Word: fu
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...flanked by two of his "policymaking" ministers without portfolio-swarthy ex-Premier Chang Chun and puckish General Chang Chih-chung, both outspoken advocates of peace (and presumably coalition) with the Communists. Temporarily absent were two other policymakers-Sun's predecessor, Geologist Wong Wen-hao, and Conservative Chen Li-fu, chief whipping boy of Communist propagandists...
What terms would Nationalist China accept? Chen Li-fu glumly summed up last week: "One of three avenues must open before peace can be explored: the government must make a bid-it hasn't yet formally discussed the possibility. The Communists must make a bid-why should they when they're winning? Failing one of these, a third party must offer mediation-what chance is there of such an offer? And yet our situation is very critical...
...Fu's Fate. In segmented North China, General Fu Tso-yi continued to play a strange sort of game with the Reds. A Communist broadcast had condemned Fu (along with Chiang Kaishek, Sun Fo, most of the new cabinet and others) as a war criminal, deserving a "just penalty." The broadcast added, however, that Fu "could lessen his fate somewhat" if he would immediately surrender Peiping and Tientsin...
...restore some contact with the outside world, Fu ordered construction of an airstrip on the polo ground of the old legation quarter, in the heart of the city. Gangs of padded-gowned forced labor leveled telephone poles, trees and buildings on the approaches to the strip. Enterprising citizens dashed in to gather up precious firewood for their chilly hearths. Three days after construction began, two Chinese army cargo planes settled on to the perilously cramped runway. They were unable to take off again. Fu's airstrip seemed to be a one-way street...
Peipingers looked on all this activity as a rude intrusion on the quiet culture of their ancient capital. "General Fu is not defending Peiping," they told each other, "Peiping is defending General Fu." There was much to support this view. It was a common rumor that the Reds had picked the lovely cultural center for their national capital. A Communist spokesman in Hong Kong said flatly: "No Chinese army will take the responsibility of destroying Peiping...