Word: chiangs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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With the fall of Mukden the Chinese Communists have completed their conquest of Manchuria. North China as far south as the Yangtze is in danger of falling under their control. On the economic side, Chiang Kai-shek's government has removed price controls and with them has vanished all hope for its economic reforms. The resulting inflation is destroying the newly-issued money for which the middle class was forced to sacrifice its holdings of gold and foreign currency. With the Republican defeat in the U.S. election discouraging Knomintang expectations for increased military aid, the Nationalist Cabinet has resigned...
...recent news from China crystallizes the utter failure of the two-year-old American policy. For that failure the Truman Administration is not wholly responsible. The Russians have not carried out their agreement at Yalta, namely to assist Chiang in setting up a democratic government for a unified China, Instead they removed Manchurian industries and supplied his communist enemies...
...Chiang on his part has neither sought the goals envisioned at Yalta nor has he proved himself a capable general or politician. Disregarding American advice, he has constantly wrecked his military strategy by mixing it with politics. He has wasted American equipment by sending his recruits into the field after only a month of training. Most important, he has relied more and more heavily on the extreme reactionary element in his party, thus driving the liberal intellectuals into the communist camp...
...that program is American military support of the Civil War. Such support cannot save the fascistic Kuomintang and will only further estrange the liberals whose friendship is essential to the reconstruction of China along Western lines. In view of the present fiasco, the only realistic policy is to recognize Chiang's defeat and his inability to govern any longer...
When the Communists come to power--and only a miracle can prevent it--their attempts to consolidate their position will drive away those liberals who now follow them as the only alternative to Chiang. The U.S. must support the formation of liberals into a third force, virtually non-existent today, and aid it in taking ever the government. That is the sole possibility. Only then can America demonstrate, through the groups it supports, that it has something better to offer Asia than do the Communists...