WAR OVER CHINA
Howard, Harry Paxton
War Over China By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD WAR, fierce and merciless, is raging today over battlefields as vast as those of Europe last year. Peace between the United States and Japan has not meant...
...Perhaps the attitude is not correct...
...No one in Washington would admit it to be such...
...The Japanese were prepared to desert Hitler if they could get an agreement with the United States, and get out of the ruinous war in China...
...We do not have to wait another generation for the third World Mrar...
...Under the terms of the Japanese surrender to us and to Gen...
...The matter of the Wang Ching-wei ("puppet") regime at Nanking was taken up...
...But it was not necessary to do so...
...30 made emphatically clear, was an "ultimatum...
...With the noblest of slogans and the most glittering of generalities, we are coasting ever more rapidly into another war in the Far East...
...If they think so, they should act accordingly, and not transport and supply Chinese Kuomintang forces to one area after another to fight the Communists...
...If we believe in a "joint front against Communism," why was it not concluded in June, 1941, without the horror of these four years of war in the Pacific, in China, and elsewhere...
...And, by and large, the Japanese have obeyed the terms, and have fought hundreds of engagements to hold these Chinese territories until "we" could move in...
...Never in history has there been a more cynical turnabout from "enemies of civilization," who "had to be exterminated," to "brown allies," fighting for the Imperial victors not only in China but in Indo-China, Indonesia, and elsewhere...
...ONE of the grimmest facts in the situation in China is the overnight change of the Japanese forces there from "bestial apes" to "allies...
...wilLwithdraw all military, naval, air and police forces from China and from Indo-China...
...On August 14, the day Japan surrendered, the Russo-Chinese treaty was signed in which the Soviet Government promised "to render China support and assistance with military equipment and other material resources, this support and assistance given fully to the National Government as the Central Government of China...
...The safeguarding of both American and Japanese interests, and a joint front against Communism, was discussed...
...Throughout the years, these elements have been denounced as "traitors" and "puppets...
...The Chinese Communists—and the Japanese and Korean forces working with them—are expanding their control over ever wider territories, engaging in ever more sanguinary battles with opposing Chinese (and Japanese) forces...
...26 to be accepted by the Japanese...
...26, 1941—the demands upon which we went to war...
...The Chinese Communists have spread far and wide over northern and northeastern China...
...THE spoils were rich ones...
...Early in June 1941, an American-Japanese agreement and a Japanese-Chinese agreement seemed possible...
...These discussions, kept secret at the time but later published by the State Department, reached their most "hopeful" turn in May...
...This was, in effect, the end of serious negotiations...
...Look at China today for the answer...
...This, as the Army, Board report published Aug...
...They did...
...We were most anxious to have them stay there—until our Chinese could take over in sufficient force, transported by our planes and ships and supplied from our stocks...
...Three months ago, an armistice seemed possible in China...
...And why did we make our demands on Japan in November 1941...
...But this would be attributing too much intelligence to Secretary Hull...
...There are also the so-called "puppet" troops—the forces of the Kuomintang group which made peace with Japan and established itself with Japanese support at Nanking five years ago...
...There are obvious and material reasons for hungry, wretched, starving peasants and workers joining the Communist forces...
...Not only the Japanese have been cooperating with us...
...With this promise, the Soviet Army continued its occupation of the three northeastern provinces of China (Manchuria), and moved int^Inner Mongolia as well...
...Did they...
...But in this bitter conflict in China, our government should take some other stand excepting that of promoting war...
...The Ambassador, of course, agreed to this...
...THE war in China, devastating ever wider provinces of that blood-soaked, famine-stricken, unhappy land, is a war for which Administration responsibility is direct and continuous...
...What has happened during the past two months we know...
...The American Government, instead of informing Moscow in clear and unmistakable terms that we would not tolerate support of the enemies of the National Government, let the whole thing go by default...
...I doubt if he—or President Roosevelt—had any very clear idea of what would have happened if the Japanese actually withdrew their forces...
...If this attitude is correct, why did Secretary Hull suddenly alter his attitude on June 21, 1941, and present his demands of Nov...
...If they think otherwise, they should take effective action to see to it that no arms reach the Chinese Communists—whether from Manchuria, from Outer Mongolia, or from anywhere else—to fight the Kuomintang...
...In the American-Japanese negotiations in 1941, however, there was an extraordinary part having to do with "joint defense against Communism" in China...
...nese envoys at Washington on Nov...
...And Secretary Byrnes, repre-eentative of the Power whose terrific might had beaten down the Japanese to surrender, became apologetic and defensive...
...Some outstanding leaders committed suicide, but others welcomed their old Kuomintang "comrades" to Nanking, Shanghai, and elsewhere...
...The Soviet Red Army and the Chinese Red Army have jointly plundered the wealth of Manchuria...
...Instead, these things have meant the breaking of the long stalemate between the various forces in China (and elsewhere), and the emergence of big-scale warfare again...
...Our present policy—if it is a policy—is promoting ever wider warfare throughout the already ravaged and famine-stricken countryside of China...
...Our Government has been most anxious that the Japanese should not withdraw their military and police forces from China and Indo-China...
...On May 11, 1941, Secretary Hull told Ambassador Nomura that "unless the civilization of the world is to run the great risk of being destroyed anyhow by the world movements of Hitler, it will require all the united efforts of civilized nations like Japan, thelJnited States, and Great Britain to shape the course in a different direction...
