China’s Inevitable Revolution This page intentionally left blank China’s Inevitable Revolution Rethinking America’s Loss to the Communists

Thomas D. Lutze CHINA’S INEVITABLE REVOLUTION Copyright © Thomas D. Lutze, 2007. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-7977-3 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world.

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-53836-2 ISBN 978-0-230-60877-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230608771 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lutze, Thomas D. China’s inevitable revolution : rethinking America’s loss to the Communists / Thomas D. Lutze. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. United States—Foreign relations—China. 2. China—Foreign relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations— 1945–1953. 4. Cold War. 5. China—History—Civil War, 1945–1949. 6. China—Politics and government—1945–1949. 7. Liberalism— China—History—20th century. 8. Communism—China—History— 20th century. 9. China—Foreign relations—1912-1949. I. Title.

E183.8.C5L88 2007 327.7305109’045—dc22 2007015274

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

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First Edition: December 2007

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

A Note on Romanization ix

Abbreviations x

Introduction 1

1 The Failure of Mediation: The Hurley and Marshall Missions 17

2 The Battle Lines Are Drawn: U.S. Contention with the CCP to Win the Middle Forces, 1947 55

3 The Middle Forces in China’s Urban Turmoil, 1947 79

4 The Battle for the Middle Forces Peaks: The Domestic Factors, 1947–48 105

5 The Battle for the Middle Forces Peaks: The International Factor, 1947–48—Japan 127

6 America’s Loss: Clearing the Battlefield— And Parting Shots, 1948–49 157

Notes 195

Works Cited 237

Index 253 This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been written without the encouragement and assistance of many people and institutions both in the United States and in China. Maurice Meisner and Thomas McCormick at the University of Wisconsin provided positive and helpful comments on the earliest version of this study many years ago, and continued to support the work in the time since. Other scholars who offered encouragement along the way include Larry I. Bland, Walter LaFeber, Thomas Paterson, Clara Sun, Edmund Wehrley, Odd Arne Westad, and Marilyn Young. My research in China depended on the helpful and generous guidance of Zhang Zhuhong of Peking University’s History Department. Interviews and access to archives were greatly facilitated by Qiu Renzong of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, by Huang Daolin and the Foreign Students Office at Peking University (PKU), and by liaison offi- cials representing the central committees of several democratic parties: Wei Shiyuan and Du Ningwen of the Guomindang Revolutionary Committee, Jin Ruonian and Zhang Ronghua of the China Democratic League, Wang Jian and An Guiying of the China Democratic National Construction Association, and, in Shanghai, Jin Peiji of the Chinese Association for the Promotion of Democracy. Four other Chinese schol- ars, Li Yunfeng of Northwest University in Xi’an, Liang Yi of Beijing Union University, Lin Chun of the London School of Economics, and Jean K. M. Hung of the University Services Center in Hong Kong, either assisted me in arranging interviews or in pointing me to important archives containing rich materials for this study. Funding for my research in China was generously provided by the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China, the MacArthur Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin (UW), the UW–Madison Department of History, and Illinois Wesleyan University. My good friends and colleagues Chuck Springwood, Irv Epstein, Mike Stein, and Dreux Montgomery have offered consistent encouragement in my efforts to bring this work to fruition, and Patra Noonan at Illinois viii Acknowledgments

Wesleyan has regularly come through with much needed assistance on technical issues and on the compilation of the book’s bibliography. I am grateful to my family, in particular my older children, Peter and Andrew, who provided me with companionship during my first year of research in China, and my younger children, Ariana and Nathaniel, who have been a big help in giving me the quiet time necessary to complete the manuscript. To all these people, I express my deepest thanks. But most especially, I want to thank my wife and partner Abigail Jahiel for her help with trans- lations, her insightful comments and criticisms, her patience, and, most importantly, her caring support as I have worked on this project. The assistance of all these people, and many others not mentioned, has resulted in this finished product. Nevertheless, I alone assume responsi- bility for the arguments and conclusions of this study. Any errors are mine, not those of the people whose help I gratefully acknowledge here. A NOTE ON ROMANIZATION

Rendering Chinese names and phrases into a romanized form that is acces- sible to Western readers is rarely a simple proposition. At different times and in different places, different systems of romanization have been uti- lized. Over the past three decades, however, the Hanyu pinyin system has increasingly become the standard in Western scholarship. This book acknowledges this trend and in almost all cases uses pinyin. Because the subject matter of this study predates the introduction of pinyin, however, many of the English-language primary sources cited refer to people and places in romanized forms (oftentimes utilizing the earlier Wade-Giles system or some variant thereof) other than pinyin—forms that remain better known to most readers. Therefore, a few exceptions to the use of pinyin will be observed:

Sun Yat-sen instead of the pinyin Sun Zhongshan; Chiang Kai-shek instead of the pinyin Jiang Jieshi; and Chiang Ching-kuo instead of the pinyin Jiang Jingguo.

In addition, several Chinese universities have officially maintained until today the earlier, historical rendition of their names in English. For exam- ple, Beijing daxue, or Beida, is officially Peking University in English, not Beijing University, and Qinghua daxue is rendered as Tsinghua University, not Qinghua University. Yanjing daxue, which was merged with Beijing daxue after 1949 and whose campus now is home to Beida, is rendered as Yenching University. Readers should note, too, that during the late 1940s, today’s capital of China, Beijing, or Northern Capital, was then referred to as Beiping (Peip’ing), or Northern Peace, because the capital of China at that time was Nanjing (Nanking), or Southern Capital. Where confusion might exist over the name of a person or place, the alternative romanization of the name will appear in parentheses following the name when it is first introduced. A BBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations appear from time to time throughout the text. The most common abbreviations include the following:

CCP Chinese Communist Party DL China Democratic League (China’s largest democratic organization throughout the late 1940s) FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States (U.S. State Department publication of embassy correspondence with Washington) GMD Guomindang (Nationalist Party) GMDRC Guomindang Revolutionary Committee (a democratic party of Guomindang members in opposition to the rule of Chiang Kai-shek) PCC Political Consultative Conference (the first PCC was convened January 1946; the “new” PCC was convened in September 1949) PLA People’s Liberation Army (military force commanded by the CCP) PPC People’s Political Council (Guomin canzheng hui; formed in 1938, a wartime advisory body to the Nationalist Chinese leadership that included, for most of its decade of existence, both middle-force democrats and representatives of the CCP) SW Selected Works, Mao Zedong