Reply to Lin Boqu and Others’ Telegram[1]

(June 3, 1944)

We fully agree with your assessment of the current situation and the policy for the negotiations. Your views are identical with ours. Although eight articles have been removed from the revised document, the main content remains unchanged, and this can be used to reopen the negotiations. If it is still not accepted, the fault will lie with the other side, and at that point we will be prepared to send a telegram from Yan’an directly to Chiang. When meeting with Wallace[2] and Lattimore,[3] you may inform them of both the new twelve articles and the eight articles of the oral proposal.

[1] This is the main content of Mao Zedong’s reply to the telegram of May 23 from Lin Boqu, Dong Biwu, and Wang Ruofei. Wang Ruofei was then a representative of the Chinese Communist Party participating in the KMT-CCP negotiations.

[2] Wallace, then Vice President of the United States, arrived in Chongqing for a visit on June 20, 1944.

[3] Lattimore, Director of the Pacific Bureau of the Office of War Information of the U.S. Department of State, accompanied Wallace on his visit to China.