Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 (52 page)

During the summer of 1943 Stilwell fantasized about taking command of all Chinese troops, including the Communists, with Chiang and the Nationalist military leadership left as ciphers only. His relationship with Chiang became even more sulphurous. Stilwell gloated that Chiang “had thought that by making me his joint chief of staff I would accept without question any order he chose to give me. He is that dumb.”
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By this stage Stilwell was incapable of taking any of Chiang’s suggestions or priorities seriously. He now regarded himself as the only one with any understanding of what the situation demanded, and thought not only Chiang but also the British and most other Americans were misguided.

Stilwell’s self-aggrandizement was causing raised eyebrows in Washington. Chiang’s brother-in-law T. V. Soong had been appointed foreign minister immediately after Pearl Harbor. In the American capital, Soong used his influence with Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s close friend and political fixer, to complain about Stilwell and press for the American to be relieved of his command. Hopkins, who regarded Stilwell as a malign influence in China, was sympathetic, and encouraged Soong to propose a change of military leadership. On September 15 Soong suggested to the White House that Mountbatten’s appointment as head of SEAC meant that there was no longer any need for Stilwell to remain in China. Instead, a Chinese general should command all troops in China, as well as take over air command of the China-Burma-India Theater.
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The argument fell on receptive ears in the White House. By mid-September, Roosevelt was ready to call back the troublesome American chief of staff. T. V. Soong returned to Chongqing and on October 15 Chiang made an official request for Stilwell’s recall.

Then Chiang hesitated. Although one brother-in-law was agitating for Stilwell’s removal, other family members were equally vociferous in advising that Stilwell should stay. “May” and “Sis” (Song Meiling and Song Ailing, wife of H. H. Kung) unexpectedly took up the chief of staff’s cause: Stilwell’s assessment was that these “intelligent dames” had worked out “the gravity of the situation,” although he wrongly thought they were defending him at T. V. Soong’s urging.
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Chiang’s wife and sister-in-law recognized that if Stilwell were removed, it would solve the continuing lack of engagement between him and Chiang, but it would also make public a fundamental divide between the Americans and the Chinese at a time when Japanese forces still threatened to conquer Free China. Song Meiling in particular strongly opposed the recall, and H. H. Kung and Song Ailing may have feared that Stilwell’s recall would boost T. V. Soong’s power at the expense of his in-laws. Washington regarded H. H. Kung, not without reason, as venal and lacking in vision, unlike the better-liked T. V. Soong, who was perceived as relatively liberal, and potentially a contender for high power in his own right. Chiang did not want to give Soong a political boost over other members of the family. He may also have feared that the loss of Stilwell might make it easier for SEAC (commanded by a Briton, Mountbatten) to pressure China into using troops for British priorities rather than Chinese ones.
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On October 16 Mountbatten arrived in Chongqing and met Stilwell, who recorded in gloomy capital letters that “
THE G-MO SAYS I MUST BE RELIEVED
.”
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But Mountbatten pressed Chiang to retain Stilwell. Pressured on all sides, Chiang met Stilwell on October 17. The two of them talked intensely. “Stilwell came and I advised him on his mistaken views,” wrote Chiang. “He admitted it and agreed to obey me from now on.”
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Stilwell did not see it quite this way. He had been called over late at night to see Chiang, who told him that he should “understand the duties of the commander in chief and the chief of staff” and “avoid any superiority complex.” Stilwell considered this to be “balderdash,” but “listened politely.” Overall, he felt “as free as air—no regrets and no self-blame.”
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The two men had postponed confrontation rather than solving the fundamental problem. A few days later Chiang confirmed his change of mind and asked for Stilwell to stay. T. V. Soong was outraged that his efforts in Washington had been overruled, humiliating him in the process, but Chiang was in no mood to listen. He brooded in his diary, going back over past slights: he was sure Soong and Borodin (the Comintern agent who had been sent by the Soviets to train the Nationalists and Communists at the Whampoa Academy) had schemed in the 1920s to bring him down, and Soong had further undermined him by refusing to bankroll him during the Manchurian crisis of 1931. Now Soong was frozen out of power.
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During the same week in October 1943, the Chongqing government hedged its bets against its uncertain Allies and kept its line of communication with Wang Jingwei’s regime in Nanjing open, sending another representative, Xu Caicheng, to visit their insider, Zhou Fohai. Xu told Zhou that although China had signed the pledge common to all the Allied powers not to make an independent peace with Japan, there might be a get-out clause that enabled them to have such a discussion if it was for the purpose of protecting Chinese territorial sovereignty. Zhou had his doubts. “Thinking on behalf of China is like playing chess,” he reflected. “You don’t make an irreversible move, but keep some room to maneuver. However, I don’t know if Chongqing have thought deeply about this, or whether the Americans and British really have agreed to such a condition.”
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He was right to be doubtful. The Western Allies had no intention of giving China that sort of autonomy to negotiate with Japan.

By November 1943, the Allies and Axis stood at different positions in that chess game. In Europe, the defeat of Hitler’s armies at Stalingrad had added to the momentum in the Pacific caused by the victory at Midway in June 1942 and the slow recapture of the Solomon Islands over the following year. In July, Mussolini had been toppled in Italy. The advantage now seemed to be with the Allies, and the Japanese had to demonstrate that Chiang would do better to negotiate with them than to remain tied to the Americans and British. The conference at the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo in September 1943 took the view that they could expect no further assistance from Germany. Japan’s war economy was under great pressure, with iron ore, steel, coal, and oil all in short supply, and the country had to adjust its strategy to prioritize defense of the home islands and the conquered areas of Southeast Asia rich in oil. Japan would defend Burma and much of its Southeast Asian empire, but would try to make sure that the USSR remained neutral. The conference also stressed the need to avoid escalating the conflict in China.
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Now both alliances gathered for summits that would showcase very different visions of Asia after the war. Tokyo declared openly that its aim was the “liberation” of its Asian allies from the Western yoke.
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As a gesture toward this goal, on November 30, Japan signed a treaty with the Wang regime that was more equal, at least in phrasing, than the existing humiliating settlement. The next day, Wang Jingwei and Zhou Fohai flew to Tokyo for a conference to celebrate the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the grandiloquent term that the Japanese used for their empire.

