The Pittsburgh Press (December 16, 1946)
La Moore: Chinese Reds
By Parker La Moore
WASHINGTON – Gen. Chou En-Lai, China’s No. 2 Communist, has denounced the United States as an imperialistic nation out to enslave the people of the rest of the world.
This may open the eyes of some in this country who have accepted the contention that the Chinese Reds aren’t Communists at all, but honest democrats seeking the friendship and understanding of the Western World.
Gen. Chou has been the fair-headed boy of the dominant clique in the State Department’s Far Eastern division, which has sought to disrupt relations between the United States and the Chinese Nationalist Government.
Mao Tse-Tung is the top Communist in China, who was a member of the executive committee of the Communist International before that organization went underground.
But Mao speaks no English, and Gen. Chou, the voice of the Chinese Communists, has been careful until now to avow the most friendly attitude toward the United States.
Now on the Moscow line
It may be significant that he has swung over now to the regular Moscow party line.
Americans in China have worked overtime to win and hold Gen. Chou’s friendship. When he has wanted transportation, we have provided him with an army plane. Our representatives have guaranteed his personal safety during his residences in Chungking and Nanking, even though he has used his position as Communist negotiator with Chiang Kai-shek to head up the propaganda organization working to destroy Chiang’s government.
He has been the frequent guest of Gen. George C. Marshall who heads the American peace mission in China. He almost lived at the home of Gen. Pat Hurley in Chungking, during the final weeks of Gen. Hurley’s mission.
When Gen. Chou discussed his program for the industrialization of China it always was predicted upon obtaining American capital to build his roads and factories.
U.S. cooling on Chiang
Lately there has been increasing evidence, however, that the Chinese Reds were associating themselves more generally with Soviet policy. American consuls have been denied entry to Communist-controlled territory, and a closer tie has been evident between the Chinese Reds and the Communist organizations in Korea and Japan.
Paradoxically, while the Chinese Communists have been moving over toward the Moscow line, American policy has been cooling toward Chiang Kai-shek’s government. Indirect notice has been given that no more financial support will be given to his government, and the conduct of his administration has been condemned.
Most of this semi-official criticism has been directed toward the Kuomintang, the ruling political party, rather than toward Chiang personally, but it means the same thing in China, and probably in Moscow.
Half-hearted relationships are foreign to Kremlin policy when there is a clash of interests between the Soviet Union and other powers.
Gen. Chou’s attack upon the United States was made after his return to Yenan, the Red capital, and was released by the official Communist news agency there.
In his statement he predicted America’s imperialism would lead to her “desertion by the other allies,” an obvious bid for Russian approval.