"This is the most painful factor in Our resistance. In other countries, when a nation is invaded, the entire country would devote all its efforts to meet the foreign invasion, but China must fight foreign aggression and at the same time prepare to meet the menace in her rear, "Now we are not only strong enough to face the foreign invaders, but also strong enough to ensure security in the rear. It is a deplorable fact that we must station large forces in the rear which ordinarily could be sent to the war fronts.
"If the Communists full their pledges and carry out the orders of the High Command, I am content that we can in the near future score important military successes, or at least restore the battle front as it "was prior to Autumn 1998.
"From now on, any army units defying the orders of the High Command will be severely disciplined, but I assure the Council that so long as the Communist troops obey orders and join the programme of national resistance, the Government will never -again resort to military action against the Communists in China."
Seven Communist delegates, headed by Gen, Mao Tse-tung and Mr. Wang Ming addressed a telegram to the i Secretariat on February 15 containing 12 conditions for attendance at the Council meetings. The conditions included the checking of provocative action, the cancellation of the orders of January 17 disbanding the New Fourth Army, the punishment of Generals Ho Ying-ching, Ku Chutung and Shan-kwang Un-hsiang for the South Anhwei incident, the restoration of the freedom of General Yeh Ting, Commander of the New Fourth Army, and the restoration of ihe arms of the New Fourth Army and compensation for officers and men of the New Fourth Army who had been killed and wounded—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.