The wartime capital they landed in was an austere place indeed, not yet within range of major American bombing efforts, but slowly becoming hungrier as supplies of rice dwindled. The conference had been called in defiance of the worsening reality to demonstrate the amity between Japan and its allies, and to give some substance to the idea that Japan was launching a new political formation in the region that would supersede the old Western imperialism that had dominated for so long. On November 5, 1943, Premier Tôjô of Japan welcomed a group of leaders to Tokyo who had been gathered from all across Asia. Ba Maw, the Burmese independence leader, was “lively and outgoing, like a student leader,” in Zhou Fohai’s opinion, whereas José P. Laurel, who led the government of the Philippines now that its American rulers had been drummed out, was “very experienced.” But the most charismatic of the delegates was Subhas Chandra Bose, the former Indian Congress president who had defected to Germany in 1941, and subsequently come to Japan as leader of the newly formed Indian National Army, which sought an
Azad Hind
(Free India). “A purposeful revolutionary,” noted Zhou enthusiastically, responding to Bose’s speech. Bose had praised Japan’s role: “This is not the first time that the world has turned to the East for light and guidance . . . in the creation of a new, free and prosperous East, the Government and people of Nippon should play a leading role.” Bose also recalled the inspirational example of the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, the first occasion on which an Asian power had defeated a European one. Completing the lineup was Wang Jingwei, there as president of the Reorganized Government of China. Compared to the dynamic Bose and Ba Maw, Wang seemed almost broken. Ba Maw said that he was “strikingly handsome” and “spoke little, but carefully chose his words . . . You soon sensed the Chinese tragedy in his restrained demeanour and trailing words.”
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Few concrete promises were made at the conference. Yet for the Southeast Asian leaders, and also for Bose, however weak or self-serving the Japanese advocacy of their independence, the conference marked a clear moment when their aspirations to independence were, at last, officially acknowledged, free from British or (in the case of the Philippines) American colonial rule. For Wang, the conference had no such benefit. China’s already compromised sovereignty had been weakened, not strengthened, by the outbreak of war, and it was hard to believe that the new alliance with Japan, even if nominally more equal, marked a genuine partnership. Yet however thin a reed the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Conference was, it was clearly a challenge to the Allied vision of the postwar era.

Contrary to their name, the Allies were startlingly disunited, and this was a problem for Chiang Kai-shek in particular. The weakness of China’s position derived from the peculiar contortions of the partnership itself. Crucially, the USSR remained neutral against Japan. This meant that Stalin could not be seen to appear in public at any conference that included Chiang, since it would imply endorsement of China’s war aims against Japan. Yet Stalin clearly had a significant interest in the shaping of a postwar Asia. As a result, almost all the major conferences after 1941 excluded Chiang. This situation was worsened by Churchill’s clear contempt for the Chinese in general.

For Chiang, these pressures increased the importance of the Cairo Conference (“Sextant”) held between November 22 and 26, 1943, the only major conference of the war that attempted to make a comprehensive settlement of the Sino-Japanese conflict. The meeting in Cairo came at a time of continued tension between the United States and Britain. The two sides had gone back and forth during the winter and spring of 1943 on the question of the best timing for Overlord, the invasion of Western Europe. The Americans insisted on defining strategic priorities, whereas the British wanted to keep their options open. The decision on Overlord would inevitably have a sequential effect on the other theaters of war, including the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and ultimately China. Significant time would also be taken at Cairo to decide on strategy for the Pacific War.
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Yet the Cairo Conference was hampered by the fact that neither the US nor Britain had a clear idea of exactly how the war in the Pacific would be brought to a conclusion. Even while the role of the Pacific was upgraded by both Washington and London during 1943, the precise significance of China was not defined.
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Patrick J. Hurley, who had served as secretary of war under Herbert Hoover, was now a personal international emissary for Roosevelt. On November 12 he spoke to Chiang in Chongqing. In Chiang’s eyes, Hurley had come to explain Roosevelt’s intentions toward Churchill and Stalin so that there would be no misunderstandings about the upcoming conference. Chiang’s interpretation was that the American president was “relying on me to dispute with Churchill over East Asian matters,” so that Roosevelt could then intervene as mediator. Chiang declared his intention to press home several points at Cairo, including the establishment of a formal United Nations structure to give China equal status in the emergent international order, and the need for naval and air support in any future attempt to recapture Burma.
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(At this point “United Nations” referred to the Allies; the term was not used in the sense of the United Nations Organization until after 1945.) Chiang also took time to consider the significance of his own role. No non-European leader had ever taken such a personal stake in a major meeting alongside the leaders of the great Western powers. “When I go to the conference,” reflected Chiang:

I want moderation as my only principle. In general, I don’t want to bring any great shame upon myself. We should wait for the British and Americans to bring up the treatment of Japan and reparations; we shouldn’t do it. This will reassure [them] about us and will make them respect the fact that we don’t have any selfish intentions with regard to the global war.
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Chiang and Song Meiling landed at Cairo in conditions of strict security, but caused something of a sensation when they appeared in public. General Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, noted that some of the junior officers had given a “suppressed neigh” when they caught sight of Madame Chiang, dressed to kill as usual. Brooke himself thought her “not good looking,” noting her “sallow complexion” and her smoking of “continuous cigarettes.”
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