Research On Sino-US Lend-Lease Relations During The Anti-Japanese War (1941-1945)

China-US Lend-Lease relation during the Second Sino-Japanese War was a special economic relation mainly based on mutual military aid, aiming at the foundation of an alliance against Japanese fascist aggression. China has been struggling for US military aid since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The Nationalist Government sent K. P. Chen and T. V. Soong successively to US and successfully set up a mechanism dominated by Chiang Kai-shek and T. V. Soong to tackle the aid diplomacy with US. When the Lend-Lease Act was promulgated and became law in March 1941, T. V. Soong, then as Chiang Kai-shek's personal emissary in Washington, saw the possibility of China's getting US Lend-Lease aid. He promptly established China Defense Supplies, Inc. (CDS), a business corporation registered in America, as main agency of coordinating US Lend-Lease aid to China. CDS proved to be a non-profit enterprise, with only 200 Chinese and foreign staff in function. It played an important role in applying for Lend-Lease goods and services and transferring them to China. It also made unremitting efforts to support the combating activities of American Volunteer Group (AVG), which was renowned as Flying Tigers. In July 1944, CDS dissolved under the instruction of T. V. Soong. Its remaining work was handed to China Supplies Commission (CSC). Statistic showed that US wartime Lend-Lease aid to China added up to more than 800 million dollars. America required no payment from China for this aid, which contributed a lot to China's victory over Japan and put the significance of China-US diplomacy on an unprecedented level. China-US Lend-Lease relation was not a one way relation. China also provided US military personnel and agencies with accommodations and Fapi (Chinese National Currency) payments, building airfields for US Air Force through reverse Lend-Lease, which fostered the currency issuance and high inflation. China performed reverse Lend-Lease obligation at a great cost of her economy and society.American Lend-Lease institute was president-dominant before the Pacific War, while War Department got inclined to evaluate the work of CDS in an independent way. Then a military mission led by Brigade General John Margruder was sent to China in late 1941 to oversee the use of Lease-Lease materials. Soon after the Pearl Harbor Attack, US Congress shifted Lend-Lease appropriations to War Department. Anglo-American combined boards began to have the authority of deciding where Lend-Lease materials should go. The Tulsa Incident was a short interlude before Joseph Stilwell's mission to China. War Department designated Stilwell as US military commander in China-Burma-India theatre, and also Chiang Kai-shek's Chief of Staff. He was secretly ordered to be the recipient and distributor of American Lend-Lease materials in India. Since August 1942, China's influence on Lend-Lease application and transference had been hugely diminished. Lend-Lease further became one of the inducements for China-US disputes in late 1940s. It was difficult for both countries to find a common ground in the solution of American military outlays in China. After refusing to extend a new 1-billion-dollar loan, America failed to reach a reverse Lend-Lease agreement with China. However, America reimbursed part of the reverse Lend-Lease by irregular negotiation with China before the end of war.