The Last Empress

by Hannah Pakula

  When Soong left Moscow, Stalin was still insisting that Dairen be specified as a Soviet military zone and that the Manchurian railways be under Soviet control. Soong told Harriman, who was leaving for the Potsdam Conference, that he hoped President Truman could solve the Manchurian problems. Returning to Chungking, he threw up his hands and told Hurley, “I am a broken man. I am personally ill from strain and overwork.” Later he predicted that the “proposed agreement will be destructive politically to the man responsible for it.”

  A conference of the Big Three—Truman, Churchill, and Stalin—was scheduled to take place in Potsdam from July 17 to August 2, 1945. As the group was gathering on the sixteenth, the first atomic bomb was set off at Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico. It was noted that one of the principal participants, Stalin, was not as surprised or impressed as he might have been, and it was discovered only later that the Soviet intelligence service had warned him about the bomb at least a month earlier. The Potsdam Declaration, sent to Chiang Kai-shek for approval and issued on July 26, called for the unconditional surrender of Japan—a demand the Japanese ignored in favor of trying to get the Soviets to negotiate less drastic peace terms. The Soviets refused, and discussions continued as to when they would enter the war, although Stalin said he would not order his troops to march until he had an agreement with China.

  Meanwhile, Soong had reported his conversation with Stalin to Chiang, who sent a message saying that he hoped the Russian leader would realize that China had made an enormous effort to fulfill Soviet desires but that he could not make any concessions beyond what the Chinese people could understand and accept. A copy of this communication sent to Truman elicited the suggestion that if Chiang and Stalin continued to differ on the interpretation of the Yalta Agreement, Soong should return to Moscow for further negotiations. Soong, who did not want to go, arranged for Wang Shih-chieh, formerly minister of education and a high-ranking member of the KMT, to be appointed foreign minister in his place and then agreed to accompany him. Harriman was instructed to tell Stalin that the U.S. government thought that Soong had met the provisions of the Yalta Agreement.

  On August 14, 1945, a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between the USSR and China was finally signed, the result of a week of negotiations between Soong, Wang, and Stalin with Ambassador Harriman backing up the Chinese. Stalin had worn T.V. down to the point where, in return for a promise that the Russians would not exercise military authority in the city of Dairen, its port, or the connecting railroad, the Chinese would agree to put Dairen within the Soviet military zone. T.V. even gave in a bit regarding management of the Manchurian railways. In return, Stalin promised to support the Chinese national government. But when Wang asked for a more specific pledge on this, Stalin replied, “What do you want me to do? To fight against Mao?” Stalin also told Soong that the Chinese government should come to a quick agreement or the Communists would move into Manchuria. (Soviet soldiers were already on their way.) Harriman later said that he had “repeatedly urged” T.V. not to give in to Stalin’s demands; that he himself had talked to Stalin and Molotov and “insisted” that the Soviet position was not justified; and that the United States would consider that any concessions that went beyond the Yalta Agreement “would be made because Soong believed they would be of value in obtaining Soviet support in other directions.” But, Harriman said, “in spite of the position I took, Soong gave in on several points in order to achieve his objectives.”

  On the same day that the treaty between China and the USSR was signed, Japan surrendered. On August 6, the United States had dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On August 8, the Soviets entered the war against Japan. The next day, the Americans dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, and five days later, on August 14, 1945, at 7:00 P.M., President Truman announced the Japanese surrender. Three hours later, Madame Chiang, “looking somewhat worn,” was on the air, broadcasting from her temporary home in Riverdale. “Now that complete victory has come to us,” she said, “our thoughts should turn first to the rendering of thanks to our creator and the sobering task of formulating a truly Christian peace. Unless we implement and maintain in action the professed ideals for which we of the United Nations entered this war, all the bloodshed and sacrifice of our loved ones will be of no avail.” Her husband, she added, “has been trying to get me back as soon as possible.” Although she claimed that her poor health did not permit her to go back immediately, she said she would return to China “soon.”

