Abstract

China's Zero Hour

The unexpected recall of the U.S. General Joseph Stilwell has focused attention on the difficulties, which have long existed between Chungking and the U.S. representatives in China. Although both the U.S. President and the Chinese Foreign Minister have chosen, for obvious diplomatic reasons, to attribute Stilwell's withdrawal to a dash of personalities between Stilwell and politician Chiang Kaishek, dispatches from American correspondents, which were cleared by the U.S. War Department, make it evident that important issues of policy were involved. Stilwell has failed in his efforts to work out a basis for military cooperation with China, not because he lacked diplomatic finesse, but because fundamentally Washington and Chungking have different objectives in the war.