Article titled ‘British Seek US Help for Plan to Contain Chinese Communism’ by Benjamin Welles, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, 6 January 1949. Catalogue ref: FO 371/75736 

Extract from a translated New Year’s message from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek printed in China Newsweek, a British bulletin, 6 January 1945. Catalogue ref: FO 371/75736 

Report entitled ‘METHODS OF DISTINGUISHING GUERRILLAS FROM CIVILIANS’ by the Japanese army, captured and translated by the US Army’s Pacific Military Intelligence Research (PACMIR). 1943-45. Catalogue ref: WO 208/4398    

From 1937 to 1945, China and Japan fought in the second Sino-Japanese War as part of the Second World War. During this war, the KMT and CCP formed a precarious united front. The CCP successfully used guerrilla tactics against the Japanese army and recruited support in the rural population. In contrast, KMT forces were weakened by the war and the KMT government struggled with the economic fallout of the conflict. 

Dispatch in English on 3 November 1945 in which KMT Minister of Information K.C. Wu dismisses charges by the CCP. Catalogue ref: WO 208/4398

Telegram from H. Seymour, British Ambassador to China, to the British Foreign Office on 31 October 1945. Catalogue ref: WO 208/4398 

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong at the Chongqing negotiations, a series of negotiations between the KMT and CCP from 29 August to 10 October 1945. 

These negotiations ended in the Double Tenth Agreement, in which both parties presented a united front and agreed to form a coalition government to avoid civil war. However, both parties were unconvinced by the agreement, and civil war soon returned.  

An English translation of a report on an interview with Mao from July-August 1944 in the newspaper Ta Kung Pao. Catalogue ref: WO 208/485 

Translated article called ‘Inside Yenan’ written by a member of the Overseas Chinese department in the Kuomintang Headquarters, sent for publication in The New Republic, a newspaper published by the KMT in Canada. August 1944. Catalogue ref: WO 208/485 

The Overseas Chinese department took care of affairs concerning the Chinese population who lived outside of China’s borders. There were KMT headquarters in countries around the world, including the US and Canada. The New Republic was the official newspaper of the Canadian KMT branch. This article was written to inform Chinese people living in Canada about the Communist-controlled area of China (from a KMT perspective). 

Telegram reporting on an editorial called ‘Without Democracy There Will Not Be Peaceful Reconstruction’ in the Yenan Paper ‘Emancipation Daily’, commemorating the 34th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution of 1911. Catalogue ref: WO 208/4398 

Yenan (Yan’an) was the capital of the Communist-controlled area of China and ‘Emancipation Daily’ was a newspaper produced by the Chinese Communist Party.