  45

  Manchuria has been a tensely significant piece of contested—and contesting territory. Its principal natural resource—and enticement—was its whereabouts.

  —JOHN PATON DAVIES, JR.

  THE SUDDEN end of the war in the Pacific, which caused rejoicing among leaders in Europe and America, signaled further troubles for the Chiangs. Fifteen days after the end of the war in Asia, May-ling arrived in China from the United States, and reports that the Chiangs had separated—they had not seen each other for fourteen months—were duly attacked as “false, vicious and poorly thought-out propaganda.” On August 29, 1945, the day of her departure from Washington, Madame had paid a formal call on President Truman and then hosted a luncheon at the Chinese Embassy, attended by General Marshall, now Truman’s chief of staff, with whom she spoke at length. Returning home after a year abroad, she found her country in chaos.

  The crux of the Chinese problem, according to John Robinson Beal, a former journalist and Time magazine correspondent, was “a largely illiterate peasant mass scarcely a generation removed from life under despotic imperial rule… undergoing all the stresses inherent in leaping virtually overnight from the oxcart to the airplane.” Beal’s presence in China was due to a suggestion by Marshall that the Chiang government hire an experienced person to advise it on how its actions were playing in the United States. Chiang, however, remained unwilling or unable to enact reforms to help his people bridge the transition to the twentieth century.

  During the war, much of the fertile land and most of the industrial areas of China had been occupied by the Japanese. The declaration of peace revealed a shortage of livestock, fertilizer, and farm tools; there was no trade with the outside world; 90 percent of the railways were inoperable; much of the rolling stock, along with many bridges and tunnels, had been destroyed; river shipping, on which the country had always depended, was little better; and the roads were ruined. During the six days preceding the official end of the war, it was estimated that about 700,000 Russian soldiers had moved into Manchuria, looting the factories and industries of the northern province and stripping the area of at least a billion dollars in assets.* According to the first foreign businessman to follow them there, they had destroyed about 80 percent of the city of Mukden, bringing in their soldiers who had taken Berlin and turning them loose “for three days of rape and pillage. Later they relieved these troops with two convict divisions from the salt mines of Siberia,” who “stole everything in sight, broke up bathtubs and toilets with hammers, pulled electric light wiring out of the plaster, built fires on the floor and either burned down the house or at least a big hole in the floor, and in general behaved completely like savages.”

  More than a million Japanese soldiers had been left stranded in China proper and another million in Manchuria—all waiting to be repatriated. Close to a million Chinese puppet troops who had served the government of Wang Ching-wei were also scattered around the country, 600,000 or so in China proper and another 350,000 in Manchuria. White and Jacoby point out what they called “one of the scandals of the war,” i.e., an “intimacy,” as they put it, that had developed between certain elements in the Chungking government and the puppet collaborators in Nanking and Peking. They claim that messengers had traveled back and forth during the war “making alliances across the battle lines”—a situation that the KMT denied in public but justified in private by saying that it hoped that at the end of the war the puppets would shift sides from the enemy to the Nationalist government instead of the CCP.
The bet was a good one, and the 500,000 to 1 million soldiers formerly under Japanese control garrisoning cities and railways in Communist-held territories raised the banner of the Kuomintang—at least temporarily.

  Chiang still needed U.S. assistance to move his troops into the areas of contention, particularly Manchuria and the coastal cities of eastern China. The United States came to his rescue with over 50,000 marines stationed at railways, ports, and airports, plus naval and air forces sent to ferry soldiers from southern to northern China. But when the Chinese veterans of Stilwell’s victory in Burma were flown in to take possession of the capital of Nanking, they met a sorry welcome. White and Jacoby ascribe this lack of enthusiasm partly to the fact that Nanking’s citizens feared the Nationalist soldiers as much as those of the puppet government. What everyone seems to have overlooked at the time was the ghastly experience of Chinese citizens during the rape of Nanking, a period in which the average person was left unprotected by both his army and his government.

