the Soviet Union is an effort to rectify the Turkish-Soviet relationships.

The United States announced that since Monday they have scored three big victories over the Japanese navy in the area around the Philippine Islands.

In the afternoon, Secretary Yang Shuren left Moscow for China. Probably, because of this health, he behaved very strangely. He was very pessimistic about everything, therefore he could not get along with other colleagues well and so he asked to be sent back to the Foreign Ministry. I told our staff we should be more sympathetic and lenient towards him, and shouldn’t hate him. As a matter of fact I only felt that I was sympathetic to him, and probably he did not hate me.

The first issue of Time this month published an article saying after Donald Nelson came to China, he liked China very much. I felt relieved. It also published an article saying that Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau proposed that the Allies should be extremely severe towards Germany, completely destroy its industry and make it into a fourth-grade agricultural country. Roosevelt agreed with it but Hull and Knox were opposed. It is worthwhile paying attention to the details.