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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Reverend John Leighton Stuart (1876–1962) served as U.S. ambassador to China from July 1946 until August 1949. In the many discussions of his ambassadorship the one diplomatic mission that has aroused the most speculation and debate was his abortive trip to Beijing, contemplated in June–July 1949, to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. Some students of Sino-American relations have claimed that had this trip been made the misunderstanding and subsequent hostility between the United States and the People's Republic of China in the post-1949 period could have been avoided; therefore, the unmaking of this trip constituted another “lost chance in China” in establishing a working relationship between the two countries. But others have thought that given the realities of the Cold War in 1949 and the internal political constraints existing in each country, no substantial result could have been gained from such a trip. Therefore, the thesis of a “lost chance in China” was more an unfounded speculation than a credible affirmation.
* A preliminary draft of this paper was delivered to the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, 12-15 March 1981, Toronto, Canada.
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2. See Goldstein, Steven M., “Chinese communist policy toward the United States: opportunities and constraints, 1944–1950,” in Borg, Dorothy and Heinrichs, Waldo (eds.), Uncertain Years: Chinese-American Relations, 1947–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 275–78Google Scholar; and Levine, Steven I., “If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a trolley, or reflections on the ‘lost chance in China,’” Contemporary China, Vol. 1, No. 3 (12 1976), pp. 31–32.Google Scholar
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6. Ibid. pp. 423–59.
7. For instance, on 2 April 1949 Chiang issued his directive with regard to the peace talks with the CCP and he was acting as director-general of the GMD; see Liu Shao-t'ang, (ed.), Min-kuo ta-shih jih-chih, 2 Vols. (Taipei, 1979), Vol. 2, p. 827.Google Scholar Furthermore, Chiang in July 1949 established the Extraordinary Committee of the Central Executive Committee of the GMD to be the supreme organ supervising party, government and military affairs of the country, in which Chiang was the chairman and Li the vice-chairman, see Tong, Te-kong and Li Tsung-jen, , The Memoirs of Li Tsung-jen (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979), pp. 531–32.Google Scholar
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9. The secretary of state to Stuart, 30 March 1949, FRUS, 1949, IX, p. 752.Google Scholar
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12. The acting secretary of state to Stuart, 7 December 1948, FRUS, 1948, VII, p. 859.Google Scholar
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15. Ibid. pp. 723–42.
16. Stuart's diary, 26 June 1949.
17. Stuart to the secretary of state, 14 May 1949, FRUS, 1949, VIII, pp. 745–46.Google Scholar
18. Stuart to the secretary of state, 8 June 1949, ibid. pp. 752–53.
19. For Stuart's educational career, see this author's manuscript, “John Leighton Stuart,” pp. 104–181; and West, Philip, Yenching University and Sino-Western Relations, 1916–1952 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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21. Stuart's diary, 26 June 1949.
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27. Clubb to the secretary of state, 1 June 1949, ibid. pp. 357–60.
29. See Blum, Robert M., “The Peiping cable: a drama of 1949,” New York Times Magazine, 13 08 1978, p. 56.Google Scholar
30. Mr Blum seems also to share this view, see ibid. p. 58.
31. This move was made under Stuart's initiative, see Memorandum by Minshu, Chen, TRUS, 1949, VIII, p. 711.Google Scholar
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33. Stuart to the secretary of state, 24 June 1949, FRUS, 1949, VIII, p. 764.Google Scholar
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36. Ibid. pp. 773–74.
37. Ibid. pp. 774–75.
38. Ibid. pp. 776–79.
39. Stuart to the secretary of state, 13 July 1949, ibid. pp. 782–83.
40. Stuart to the secretary of state, 14 July 1949, ibid. pp. 430–35.
41. See Memorandum by the Policy Planning Staff, 7 September 1948, FRUS, 1948, VIII, pp. 146–55.Google Scholar
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44. Clubb to the secretary of state, 12 August 1949, ibid. p. 485.
45. See Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 4 Vols. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), Vol. 4, pp. 438–39.Google Scholar
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48. Ibid. pp. 273–78.
49. For the anti-CCP and anti-Truman Administration sentiments at the Capitol Hill, see Tsou, , America's Failures, pp. 503–520.Google Scholar
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51. Ibid. pp. 37–40.
52. See Tsou, , America's Failure, p. 515Google Scholar; and Stuart, John Leighton, Fifty Years in China: The Memoirs of John Leighton Stuart, Missionary and Ambassador (New York: Random House, 1954), p. 273.Google Scholar
53. For the details of the CCP's harassment of American consular staff in Mukden, see FRUS, 1949, VIII, pp. 933–1051Google Scholar; and Gwertzman, Bernard, “The hostage crisis three decades ago,” New York Times Magazine, 4 05 1980, pp. 41, 42, 44, 101, 102, 104, 106.Google Scholar
54. Simmons, , Strained Alliance, p. 61.Google Scholar
55. Hunt, , “Mao Tse-tung,” pp. 212–13.Google Scholar
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