The land that has seen the most war in the last decade seemed headed for war again. China’s half-truce was breaking up, not because any important group wanted hostilities, but because the struggle for control of China boiled down to this: a fight now or a worse fight later.
Prospect from Nanking. The Chinese National Government knew that in order to survive it had to restore China’s economic life. In the areas under its control its efforts had been feeble and its failures grievous; but an overriding consideration was the fact that not even the most efficient government could have revived China as long as Communist rebel bands lay athwart the nation’s main communication lines (see map).
Communist armies gripped Harbin, junction of Manchuria’s rail network. Communist guerrillas harried water traffic on the Yangtze and the Grand Canal, roved menacingly near the rail arteries connecting Tientsin, Tsingtao and other ports with inland centers, such as Mukden and Tsinan. Red troops cut off Nanking and Shanghai from western China.
The Communists offered to relax their stranglehold in return for admission to the Government. As Nanking saw it, this would surely turn out to be a higher price than it looked. Since the successful truce negotiations last spring, more & more Nationalist leaders, including some moderates, had reached the conclusion that a deal with the Communists would be futile because they could not be trusted. What, Nanking asked, would be the point of a coalition in which the Communists still clung to their semi-underground military position as a means of extorting more concessions from the Kuomintang?
If coalition was merely a dream of men of good will, the only alternative was to try to pry the Reds off China’s lifelines. Nanking had few illusions about that job. U.S. military observers had repeatedly told Chiang Kai-shek and his generals that the odds were heavily against a clean-cut Government victory. But responsible Nanking leaders (not merely reactionaries) saw no alternatives, except 1) continued stalemate accompanied by economic stagnation and further loss of popular support, or 2) coalition, which to them really meant postponing the war until the Reds were in a stronger position.
Prospect from Yenan. The Communists did not want a resumption of civil war. They had even less chance than the Government of winning an outright victory. Besides, they were sitting pretty; they blocked recovery, and the Government got the blame for the result. If they were admitted to the Government, so much the better; they could increase their military power and political patronage.
This “peaceful” position won the Communists considerable support among a people heartily sick of war. On the other hand, the Communists had lost some strength in liberal and intellectual groups which formerly made a sharp distinction between Chinese Reds and Russian Reds. In bone-poor Yenan the Communist record had been one of progressive reform. But from Shantung and other recently occupied areas, Chinese liberals heard and many believed verifiable tales that were remarkably like the stories of Red oppression in eastern Europe. But this loss of prestige among intellectuals was much less important to the Communists than retention of their stranglehold. They would not voluntarily abandon that grip.
If Chiang decided on an all-out or (more likely) a limited civil war, it would be because he and his closest advisers knew a divided China could not endure.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- L.A. Fires Show Reality of 1.5°C of Warming
- How Canada Fell Out of Love With Trudeau
- Trump Is Treating the Globe Like a Monopoly Board
- Bad Bunny On Heartbreak and New Album
- 10 Boundaries Therapists Want You to Set in the New Year
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- Nicole Kidman Is a Pure Pleasure to Watch in Babygirl
- Column: Jimmy Carter’s Global Legacy Was Moral Clarity
Contact us at letters@time.com