MIA > Archive > Glass (Li Fu-jen)
From The Militant, Vol. 10 No. 25, 22 June 1946, pp. 1 & 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Brazenly violating repeated promises to refrain from military intervention in China and to withdraw its armed forces from that country, the United States government is using its armed might on a continually growing scale to support the reactionary regime of the Kuomintang in the civil war that is now raging in Manchuria and in China proper.
Chiang Kai-shek’s armies, the forces of landlord-capitalist reaction, are engaged in large-scale operations against Stalinist-led troops. According to a June 5 radio broadcast from the Stalinist headquarters at Yenan, the United States is participating actively in this struggle by continuing to equip, train and transport Chiang’s troops. What is occurring is full-scale American intervention in the Chinese civil war short of actual participation in the fighting by American soldiers.
Since the conclusion of the war with Japan last August, the Yenan radio charged, the United States has equipped and trained 40 mechanized divisions for the Kuomintang. This is in addition to 20 full divisions equipped and trained by U.S. officers during the period of the war.
Furthermore, U.S. Army transport planes and U.S. naval ships have been freely placed at Chiang’s disposal for the transport of Kuomintang troops to the civil war zones in North China and Manchuria. Without this aid it would have been impossible for Chiang to have taken over most of North China, and the principal cities of Manchuria, from the Japanese.
A pledge to withdraw American troops from China was made by the United States last December in the communiqué issued at Moscow by the conference of the “Big Three” foreign ministers. President Truman followed this up with a public pledge on Dec. 15, stating that America would not seek to influence the course of events in China by military intervention.
This “hands off” policy has been repeatedly and cynically violated while further statements pledging non-intervention were being made. On April 1, Lt.-Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, American commander in the China theater, gave an assurance that the U.S. Army in China, would be sent home by May 1. Two months later, on June 4, Lt.-Gen. Alvin C. Gillen, also of the U.S. Army, declared that the China theater would not be deactivated and that American troops might remain until the end of 1946.
Already heavily, committed to a policy of intervention in line with its predatory imperialist aims, the U.S. government has no intention of withdrawing its armed forces from China. On the contrary, it intends to intervene still more energetically on the side of Chinese reaction.
This is indicated very clearly by the fact that families of American soldiers are now being transported to China.
Chiang Kai-shek’s rotten and reactionary regime, shot through with corruption and responsible for all the agony of China’s millions, is universally hated by the masses. Never during the two decades of its bloody rule has this regime been more isolated than it is today. Only the military might of American imperialism, lavishly placed at Chiang’s disposal, prevents the insurgent nation from settling scores with the regime of reaction and oppression.
The imperialist policy-makers in Washington are fully aware of the rottenness of the Kuomintang government. But they know, too, that a popular revolution which swept it away would also spike their plans to convert China into a colony of the Wall Street plutocrats and a base for war against the Soviet Union.
Hence, ignoring their own repeated pledges of non-intervention, and despite all the flowery talk about allowing every nation to decide its own fate, the U.S. imperialists continue giving unstinted aid to Chiang Kai-shek.
Also in violation of China’s supposed sovereignty and all their protestations of their love of peace, the U.S. imperialists are building up a gigantic military base in North China for the war which they plan to launch on the Soviet Union. This base, complete with everything in the way of modern military equipment, including a strategic air force with all ground facilities, already covers a huge area on the outskirts of Peiping and is growing from day to day.
Last updated on 22 December 2018