PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTLECO.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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also a very significant fact that a large number of strikers has been enlisted for military transport, and that by the 27th May, about five hundred of them had already been despatched up the North River. These circumstances, coupled with the hasty resumption of negotiations with Hongkong, appear to indicate that General Cheung Kai-shek, now virtually dictator at Canton and about to conduct a difficult military campaign, realizes more than ever the danger of tolerating at Canton an imperium in imperio such as the Canton Strike Committee, and wishes at last to be rid of it.
I have, &c.,
Secret.
C. CLEMENTI,
Governor, &c.
ENCLOSURE 1 IN NO. 20.
Memorandum.
On Wednesday, the 2nd June, at 7.45 p.m., Mr. Fu Peng- sheung, the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs for Kuang-tung, called at my house by appointment. He said that he arrived from Canton that afternoon, having relinquished his office of Foreign Commissioner and that of Superintendent of Customs in Canton. In the course of conversation which lasted nearly three hours, he gave me the following information and views, first say- ing that, as he was no longer connected with the Canton Government, he had not now the same scruple in expressing his opinions concerning Canton, as he exercised when he, as an official, met Sir Shou-son Chow and me on previous occasions; but he asked me to treat our conversation as 'confidential, and to regard that part of it concerning C. C. Wu as being personal and private.
Dismissal of C. C. Wu and Fu Peng-sheung.
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2. C. C. Wu left as the result of Russian intrigue. The Rus- sian and Chinese Communists had always considered C. C. Wu and his close associates as being undependable," and therefore had worked hard to get them removed from the Government. They said that C. C. Wu and Fu Peng-sheung had too interests in Hongkong to be whole-hearted with them in the strike and boycott; and recently they spread the rumour that Sir Victor Sassoon, while in Canton, made an offer to C. C. Wu to pay Canton $10,000,000 to settle the strike, and that it was the intention of Wu and his associates to employ that huge sum, when received, to strengthen their own position in the Government, and not to benefit the strikers. They also invented other lies against C. C. Wu and Wu Te-chen. Unfortunately, C. C. Wu played into the hands of the Russians by his cynicism and aloof-
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ness. He alienated himself from the powerful friends of the Russians, such as T. V. Soong, whom he once, in a half-jesting manner, dubbed "Borodin's agent." T. V. Soong has never forgiven him for that slighting remark; and he had his chance of revenge when Eugene Ch'en returned to Canton. He secured for Eugene (who is not Wu's friend) the post of Foreign Minister in order to reduce Wu's influence and prestige.
3. It was Cheung Kai-shek who sent someone to C. C. Wu to tell him that he would have to go; Wu at once applied for leave
of absence, and left for Macao. Before leaving Canton C. C. Wu went with Fu Peng-sheung to see Sun Fo, and pointed out to him that from the trend of recent affairs he might be the next to go; and they suggested that he should proceed to Macao with Wu. Sun Fo, as was his wont, was not communicative, though he said that he recognised the danger pointed out to him, but that he would wait a few days to see how events would develop.
4. C. C. Wu went to Macao on Tuesday, 1st June, by a Chinese Customs launch with Foo Ping-kwan, Superintendent of Tele- graphs in Canton, and a younger brother of Fu Peng-sheung. Foo Ping-kwan came over from Macao on Wednesday, the 2nd June, and booked a passage for C. C. Wu on the s.s. "President Lincoln," which is scheduled to leave to-morrow, the 5th inst.. at 5 p.m. Wu will come over from Macao by the morning boat, and will them transfer to the President Lincoln" by motor- boat. Fu Peng-sheung will accompany him to Shanghai.
5. Fu volunteered the remark that C. C. Wu was indeed not "Red" at all, though he did his duty, according to his own light, on behalf of the Canton Government in connection with the strike and boycott. It is his misfortune to be somewhat cynical and subtle, and too legal. He has had an unhappy childhood; his own mother, who was the late Dr. Wu Ting-fang's concubine, was sent back to the country by Mrs. Wu Ting-fang shortly after his birth; and he was brought up under the jealous eyes of old Mrs. Wu without a mother's love and without any tender care.
Cheung Kai-shek.
6. Fu Peng-sheung explained to me some of Cheung Kai- shek's actions of the last twelve months, which had hitherto seemed to us to be so inexplicable. Cheung Kai-shek is not the supreme schemer that, for instance, Hu Han-min is. He is essentially a soldier, and a very good one. He has never revealed his innermost thoughts and intentions in regard to Bolshevism, though undoubtedly he was one of the most loyal supporters of Sun Yat-sen, and is still true to Sun Yat-sen's memory and declared doctrine. Cheung Kai-shek's original policy was first to consolidate his position as military com- mander in South China so that in time he might be able to apply Dr. Sun's policy throughout China. During the last twelve months or so, he has been more the plaything of fate than its arbiter. The policy of Borodin is, or seems to be, "to divide to
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