Den 15 februari 2020 anmäldes på sajten tre nya böcker om Kina . En kompletterande bok som just givits ut bör här nämnas: chefredaktören på Foreign Affairs Daniel Kurtz-Phelans The China Mission. George Marshall’s Unfinished War, 1945–1947 (W. W. Norton & Company 2019).
Amerikanen George Marshall var arméstabschef under andra världskriget, utrikesminister 1947–49, försvarsminister under Koreakriget 1950–51. Marshallplanen är uppkallad efter honom. Han mottog Nobels fredspris 1953.
Boken skildrar hur Marshall som speciellt sändebud för president Truman kom att agera i Kina 1945–47. I USA blev Marshall kritiserad för att ha haft en negativ inställning till nationalistledaren Chiang Kai-shek och för att han hade blivit förd bakom ljuset av Mao Zedong.
I mars 1946 mötte Marshall Mao i Yenan och bad honom “to give up armed revolution, to embrace old enemies, to join in building a democracy, in keeping the peace of a new and better world. ‘I can tell that an unprecedented era of progress awaits China’”. Marshall var i egna ögon ute på ett segertåg.
Inom loppet av några veckor hade han enligt vissa lyckats genomföra ett mirakel. Nationalisterna och kommunisterna hade enats om vapenvila, efter ett tjugoårigt inbördeskrig. Man var även överens om att bilda en demokratisk regering, efter att Marshall bland annat citerat Benjamin Franklins tal vid det konstitutionella konventet 1787: “It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near perfection as it does.” Och planerade även att sammanfoga de två arméerna.
Mao sade till sina anhängare, att man inledde “a new stage of peace and democracy”. Detta hände samtidigt som Winston Churchill i Fulton, Missouri, varnade för en “järnridå”. Men Marshall var övertygad om att Kina inte skulle bli kommunistiskt. Så, efter att Japan kapitulerat “the most pressing question for American policymakers had been just how much to help Chiang as he tried to take control of his country”. Hjälpen kom bland annat genom att japanskt militärt material överlämnades till Chiang Kai-shek.
Inom tio månader hade inbördeskriget dock startat på nytt, och amerikanarnas ”grandiose ambitions of transforming China” kom på skam.
I slutet av världskriget hade Sovjets Röda armé invaderat Manchuriet, något Mao kom att utnyttja. Han beordrade hundratusentals av sin folkarmé dit. Samtidigt som amerikanska säkerhetsrådgivare slog fast att “[t]e Chinese Communists are the best led and most vigorous of present-day organizations in China”.
Stalin krävde att Chiangs regering skulle stödjas. ”He fired off orders to Mao: it was time to negotiate, not to fight. A civil war was certain to be destructive and, for the Communists, unlikely to be successful. It would also be an unwelcome irritant in Moscow’s interactions with Washington. And Moscow’s interests came first. Mao was furious.” Trots detta fortsatte sovjetisk support, men i begränsad omfattning.
Kort efter överenskommelsen med Chiang i mars 1946 skickade Mao ett meddelande till Zhou Enlai: “All that has happened lately proves that Chiang’s anti-Soviet, anti-CCP, and anti-democratic nature will not change.”
Stalins trupper kom att lämna Manchuriet, vilket fick stor betydelse för fortsättningen: ”Manchuria lay at the heart of Nationalist prestige. […] For Chiang, it would complete his restoration of Chinese greatness. For Mao, controlling even a swath would guarantee his party’s survival.”
Det största slaget i inbördeskriget kom att stå vid Siping i nordöstra Manchuriet, norr om Koreahalvön. “Mao told his commander, Lin Biao, to hold Siping at all costs.” Chiang ämnade dock besegra kommunisterna i ett slag och sände sina bästa Amerika-tränade trupper dit. Lin Biao tvingades retirera. Men “Marshall was starting to worry that Chiang, like Napoleon, was overconfident to the point of peril”. Chiang var inte längre intresserad av fred, medan kommunisterna “were willing to make a deal”.
Marshall varnade Chiang att om han “pushed north in Manchuria, his lines would stretch dangerously thin. Roads would be easily attacked, railroads sabotaged. The Communists would pick off Nationalist troops at vulnerable points. Logistics would break down.” Samtidigt som en av Chiangs generaler påpekade att om regeringen inte förespråkade fred utan vill fortsätta inbördeskriget ”it would not have the support of the people”. Maos taktik för att stoppa Chiangs offensiv “was to get Marshall to do it for them”.
