A Strong Diplomat in a Weak Polity: T. V. Soong and wartime US–China relations, 1940–1943

Abstract

Renowned as one of China's most eloquent and persuasive spokesmen in the United States during WWII, T. V. Soong, who served as Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's personal representative in Washington, had obtained vital US aid for China when it appeared that Chinese military will was about to collapse. He had negotiated strategic loans with the US and produced critical economic and military aid packages, thus projecting a strong national image of China to the Western Allies. But historians, until now, have known almost nothing about Soong's wartime, diplomatic endeavors, especially his managing of Sino–American relations. Archival materials at the Hoover Institution have only been recently opened, allowing this author to describe some unique episodes in US–China relations during the years 1940 to 1943.

Notes

^*Tai-chun Kuo is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon. Kuo was formerly an associate research fellow at the Institute of International Relations (Taiwan), deputy director-general of the First Bureau, Presidential Office, and press secretary to the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Her publications include Understanding Communist China: Communist China Studies in the United States and the Republic of China (coauthored with Ramon H. Myers), and The Power and Personality of Chairman Mao Tse-tung; and she is also the author of many articles in international journals.

^1. The Lukouchiao Incident of 7 July 1937 marked the beginning of the Japanese imperialist all-out invasion of China south of the Great Wall. The fight put up by the Chinese troops marked the beginning of China's nation-wide War of Resistance.

^2. For T. V. Soong's work in Washington during WWII, please see Tai-chun Kuo and Hsiao-ting Lin, T. V. Soong in Modern Chinese History: A Look at his Role in Sino–American Relations in World War II (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2006).

^3. Hoover Institution's new archival acquisition includes the Kuomintang party archives, personal diaries of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, personal papers of T. V. Soong, H. H. Kung, and other Nationalist Chinese leaders. For more information, please see Tai-chun Kuo and Ramon H. Myers, The Modern China Archives and Special Collections (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2005).

^4. Chiang Kai-shek telegram to T. V. Soong, 26 June 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Box 58.

^5. Simon Berthon, Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry among Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle (New York: Carroll & Graft, 2001), pp. 25–26.

^6. Liu Xiaoyuan, A Partnership for Disorder: China, the United States, and their Policies for the Postwar Disposition of the Japanese Empire, 1941–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 10–19. On wartime China's difficult internal and external situatioins, see also Peter Cheng-main Wang, ‘Revisiting US-China Wartime Relations: A Study of Wedemeyer's China Mission’, Journal of Contemporary China, 18(59), (2009), pp. 233–247; Hsiao-ting Lin, ‘War, Leadership and Ethnopolitics: Chiang Kai-shek and China's Frontiers, 1941–1945’, Journal of Contemporary China, 18(59), (2009), pp. 201–217.

^7. See: ‘Address, China Society Dinner’, New York City, January 1942, and ‘Speech by T. V. Soong, Foreign Minister of China’, Yale University Commencement, 9 June 1942, both in T. V. Soong Archives, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 63.

^8. On Soong's network building and activities at the early stage of his stay in the US, see T. V. Soong Archive, esp. Boxes 11, 12 and 59.

^9. Qin Xiaoyi, ed., Zhonghua Minguo Zhongyao Shiliao Chubian—Dui Ri Kangzhan Shiqi (Taipei: KMT Historical Committee, 1981), Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 288.

^10. Soong to Chiang, 23 September 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 59.

^11. Soong to Chiang, 22 October, 27 and 29 November 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 59.

^12. Memorandum by Soong to Knox, 12 November 1940, T. V. Archive, Box 11; Soong to Chiang Kai-shek, 12 November 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^13. Soong to Chiang, 30 November 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^14. Soong to Chiang, 30 November 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59

^15. Soong to Chiang, 4 February 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^16. Soong to Chiang, 25 April 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^17. Edward Stettinius, Lend Lease: Weapon for Victory (New York: Macmillan, 1944), p. 109.

^18. Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China (New York: Macmillan, 1970), p. 390.

^19. Memorandum by T. V. Soong to Morgenthau, 30 November 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 6.

^20. Memorandum by T. V. Soong to Morgenthau, 30 November 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 6

^21. Memorandum of conversation between T. V. Soong and Henry Morgenthau, dated 8 December 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 6.

^22. Memorandum of conversation between T. V. Soong and Henry Morgenthau, dated 8 December 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 6

^23. Soong to Chiang, December 1940 (n.d.), T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59. It is noteworthy that, with Morgenthau's assistance, Soong signed a $100 million loan agreement with the US government in 1941. This greatly enhanced China's position vis-a-vis the Japanese. See Figure 1.

^24. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, pp. 218–220.

^25. See Soong's personal correspondence with Chennault, May 1949 (n.d.), T. V. Soong Archive, Box 62.

^26. See Claire Chennault Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 6.