  Shanghai was a different story. There the troops were properly welcomed by cheering crowds, banners, and a brass band, along with the inevitable movie cameras. The inhabitants of Shanghai, who had largely remained loyal to the KMT, put up huge portraits of Chiang Kai-shek—albeit a younger Chiang since the pictures dated from prewar days—around which they wove garlands of flowers and crepe paper. The city, White and Jacoby said, “was obsessed with the spirit of holiday… parades of jubilation formed like froth in every street; people cheered all men marching in government uniform.” The Communists of Shanghai, instructed by Yenan not to provoke trouble, simply melted away and moved up north. Mao and his followers had decided, according to the journalists, “to trade Shanghai for the much richer prize of Manchuria.”

  One of Chiang’s immediate problems was to reestablish his government in the cities and towns before the Communists, whose forces were closer and more mobile, could take them over. Along with its regular army, the CCP relied on a large number of guerrillas and local defense troops surrounding the cities and railways of northern China. On August 9, 1945, five days before the official end of the war, Mao had announced what he called a “nation-wide counter-offensive” against the Japanese. On the next day the commanding general of the Chinese Communist forces, General Chu Teh, declared that any Chinese army in the liberated areas could demand that Japanese and Japanese puppet troops give up their arms; he then ordered all Communist soldiers to advance against the Japanese wherever they found them. “Our troops,” Chu said, “have the right to enter and occupy any city, town and communication center occupied by the enemy or the puppets… to maintain order, and appoint a commissioner to look after the administrative affairs of the locality. Those who oppose or obstruct such actions will be treated as traitors.”

  Denouncing Chu’s action as “abrupt and illegal,” Chiang Kai-shek issued an order forbidding the Communist soldiers from taking independent action against the Japanese. This was quickly countered by a broadcast from Yenan calling Chiang a “Fascist chieftain.” Wedemeyer, to whom Chiang appealed for help, sent Chu’s pronouncement to Washington. The State Department responded by suggesting to General MacArthur that when he talked to the Japanese, he should make it clear that the clause in the Potsdam Declaration that dealt with their repatriation applied only to those who surrendered to the government of Chiang Kai-shek. A note was also sent to General Chu, informing him that the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union had agreed that Chiang, who was the Allied commander in chief in the China theater, was the person entitled to receive the surrender of the Japanese troops, and the U.S. government hoped that the CCP would cooperate with him.

  Meanwhile, Ambassador Hurley, who still clung to the idea that he could bring about a rapprochement between the CCP and the KMT, had been urging Chiang to invite Mao to come to Chungking for a meeting. An invitation was sent off on August 16, two days after the official Japanese surrender: “We have many international and internal problems awaiting settlement,” Chiang wrote Mao. “… Please do not delay coming here.” But Mao was nervous about his safety, and it was not until Hurley said he would fly to Yenan, bring Mao back to Chungking, and be responsible for his life and those of other Communist leaders while they were in the wartime capital that Mao accepted the invitation. It had been eighteen years since Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung had seen each other. Their talks began on August 28 and lasted seven weeks. Throughout their meetings, Chiang continued to insist that the Communist forces be disbursed and incorporated into the Nationalist army. Whereas Mao agreed to their formal induction into Chiang’s army, he said that they must remain in their old units under their existing officers. Moreover, Chiang refused to allow the CCP to administer the provinces* where, for the past five years, the Communists had been defending the people against the Japanese and collecting their taxes.

  During the negotiations, Hurley, who was anxious to return to the United States for medical treatment and diplomatic consultations, told Mao that he had to leave for Washington. Mao asked him to stay in Chungking in order to see him safely back to Yenan. Hurley turned to Chiang, who said he would vouch for Mao’s safety, but Mao still insisted on a written guarantee from Hurley himself that he would be safe until his return to Yenan. Hurley left on September 22, as did Wedemeyer.