Zhou Enlai noterade dystert i Yenan den 7 juni 1946: “Marshall’s efforts to mediate the Chinese civil conflict have had no effect in stopping the Chinese reactionary forces. On the contrary, enjoying American support, the Chinese reactionary factions are even more active and unscrupulous.”
Trots det ingicks ett avtal om eldupphör i Manchuriet. ’The cease-fire was nothing more than a ‘reasonable pause,’ Marshall acknowledged to Truman.” Den förre sökte under tiden förgäves få Zhou Enlai se till att gerillan slutade sabotera järnvägsspår.
Marshall gjorde klart att “The United States ‘would not back a civil war,’ and the Nationalists were making a mistake if they assumed it would”. Mao såg dock Marshalls mission som “a smokescreen for strengthening Chiang Kai-shek in every way and suppressing the democratic forces in China”.
Den 7 juli 1946 inledde Mao en retorisk offensiv: “American imperialism is far more dangerous than Japanese imperialism.” Något som fick Chiang tro att det amerikanska stödet för honom själv skulle öka.
En vecka senare uppgav Marshall till Zhou Enlai: “The situation is developing into a straight civil war, and unless something is done quickly it will be too late.” Och som någon påpekade: “The fighting spreads here and there like a slow fire.”
Mao var segerviss: “The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. reactionaries use to scare people. […] All reactionaries are paper tigers. In a war against Washington’s ‘running dogs’, his side would surely win: ‘We have only millet plus rifles to rely on, but history will finally prove that our millet plus rifles is more powerful than Chiang Kai-shek’s airplanes and tanks.’”
Och Marshall varnade Chiang att dennes “zealous and unrealistic treatment of the present military and political situation” skulle leda till en slutlig seger för Mao. Zhou Enlai lade till: ”the struggle has come to the last stage, during which the focus is on the United States”. Mao hade instruerat Zhou: “You should just educate the masses, show them that the responsibility for a rupture is not ours, and resolutely expose the U.S.-Chiang Kai-shek fraud.” Zhou hade därtill påpekat att de aldrig hade givit upp, inte ens 1927, då man inte hade några vapen.
”Marshall knew Zhou was right.” Och “Marshall had come to see Zhou as one of the smarter people he had ever encountered, and a scarily skillful negotiator”.
Kommunisterna hade samtidigt planterat ut agenter “throughout the Nationalists’ ranks”. Och “[t]he fight would be long and grueling, Mao acknowledged. Victory might take three to five years without the involvement of American troops, fifteen to twenty if the Americans fought. But he was confident he would win either way. Even if the Nationalists managed to conquer Yenan, the Communists would ultimately conquer China. He could lose battle after battle, but he would still win the war. The reactionaries, Mao told comrades, were weaker than they looked.”
Redan i slutet av 1946 konstaterade Marshall att kommunisterna var “beyond our reach”. Medan Zou Enlai noterade “that the United States and Chiang Kai-shek are working hand in glove to give free rein to large-scale hostilities”.
Chiang förberedde en sista offensiv och var säker på en slutlig seger under 1947.
Men ”[t]he extent of the Nationalists’ advantage in weaponry, with hundreds of millions of dollars in modern arms sent by Washington, was also deceptive. In pursuit of fast-moving Communist troops, heavy American vehicles bogged down in the mud. Antitank guns got marooned miles from the front. American snow boots were too big for Chinese feet. And troubling numbers of the Nationalists’ weapons were ending up in Communist hands, some captured, some bought from corrupt officers. ‘We do not know how much the Government is losing,’ Marshall admitted, but his sources suggested that the number was considerable. Communist troops sang: ‘We have no rifles, we have no cannon; the enemy makes them for us!’”
Marshall förklarade för Chiang: “the Communists had ‘no intention of making a stand or of fighting to a finish at any place’; they ‘lost cities and towns but they have not lost their armies’”.
Anti-amerikanismen ökade månad för månad i Kina. Och en besviken Marshall lämnade landet för gott i januari 1947.
Chiang inledde samtidigt överfallet på Yenan. Chiangs stabschef uppgav att “the Communists would be finished in three months”.
Mao hade dock lovat en seger inom fem år. Det tog två år.
“Through 1948 and into 1949, the situation deteriorated along lines many predicted, and then abruptly got much worse. Although his forces had retreated everywhere, Mao promised victory in five years. Less than two years later, on October 1, 1949, he stood on Beijing’s Gate of Heavenly Peace and, Zhou beside him, declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Two months after that, Chiang fled to Taiwan, never to return.”