^27. Robert Hotz, ed., Way of a Fighter: the Memoirs of Claire Lee Chennault (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1949), pp. 98–104.

^28. On the Flying Tigers and their war efforts in the Far East, see also Daniel Ford, Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1995).

^29. Soong to Chiang, 15 April 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^30. Valuable source materials on the CDS and its activities in the early 1940s can be found in the T. V. Soong Archive, esp. in Boxes 11, 16, 28, 54 and 64.

^31. Soong to Alsop, 12 November 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 10.

^32. Soong to Chiang Kai-shek, 24 July 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^33. Soong to Chiang Kai-shek, 15 August 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^34. The Historical Bureau of Ministry of National Defense, Republic of China (Taipei), ed., Dierci Shijie Dazhan Zhong-Mei Junshi Hezuo Jiyao (Taipei: Historical Bureau of Ministry of National Defense, 1962). On the SACO and wartime underground cooperation between the US and China, see also Yu Maochun, OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).

^35. Soong to Chiang, 24 August 1943, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 61.

^36. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, pp. 382–384.

^37. Soong to Chiang, 8 and 16 September 1943, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 61.

^38. Soong to Chiang, 8 and 16 September 1943, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 61

^39. Soong to Chiang Kai-shek, 29 September 1943, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 61.

^40. Instead of joining the Combined Chiefs of Staff and Munitions Control Board, Chiang Kai-shek preferred to create a new Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Asia–Pacific region with China taking the lead.

^41. Soong to Chiang, 16 September 1943, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 61. See also Qin Xiaoyi, ed., Zhongtong Jianggong Dashi Changbian Chugao (Taipei: Zhongzhen wenjiao jijinghui, 1968), Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 400.

^42. John M. Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959–1967), Vol. 1, p. 238.

^43. Michael Schaller, The US Crusade in China, 1938–1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp. 54–57. On the China Lobby and its intricate relations with the US government and the Chinese civil war, see also Ross Koen, The China Lobby in American Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1960).

^44. Soong's letter to Madame Chiang Kai-shek, 21 November 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 11.

^45. Soong to Chiang, 14 October 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^46. US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: 1941, Vol. V (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 708.

^47. US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: 1941, Vol. V (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 714.

^48. Wellington Koo, Gu Weijun Weiyilu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), Vol. 5, p. 182.

^49. Xue Guanlan, ‘The T. V. Soong I knew’, from Songziwen ziliaoji (T. V. Soong Collections), newspaper-clippings, Vol. II, Ease Asian Collection, Green Library, Sanford University.

^50. Fu Mengzhen, ‘The failure of T. V. Soong’, Shiji Pinglun [Epoch Review] 1(8), (April 1947), p. 5.

^51. Chiang to Soong, 14 December 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^52. Chiang to Soong, 12 July 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^54. Chiang to Soong, 14 December 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^53. Song to Chiang, 6 July 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^55. Song to Chiang, 6 July 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^56. Memorandum of Stanley K. Hornbeck, 3 November 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, Vol. VI (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 330.

^57. Cordell Hull to Clarence E. Gauss, 30 November 1941, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1941, Vol. VI (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 330

^58. Memorandum of Conversation, by the Ambassador in China (Gauss), 11 July 1942, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1942, China, p. 110.

^59. Lauchlin Currie, ‘Report on visit to China’, 24 August 1942, Lauchlin Currie Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 4.

^60. Soong to Chiang, 6 July 1941, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 59.

^61. ‘China: T. V. Soong’, 25 February 1943, Stanley L Hornbeck Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 103.

^62. Soong's letter to Y. C. Woo, 13 August 1940, T. V. Soong Archive, Box 10.

^63. Chen Liwen, T. V. Soong & Wartime Diplomacy (Taipei: Academia Historica, 1991), p. 385.

^64. Chen Liwen, T. V. Soong & Wartime Diplomacy (Taipei: Academia Historica, 1991), pp. 355–356.

^65. Huang Renyu [Ray Huang], Cong dalish de jiaodu du jiangjieshi riji [Chiang Kai-shek Diaries: A Macro Prospect] (Taipei: China Times Publishing Co., 1994), p. 216.

^66. Huang Renyu [Ray Huang], Cong dalish de jiaodu du jiangjieshi riji [Chiang Kai-shek Diaries: A Macro Prospect] (Taipei: China Times Publishing Co., 1994), p. 216

^67. Koo, Gu Weijun Weiyilu, p. 501.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tai-Chun Kuo

68 *Tai-chun Kuo is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon. Kuo was formerly an associate research fellow at the Institute of International Relations (Taiwan), deputy director-general of the First Bureau, Presidential Office, and press secretary to the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Her publications include Understanding Communist China: Communist China Studies in the United States and the Republic of China (coauthored with Ramon H. Myers), and The Power and Personality of Chairman Mao Tse-tung; and she is also the author of many articles in international journals.