Telegram to Zhou Enlai[1]

(June 17, 1941)

Your article and letter,[2] as well as *Ta Kung Pao*’s reply[3] (*Ta Kung Pao*’s article is very interesting and merits close attention), have all been read. Both your letter and article were published in *Liberation Daily* and broadcast. That letter was very well written. Based on your observations, has the moment now arrived for Chiang to make a turn? Is it possible to seek out Zhang Jiluan and Wang Yunsheng to hold a negotiation? Make it clear to them that so long as there is no compromise and no anti-communism, we support Chiang (the so-called national center) to the very end. Otherwise, it is Chiang who rejects others’ support of him—dissolving the New Fourth Army, withholding pay and ammunition from the Eighth Route Army, openly and universally spreading anti-communist rhetoric and engaging in anti-communist actions—how is one supposed to support him? Ask them whether they have any means to improve the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

[1] This is the main content of Mao Zedong’s telegram to Zhou Enlai.

[2] “The article” refers to the signed editorial “On the Current War Situation” written by Zhou Enlai for the May 25, 1941 issue of *Xinhua Daily*, which was reprinted by *Liberation Daily* on June 14 of the same year. “The letter” refers to Zhou Enlai’s letter to Zhang Jiluan (editor-in-chief of the Chongqing *Ta Kung Pao*) and Wang Yunsheng (chief writer of the Chongqing *Ta Kung Pao*), written on May 21, 1941, and addressed to *Ta Kung Pao*. This letter was published in *Ta Kung Pao* on May 23 of the same year and reprinted as a signed editorial in *Liberation Daily* on June 13.

[3] This refers to *Ta Kung Pao*’s editorial of May 23, 1941, “On Reading Mr. Zhou Enlai’s Letter.”