  Before leaving Chungking, Hurley sent off another of his unrealistic reports to Washington: “The spirit shown by the negotiators is good, the rapprochement between the two leading parties of China seems to be progressing, and the discussion and rumors of civil war recede as the conference continues.” Hurley was absolutely wrong, a fact that Walter S. Robertson, the man left in charge of the U.S. Embassy during the ambassador’s absence, tried to impress on the State Department. “We are of the opinion,” Robertson said, “that the two sides are far apart on the basic question of political control of the liberated areas now dominated by the Communists.” But the powers in Washington listened to Hurley and made his report the basis for the job of General Marshall, the next American unfortunate enough to be sent to find a solution to the Chinese puzzle.

  On October 11, the day Mao flew back to Yenan, he and Chiang issued a joint communiqué on their meeting. Since almost no progress had been made during their conference, it was a bland statement, studded with meaningless phrases about “peace, democracy, solidarity, and unity” that “should form the basis” of China’s future. Although they said that “cooperation should be perpetuated and resolute measures taken to avert internal strife,” neither man offered a route toward this admirable end.

  The inability of either Chiang or Mao to make headway toward settling their differences was an embarassment for Hurley, a failure underlined by an editorial in the New York Herald Tribune accusing him not only of creating American policy in China but of suppressing information that did not conform to his personal views. Hurley, said the editors, “has become so nearly omnipotent that he ought to be added to the pantheon of the Far East. Won’t one of the minor gods of Asia please step down so that Mr. Hurley can take his place?” Whatever his motivation—humiliation or hubris—Hurley offered President Truman his resignation several times during October and November of 1945, but each time was persuaded to stay in his post.

  Although he finally consented to return to China right after a speech he was scheduled to give before the national press, during that afternoon Congressman Hugh DeLacy from Washington told the House of Representatives that “Ambassador Hurley’s reversals of the Roosevelt-Gauss policy in China have made the present civil war unavoidable.” Reading the speech, Hurley convinced himself that certain statements made by DeLacy showed that his (Hurley’s) secret reports to the State Department had fallen into the hands of the Communists. His final letter of resignation, which, according to one authority, “so twirls about that it is hard to locate its center,” charged that “a considerable section of our State Department is endeavoring to support Communism generally as well as specifically in China.” Hurley’s resignation not only angered Trum
an but speeded up the appointment of General George C. Marshall, the president’s recently retired chief of staff, to mediate between the warring parties.

  EVEN THOUGH WEDEMEYER had warned Chiang against it before he left for Washington, the generalissimo decided to occupy Manchuria, which was his right under the treaty with the Soviets. Russian soldiers, who had swarmed into Manchuria from the north and west, had been joined by a large force of Chinese Communists, who immediately set up defenses and established administrations in small northern towns; a second Russian army, crossing into southern Manchuria, provided another Chinese Communist force with railway transport, thus allowing it to set up similar arrangements in the south. To observers, it was clear that the Russians had timed their withdrawals from these areas in order to allow the CCP to take over before Chiang’s forces could get there. “If we have Manchuria,” Mao said, “our victory will be guaranteed.”

  Moreover, when American ships tried to land Chinese soldiers at the Manchurian port of Dairen, the Soviets refused to let them disembark on the grounds that Dairen was a commercial port and could not be used by the military. (This was said in spite of the fact that the post-Yalta Agreement between T.V. and Stalin had guaranteed that the Soviets would not exercise military authority in Darien or its port—a right reserved for the Chinese.) After a two-week standoff, General George E. Stratemeyer, temporarily in charge while Wedemeyer was in Washington, decided that the American ships could not wait indefinitely in the waters outside Dairen. The commander of the Soviet forces in Manchuria proposed three other Manchurian ports: Artung, Yingkow, and Hulutao. Chiang decided to try Hulutao, but the Chinese Communists refused to allow his soldiers to land there, and the Russians said that they could not “guarantee” a safe debarkation. The ships then headed off to Yingkow, but the Chinese Communists, already on the spot, refused to let them off there either. When asked for an explanation, the Russian commander said he was not responsible for the whereabouts of the Chinese Communists, who had come up from the south; he could not, he said, interfere in the internal affairs of China.