[
    {
        "id": 208021,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1977",
        "page_number": 60,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "44\n\nW. A. REYNOLDS\n\nfacing the Japanese. Consequently it was part of American policy, especially from 1944 onwards, to re-create a united front against Japan and promote agreement on a form of Constitutional Government for China which would include the Communist Party. To this end Chairman Mao Tse Tung was escorted to Chungking in August 1945 by the US Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley. No real agreement was reached in some 41 days of talks and Chairman Mao returned to Yenan in October. Hurley resigned and in November the United States appointed General George Marshall as special negotiator, a truce was signed on January 10, 1946 and all-party Peoples Consultative Conference began*.\n\nHaving set the scene we may consider what this meant on the ground; specifically in terms of medical supplies to the Liberated Areas. These contained between 80-100 million people and perhaps 350,000 men under arms. Apart from supplies purchased and smuggled in from the Japanese occupied areas or captured, no UNRRA, International Red Cross, or other supplies had been allowed through from Chungking since the beginning of 1941, and the medical services were dependent on traditional medicines and drugs derived from available herbs. The situation was therefore very serious.\n\nThe UNRRA charter required that supplies be distributed to those in need regardless of race, religion, and party and UNRRA therefore applied pressure to the Chinese Government, via CNRRA, to allow supplies to go to the Liberated Areas. This pressure finally succeeded in January 1946 at the time of signing the truce and a permit for a total quantity of about eight tons of medical supplies was granted.\n\nDuring the period from the end of 1941 to 1946, the Friends Ambulance Unit, China Convoy, had been responsible for the transport of most of the civilian medical and relief supplies in the\n\n* For those desiring more detail of this period the following give different approaches:\n\nKenneth S. Chern, \"Politics of American China Policy, 1945: Roots of the Cold War in Asia\". Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4 Winter 1976-7.\n\nJohn S. Service, Lost Chance in China. Random House, 1974. Tang Tsou, America's Failure in China, 1941-50. 2 vols, Chicago, 1964.\n\nPage 60\n\nPage 61",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208582,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1979",
        "page_number": 39,
        "title": "RAS-1979",
        "content_text": "12\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nCairo Conference at the end of 1943, Roosevelt offered Chiang Kai-shek, behind Churchill's back, American support in preventing Britain from getting back Hong Kong if Chiang would cooperate with the communists in fighting against Japan and establish a representative government in China. Roosevelt's idea was that on regaining sovereignty over Hong Kong, Chiang should \"make a grand gesture and make it a free port.\"49 At Teheran in November 1943, during a break in the Cairo Conference, Roosevelt raised with Churchill the question of the possible return of Hong Kong to China, and the latter refused even to discuss the question.50\n\nAt his secret meeting with Stalin during the Yalta Conference, on 8 February 1945, Roosevelt again mentioned his hope \"that the British would give back the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China and that it would then become an internationalized free port.\" He added, however, that he knew Churchill \"would have strong objections to this suggestion.” At the conference proper, however, Roosevelt did not raise the question of Britain's return of Hong Kong, although references were made to the colony on several occasions.52 Later, in the spring of 1945, Roosevelt used Bernard Baruch, a financier and a friend of both Roosevelt and Churchill, as a messenger to press the British prime minister on the matter of Hong Kong. Roosevelt was now additionally concerned that the Soviet Union might make use of Britain's presence in Hong Kong as an argument for opening a port of her own in China.53 In April 1945 when General Patrick J. Hurley was sent by Roosevelt to talk with Churchill over the retrocession of Hong Kong to China, among other subjects, the latter replied that the colony would not be yielded \"over [his] dead body.\"54 The truth is that already by 1944 Roosevelt had become increasingly reluctant to offend the sensitivity of Churchill who by then was no longer \"subservient to the friendly strength of the United States\" as he clearly had been in 1941-42.55\n\nBritain was not slow to perceive the American weakness. Moreover, by 1944 American enthusiasm about China and Chiang Kai-shek had somewhat cooled down. Roosevelt, as it has been mentioned, had for some time been troubled by the disunity between the nationalists and the communists, and by growing criticism of the autocracy of the Chiang regime. Discussion and criticism of the Chungking government and its conduct of the war increased remarkably in the United States following the American recall of General Joseph Stilwell under pressure from Chiang Kai-shek,56",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938",
        "rank": 0
    }
]