...He suggested that President Roosevelt, who was to "introduce" the Japanese and Chinese for peace negotiations, "in advance make known in confidence" to Generalissimo Chiang the nature of the Japanese terms, including "parallel measures of defense against subversive activities from external sources...
...The present situation throws glaring light upon the demands which Secretary Hull presented to the Japa...
...But when the surrender came, these troops were called upon to cooperate in the re-establishment of the Chiang Kai-shek Government in the cities and towns of formerly "occupied" China...
...We are shipping Kuomintang forces to fight Communist forces, but is this a "policy...
...Some of our people at Washington think the Communists are better than the Kuomintang...
...I have never ceased to refer to it as a dictator- • ship, with its single-party rule unalleviated by any democratic institutions or even by common humanity or sympathy with the common people of that tortured country...
...Japanese Communist forces have strengthened, increased, and obtained arms from Japanese soldiers whom they induced to surrender to or join them...
...If the President and Secretary actually knew what they were doing, it would have meant that they had a policy...
...The ultimatum which we presented on November 26 completely ignored the matter of "resisting communistic activities," and demanded that the Japanese withdraw all their forces from China, and also withdraw all recognition and support from the "puppet" forces which had been cooperating with them against the Communists...
...It should be clearly understood, however, that if they had been accepted, it would have plunged China into Communism and chaos...
...Who would have taken over in August 1945...
...On May 16, Secretary Hull noted as "acceptable" the Japanese proposal for Sino-Japanese "joint defense against Communism...
...While Muscovy's own forces have carted off great industrial plants from these provinces, the Chinese Communists have collected arms and taken or sent them back to their comrades in China...
...Armies are again marching over the land...
...In fact, we have no policy...
...We can now see—everyone who has eyes to see—what would have happened if the Japanese had obeyed it...
...Peace between the United States and Japan has not meant peace for China...
...The Japanese tried repeatedly to renew discussions, but without avail...
...The Government of the United States and thfe Government of Japan will not support—militarily, politically, economically, any government or regime in China other than the National Government of the Republic of China, with capital temporarily at Chungking...
...Perhaps we should support the Chinese Communists—leaving China to them, or to any group or any power which can get hold...
...Few Americans realize that the Japanese military forces have for the past three months been acting and fighting and serving as the "allies" of the American and Chinese National Governments against the Communists in China...
...Our Government openly recognizes this today...
...Our Japanese militarist "allies...
...No one knows what Washington wants...
...Chiang Kai-shek, they agreed to hold their particular points until American war-planes could fly in American and Chinese forces in sufficient number to hold those points against the Chinese Communist and guerrilla forces in the surrounding countryside...
...Since both the Chungking and Nanking regimes were anti-Communist, and each claimed to be the "True" Kuomintang and exercised (nominally, at least) the same form of one-party dictatorship, it was suggested that after peace was made between* Japan and China the Chinese should themselves decide what form of "absorption" or "coalescence" should settle matters between the two Kuomintang regimes...
...It changes daily...
...Japanese forces would be gradually withdrawn, cooperating in thelneanwhile with the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the "puppet" Kuomintang against the Chinese Communistsv On June 21, however, Hitler massed his forces on the border of the Soviet Union, and that night drove into Stalin's territories...
...Most significant of these were the third and fourth: "The Government of Japan...
...SOME might come to the conclusion, from this, that these demands were presented on behalf of the-Communists...
...They had always agreed on the "joint front against Communism...
...We are seeing the results of these things today...
...In order to gain them, the Soviet Government was prepared to double-eross its loyal Chinese Communists, and give moral and material support to Chiang Kai-shek's regime...
...The fact that Secretary Byrnes was on the defensive against Molotov, and had no counter-proposal of equal cogency to make, made this wholly clear...
...The division of Far Eastern spoils between Western Empires has not meant peace in the Far East...
...But if we take this attitude, what are we doing there now...
...In the closer negotiations and discussions which followed, the main center of discussion was China, and the ever-widening activities of the Chinese Communists...
...And on June 21, the State Department informed the Japanese that while it had given "careful thought" to Japanese military measures in "cooperation with China in resisting communistic activities," it now felt "that the liberal policies to which the United States is committed . . . would not permit this Government to associate itself with any course which appears to be inconsistent with these policies...
...For the past three months we have been actually using and co-operating with the Japanese, and Chinese "puppet" forces, against the Chinese Communists...
...At the same time, American ships and planes are transporting tens of thousands of Chinese Nationalist troops to the ports and cities of central and northern and northeastern China, and landing them there to enter into armed conflict with the Communist and other Chinese forces in the areas...
...Had the Japanese, by some miracle of self-abasement, actually withdrawn their forces from China, and similarly withdrawn all support from the Nanking and other dependent Chinese regimes, who would have taken over...
...We did not want the Japanese to leave China...
...Instead of our demanding an Allied Control Commission over Manchuria, to secure that this territory and its great industries and resources were returned to China as pledged by the Declaration of Cairo, we actually permitted the Soviet Government to demand— at the London Conference—participation in Allied rule over Japan, while retaining Manchuria under their sole occupation and dropping an ominous blanket of silence over that whole vast area...
...It is beginning already...
...Soviet responsibility is also there, but every intelligent and informed person knows what Moscow wants...
...Secretary Hull, as we now know, did not expect the demands of Nov...
...26, 1941—leading directly to war...
...Let us understand this clearly...
...I am not an apologist for the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China...
Vol. 9 • November 1945 • No. 45
