In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

48 While the Communists were staking their claim to the Northeast, they were also conducting a series of negotiations with the Nationalist Party leaders in China’s wartime capital of Chongqing. No real agreements were reached there. The negotiations are significant because they established a pattern of “talking and fighting” in which each side tried to use the peace talks in order to gain advantage on the battlefield while, at the same time, they used military operations to gain leverage at the negotiating table. The military operations of this period, in which the Nationalists drove Communist forces out of the Liaoxi Corridor, are interesting for what they reveal about both Communist and Nationalist strategic thinking and operational capabilities, and for the insights they give us into the relationship between Mao Zedong and his commander in Manchuria, General Lin Biao. The Chongqing Negotiations If they had been left to their own devices, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong would not have attempted to negotiate with each other. The fact that the talks took place at all was due to the fact that both sides felt that both the Soviet Union and the United States wanted them to avoid an all-out civil war.1 Chiang initiated the talks on 14 August 1945 when he sent a telegram to Mao: 3 The Communist Retreat October–December 1945 The Communist Retreat, October–December 1945 49 With the surrender of the dwarf pirates, the realization of an extended period of world peace is within sight. As a range of weighty international and national questions urgently await resolution, I especially invite you to set a date to honor the temporary capital with your presence for mutual discussion. On matters relating to the future of the nation, I hope that you will not delay.2 Mao’s response was a brief acknowledgement of the message and a longer telegram, sent out in Zhu De’s name, outlining the Communist Party’s conditions for talks: joint acceptance of the Japanese surrender, nocivilwar,anendtotheKuomintang’sone-partyrule,andorganization of a coalition government. Mao’s assumption was that the Kuomintang would reject the Communists’ positions, and that the talks could thus be avoided.3 Chiang followed up with two more invitations, on 20 and 22 August. Chiang’s messages, which were couched in the language of a commanding general and Confucian patriarch speaking from a position of moral superiority to a misbehaving inferior, were hardly the thing to convincetheCommunistleadershiptosendMaotoChongqing.Indeed, the members of the Politburo were concerned for Mao’s safety. As late as 13 August, and probably later, Mao’s position was that civil war was inevitable.4 What apparently changed Mao’s mind were two messages from Joseph Stalin, delivered sometime around 20 August. Stalin, who did not believe that the Chinese Communists could win a war with the Nationalists, ordered Mao to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek and warned him that civil war would drive the Chinese people to the brink of extinction.5 MaodidnotnecessarilyagreewithStalin,butsinceboththeSoviets and the Americans were determined to see negotiations take place, he did as Stalin asked. On 23 August Mao was telling the Politburo that neither the Americans, the British, nor the Soviet Union wanted to see civil warbreakoutinChina;iftherewascivilwar,andtheSovietsopenlysupported the CCP, the result might be a nuclear third world war, which the Soviets could ill afford.6 With comments like these—so different from his rhetoric of only ten days previous—Mao was laying the foundations for the opening of negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek. On 28 August Mao, accompanied by Zhou Enlai, flew to Chongqing with American ambassador Patrick Hurley and the talks began. 18.218.127.141] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 18:03 GMT) 50 The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China Neither side entered the Chongqing peace talks with any degree of sincerity. In addition, each side felt that the other had military weaknesses that could be exploited at the negotiating table, and that the negotiations would in turn help to create conditions conducive to their ownmilitaryadvantage.ChiangKai-shekwentintothetalkshavingjust concluded two new treaties with the Soviet Union. In the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Alliance and Friendship, signed 14 August 1945, the Soviet Union and China agreed to respect each other’s territorial sovereignty and to cooperate on matters of economic development.7 A Sino-Soviet railways agreement, signed on the same day, gave the Soviet Union joint ownership and management of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the South Manchurian Railway (collectively renamed as the...

Share