[Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, 20th] Hu Qiaomu, Director of the News Administration of the Central People’s Government, today issued a statement to Xinhua News Agency reporters, refuting the shameless rumors fabricated by U.S. Secretary of State Acheson.

Director Hu Qiaomu said: U.S. Secretary of State Acheson, in his lengthy speech at the National Press Club on January 12, fabricated a whole string of rumors.

Officials of U.S. imperialism, represented by people like Acheson, are degenerating day by day into the most incompetent political swindlers who cannot survive unless they resort to the most shameless rumors. This fact demonstrates to what degree the U.S. imperialist system has fallen in spiritual terms.

Acheson’s entire speech uses rumors to cover up the reality of the U.S. policy of aggression.

For example, he said: “Our interests are identical with the interests of the peoples of Asia.” When referring to China, he said: the interests of the United States and the interests of the Chinese people “are parallel and do not conflict.” “From the time of the announcement of the Open Door policy, through the signing of the Nine-Power Treaty [2], to the recent resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, this has been the principle, and we have remained steadfastly loyal to it.” There is not a single word here that is not a lie. To use every possible means to infiltrate China and turn China into a U.S. colony—this is the basic policy of the United States. To have used six billion U.S. dollars in recent years to help Chiang Kai-shek kill several million Chinese people—this is what is meant by the interests of the United States and the interests of the Chinese people being “parallel and do not conflict.”

Director Hu Qiaomu said: The most shameless rumor told by Acheson, in our view, is not the above, but the rumor he fabricated concerning Sino-Soviet relations.

Acheson said: “The Soviet Union is detaching the northern areas of China and incorporating them. What has already been carried out in Outer Mongolia [3] has almost been carried out in Manchuria [4]. I believe the Soviet agents will be making excellent reports from Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang to Moscow. This is the situation as it now stands, namely, that vast areas inhabited by the entire Chinese population are being detached from China and annexed to the Soviet Union. The Soviet occupation of four northern regions of China is an important fact for the great powers concerned with Asia, and a very important fact for us.”

The U.S. State Department has its own history of statements on Sino-Soviet relations. The Soviet Union has helped the Chinese Communist Party—this claim is utterly groundless. This was what the gentlemen of the U.S. State Department often said before 1948, because at that time, in the view of the State Department gentlemen, there still seemed to be hope for the U.S. war gamble in China. The Soviet Union seeks to control China—this was what was said in the White Paper on China issued by the State Department in 1949, because by then the State Department gentlemen already felt that their gamble was about to be completely lost. The Soviet Union is occupying four northern regions of China—this is what was said on January 12, 1950, because the U.S. gamble on the Chinese mainland has been thoroughly lost, leaving only Taiwan, where it seems they still want to try some scheme. Thank God, under the sweeping advances of the Chinese people and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the U.S. imperialists have no better recourse than to fabricate such rumors. The lowly fabrications and slanders alleging that the Chinese Communist Party is a running dog of the Soviet Union and that the Soviet Union has already, is currently, or will annex China can only arouse the indignation of the peoples of China and the Soviet Union and strengthen the friendly cooperation between China and the Soviet Union; they can yield no other result.

The utterly rotten and contradiction-ridden imperialist system presents such an interesting spectacle: On the day after Acheson’s incompetent speech, that is, on January 14, 1950, Ward, the former U.S. Consul General in Shenyang, who had been arrested, tried, and deported by the Chinese People’s Government, gave Acheson a resounding slap in the face. According to a TASS dispatch from Washington on January 14: “After returning to the United States, former U.S. Consul General in Shenyang Ward held talks with State Department officials. Following these talks, when answering reporters’ questions, he said that apart from exercising treaty rights for the joint operation of railways, he saw no signs whatsoever of Soviet supervision over Manchuria. Ward also pointed out that he saw no signs whatsoever of the Soviet Union annexing Manchuria. When asked whether the Communist regime in Manchuria was under the supervision of Beijing, Ward stated: All Communist governments are subject to a high degree of centralized control. To his knowledge, Manchuria is a part of Communist China.” People can see: what a story has unfolded on the soil of the Western Hemisphere. One says: Manchuria is being annexed to the Soviet Union. The other says: I saw no such thing. These two are none other than well-known officials of the U.S. State Department.

Published based on the text printed in Renmin Ribao, January 21, 1950.

Notes
[1] This news dispatch was drafted by Mao Zedong.
[2] The Nine-Power Treaty was signed in February 1922 by the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Northern Warlord government of China at the Washington Conference. The treaty stipulated the principles of the “Open Door in China” and “equal opportunity” for the powers’ interests in China, among other principles of joint aggression against China.
[3] Outer Mongolia refers to the Mongolian People’s Republic.
[4] Manchuria refers to the Northeast region of China.